New to quartz composer

niconico wrote:
Hello am totally new to quartz composer.

Hi to you

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I have no experience with programming or motion graphics but I started playing around with qc and totally fell in love with it. The only thing is that I would love to learn more but haven´t found quiet yet a good tutorial.

Try going to Resources

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Also I would like to know if anyone could help me how to use my m audio midi keyboard to control parameters in my compositions such as math inputs and interpolations.

Yes. Even with an entry level sequencer like GarageBand.

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Also is there any way to draw with it?

After a fashion, but currently no in built patches are dedicated to such a task. Others have produced interactive compositions that allows for the creation of on screen graphics by use of mouse or movement input.

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and last question is there anyway to control the color wheel with controllers?

I might be wrong here , but if you mean the colour wheel picker, then no. If you mean just changing the colour that goes into a compositional element, then yes, you can.

Thank you for your time cybero! I have checked your web a while ago. It helps a lot. One thing am not clear about is how to program my usb midi keaboard to use the nobs to control parameters... Could you gimme some steps as to how to use the midi patch to do so? greetings

BTW , niconico - you inadvertently double posted, if someone hasn't responded to your posts then you can still go in and edit them and even delete the contents of the double post. Pretty much everyone who posts here has double posted, so well done for getting that done early on •~

In answer to your question - how to use the MIDI keyboard with QC, assuming you have set up your MIDI environment, both physically and software config wih Audio Midi Setup, then you can just drop in one of the MIDI Controller Receiver patches and send signals via that patch to the inputs of any graphical element you've placed onto the Editor stage for rendering in the Viewer window in QC.

See attached example - uses a couple of Sprites and a Spline & needs the Pitch and Modulation wheels to be brought into play. Other Apple MIDI patches allow for more automative , sequenced work to be done.

Kineme MIDI patches are even more programmable.

Hope that helps :-)

cybero wrote:
you inadvertently double posted

Extra post deleted.

you can scale your midi cc or control messages with the interpolator by right clicking the interpolator and setting the timebase to external patch time. then hook your midi control message to the patch time input on the interpolator. midi cc messages usually are sent in a 1-127 as a integer but i think in QC they are sent in the 0-1 scale as float meaning if you want move a picture from left to right with one of your knobs on your keyboard you would set the interpolators start to -1 and end to 1 then hook the result to the xpos of the sprite. like wise if you want to change colors with a knob do the same thing but add a color transformation set the base color to green. then change the interpolator start to 0 and end to 360 then attach result to hugh rotation of the transformation patch and attach the color out put to what ever you want to change the color. now when you turn the knob the color should cycle through the whole spectrum.

Thank you again! It´s my first time I use a midi controller so I don´t even know how to program it even though I read the instructions but it worked for some compositions and suddenly the nobs stopped working for some other complex ones... grr I feel totally ignorant and am sorry if am asking you such simple questions but how do I get the nobs to work? Also would it be better to use the kineme midi safe patch? I appreciate your help.

I appreciate your response but it is a bit too complex for me right now to get it... am gonna see how far i can get with it and will probably bugg you again to help me. thank you

Try

http://kineme.net/files/simplemidirotationexampleplus.qtz

&

http://kineme.net/files/simplemidirotationexampleplus2.qtz

from a prior post about incorporating MIDI values in QC.

the knobs are sent via midi cc. you will have to consult your manual for cc info. if you use apples midi cc patch you can hit learn and turn the knob you want to use and the patch will automatically learn the info it needs, that is supposing you have selected the correct midi device for instance "m-audio axiom"

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the knobs are sent via midi cc. you will have to consult your manual for cc info. if you use apples midi cc patch you can hit learn and turn the knob you want to use and the patch will automatically learn the info it needs, that is supposing you have selected the correct midi device for instance "m-audio axiom"

Hi there!

That is exactly what I search for!! Please help me, how I can get to work it that way! I am using QC just for a few days, but I have some programming experience and experience with Motion/Final Cut Pro. I mainly want to do visuals, and it is really fine for this - on my first performance I only did some basic stuff, used the pre-made visualisers and only used volume peak and mouse/keyboard for showing text, etc.

In Motion I can get my sliders and knobs to work that way, but in QC I only get "notes" and "Pitch Wheel", "Modulation Wheel" and Play/Stop/Continue, nothing else. That's pretty annoying. I want to be able to use additional sliders and knobs, to be able to change values, colors, etc. Ok, color is fine, with mouse too, but rotation, depth, etc., etc. There is only "Midi Notes Receiver", with predefined notes, but not really useful for changing values …, "Midi Clock Receiver", for the Play/Stop/Continue stuff and "Midi Controllers Receiver" - I thought that should be it, but this only has Pitch and Modulation?!? WHERE can I find a way to "learn" it to recognize other sliders and knobs? Please help!

Thanks in advance! stuepfinick

PS: Of course I use newest Mac OS X, so 10.6.2

Wow, in http://kineme.net/files/simplemidirotationexampleplus2.qtz I get 20 additional Controllers for MIDI (how did you do that?!?), testing right now, if one of them works … (not only pitch/modulation)

Select the MIDI Controllers Receiver patch and press Command-2. The Inspector Settings panel will pop up; from there you'll be able to train it to receive new MIDI controllers.

smokris wrote:
Select the MIDI Controllers Receiver patch and press Command-2. The Inspector Settings panel will pop up; from there you'll be able to train it to receive new MIDI controllers.

Wow, thanks!! That's exactly what I need. I am not at home yet, so I could only try it with my MBP without MIDI Keyboard on the go. I see the button, YES, this will work, at home, when I can try out on iMac.

Anyway, a good tutorial would be fine as well. But I think, I saw something in this thread …

Maybe someone can give me an answer to another direct question: How can I control opacity of a layer? Sadly that's not in the controls of images/layers itself, so I guess I need something extra from the library. Maybe I can find out with the graphic transition template …

(EDIT): Oops, I heavily guess it can be done with Alpha for the color … that should work for text as picture - but also for images/inline-compositions/video?

Thanks and greetings, Stuepfnick

PS: Quartz Composer is great and should be more Mainstream!

Alpha provides Alpha blending, the colour input on renderer patches - like Sprite, Billboard, etc are what allow you to set Opacity upon the colour input via the Colour Palette dialog box.

Just click on the colour input rectangle in the patches Inspector window and you can set Opacity from within that .

You can also use an RGBA or HSLA colour patch to vary the opacity and blending properties of rendered layers.

Hi, hope this topic is still follow by someone. I'm not new in quartz, but i have a problem with an Akai LPD8 controller that seem to be recognize by QC but still won't work. I'm using the latest QC and i'm on Mountain Lion, MacBook Pro 15" Late 2011.

It works with resolume Arena, logic, live but QC still doesn't want to work. Any Idea ? I've seen people use it on videos, but nobody explain the mapping.

I'm not a nwebie in midi, i learn on hardware 10 years ago.

It's annoying...

Nico