Adding video for x amount of time

Bahis's picture

Okay, so I'm both new to Quartz and to the forum here so I'm anything but experienced with what I'm doing a the moment.

I'm trying to solve a small issue I have. I have a bunch of 5 second clips that I want to add over a 3d animation that I already made in QC. The best way I found to implement these clips to the project is to use the particle system. 1 Particle with a lifespan of 5 sec and staying still.

The problem is that I want these clips to pop up depending on the sound. I've managed this some what, but I am not really able to have them playing the full length of the clip since as fast as the sound goes over the given activation limit it just as quickly goes down, making it only flicker quickly across the screen (i've linked the sound to enable on the particle system).

I want to add like four of these clips without it all getting messy and also have them playing for their full 5sec duration. Right now I'm pretty scared of giving my audience an epileptic attack instead of a sweet VJ king of automated set.

Anyone who can save me from my confusion?

jersmi's picture
Re: Adding video for x amount of time

I like the "Directory Scanner" approach. This allows keeping a folder of movies to which you can freely add or remove files. See attached .qtz.

Included in the comp are a couple unfinished thoughts (though in no way effect performance). One is a crossfader using the dissolve patch -- this I just have to finish. The other involves the previous / next switcher -- maybe this is an opportunity to ask: how can I get the prev/next switcher to rollover from min to max indices?

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FolderMovies.qtz43.62 KB

dust's picture
Re: Adding video for x amount of time

I'm confused how are you using a particle system to play video clips ? are you saying your adding your clips as image to the particle system. maybe this will help not sure but let's imagine you have 5 video clips and your using a particular spectrum frequency to trigger said clips when the music is within the conditional threshold. use the conditional true, if I get what your are disregarding the particle system your saying that the spectrum is triggering your clip but will not show the whole clip before because the music changes. so there are various ways to delay with time and stop watch but if you want simplest way to to have a video clip life once it is triggered to stay on screen for 5 seconds regardless of if the truth turns to false is to add a smooth patch to the conditional triggering the video clip. then set your increment smooth to 5 what this will do is count down from 1 to 0 in 5 seconds 0 meaning off. so even if the truth value has changed to false the video clip will remain on screen till smooth hits 0 . there are ore more complex ways like right clicking video and setting external time and using multiplexor and interpolation to do the same thing but smooth works is easiest way.

Bahis's picture
Re: Adding video for x amount of time

Thanks for you help!

I do realize now that the way I did the whole thing was sort of retarded, but I'll just live with that for now and take that experience on to my next project and do it non-retarded then.

For now on the other hand, I have an other issue. This time I'm woring with midi notes, but when I play them I can't make QC pick up anything. Using the midi receiver and have hooked up the correct note with, in this case, the particles in a particle system. What am I doing wrong?