How to Install Custom Patches

Many of our Custom Quartz Composer Patches work on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). For Leopard and Snow Leopard Instructions, please scroll down a bit.

To install the Patches on OS X 10.4 (Tiger), create the folder /Library/Graphics/Patches/ if it doesn't already exist. Place the .plugin in this folder.

George Toledo has published a video on installing on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).



For Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) patches go in /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer <b>Patches</b>/ or ~/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer <b>Patches</b>/. Not /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer <b>Plug-Ins/</b>, Not /Library/Graphics/Patches/.

You can also watch a tutorial on plugin installation:

Under No Circumstances Should you Ever install to /System!

For example, this is NOT the correct place to install plugins:

cwright's picture
not your user Library

It's important to note that putting the plugins in your user Library folder (/User/[username]/Library/...) will Not work.

[ok, I was only partially kidding: I've made a plugin to allow user Library plugins to work too. Just wait a bit :) ]

[edit -- this comment was made before Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) was available. This no longer applies, and is actually a better practice than installing them system-wide]

franz's picture
spy

thanks for the snapshot, i didn't know for the QCspline patch. Very interesting one, just what i needed.... Is the ParticlePatch one of your own ?

smokris's picture
ParticlePatch & QCSpline

ParticlePatch is http://kineme.net/FeatureRequests/StarfieldGeneratorBetterParticleSystem (integrating the VEE particle system), albeit very early in development. Maybe to be released sometime in the next month or two...

We got permission from Caleb Cannon, author of QCSpline, to do further work on his code --- this is the upcoming GLTools patch.

639me's picture
Re: not your user Library

where to put the artnet plugin? the beta dont come with an installer

cwright's picture
Re: not your user Library

~/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/

639me's picture
Re: not your user Library

thanks. strange thing, i delete the previous artnet plugin i got there, empty trash, and drag the new one there, it shows up as 1.2! but it's got to be the new one, - file size, creation date etc is the same as the one in the downloads folder. and the one in the dowload folder is duplicated as i drag it!! normal finder behavior would be that the file is moved, not copied, when dragged within the same volume, or not? i don't at all suspect this to be kineme related, just need a hint of what could be causing this. sorry, i don't want to blemish this fine forum with strange os behavior..

cwright's picture
Re: not your user Library

Finder tends to cache bundle stuff like version info for a long time -- it's annoying. We might have also forgotten to update the bundle version number? I didn't check that release.

glyphisabox's picture
hi,thanks for your great

hi,thanks for your great work.i have a problems.i inser the patches (Leopard) on /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/ OR ~/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/ but i can't use this in quartz..in the patch viewer i don't find this. Why?

Sorry

*

felixturner's picture
Using GLTools.plugin in QC

Lets say hypothetically I am a complete noob at using QC, how do I use the GLTools plugin once I have installed it? I put the plugin file in the correct folder, but when I look in the QC patch browser I only see Kineme A/V - no GL patches. I would really like to make some lovely 3D splines... Thanks for sharing your work!

cwright's picture
searching?

Are you using the search function, or just scrolling through the patch creator? Search often misses kineme plugins, so we don't recommend it until you're familiar with what our patches are called.

Have you restarted QC? it doesn't load plugins on the fly (actually, it can, but doesn't in the current version), so you have to restart it after installing a new plugin.

Did you get the Tiger Version or the Leopard Version? If you got the incorrect version for what you're running (Assuming leopard, since you have AudioVideo installed), you'll get some messages and some broken patches.

Have you looked in the console? (Spotlight "Console.app") Errors get printed there, and can help figure out what's going wrong.

GordTheRogue's picture
QC not displaying the kineme plugin

Hello, i've followed the installation guide, also i've watched the video tutorial. QC isn't displaying into the patch library the kineme patches. I've restarted QC, i've rebooted my Mac but this doesn't help. I've: Tiger OSX 10.4.11 - PowerBook G4 15" latest 2005. QC ver. 2.1.2(17.2). I don't understand where you cwright said: "Did you get the Tiger Version or the Leopard Version?"

I've downloaded some plugin like the ParticleTool (and its examples) and the LoadUserPluginsFolder. Nothing worked. Neither the examples. Uhm where i fault?

Sorry for my bad english, thanks in advance, regards.

Gord The Rogue

cwright's picture
plugs

For Tiger, plugins Must be in /Library/Graphics/Patches (not /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches, like Leopard). Also, the majority of our plugins won't work on Tiger (ParticleTools won't, but LoadUserPlugins should, since it was designed for Tiger). LoadUserPlugins doesn't create patches, by the way, it just makes Tiger load patches from other locations, like Leopard (~/Library/Graphics/Patches, in this case).

Tiger = Mac OS X 10.4 Leopard = Mac OS X 10.5

The version matters, because QC changed a lot between those two versions.

Please include any info from Console.app -- QC usually prints errors there when something bad happens.

Rebooting your mac shouldn't be necessary, but restarting QC is required when adding plugins.

If you keep running into problems, please e-mail me personally and we can get this worked out. My e-mail address is at the bottom of each kineme.net page. (info@kineme.net)

felixturner's picture
got it. thanks.

I was trying to use the search bar ("kineme"). I can find them by scrolling. Thanks!

7pc's picture
Does not work for me

Sorry, I know how boing those newbies are, who don't seem to get it working. But this is sad: I did everything like announced. Running 10.4.11 on a Macbook Pro, Having created the "Patches" folder inside the Library/Graphics folder, having anstalled many many patches - one after the other, even very "old" ones ... None of them appears in QC. Repaired the rights all that jazz. Nothing helped.

... still don't want to update, because this ist the machine I edit my movies with.

cwright's picture
Please list the plugins

Please list the plugins you're using. Please show a screenshot of a finder window navigated to the plugins (for full path information) -- did you try [Macintosh HD]/Library, or just your user library? Only the former works in Tiger.

Please list anything interesting from Console.app.

7pc's picture
Thanks, I'll try

OK, Console doesn't tell me anything usefull here. Wait, how do I insert a picture here ... OK, Path is MacHD/Library/Graphics/Patches (I created the Patches folder myself) I have tryed "AudioTool", "AudioVideo"(thant won't work), "GLTool_Tiger", "Kineme" "OpenCV"(not sure about that one), "SpeechSynt", "sructureTools", "ParticleTools", "PBMesh", YUVColor".

None of them appears in my QC. It just shows the patches that are there from the beginning of the first installation.

Would Console give me a separate "Quartz" list? Otherwise I don't see anything regarding quartz in all the Protocols.

cwright's picture
patches

Not sure what's going on, but AudioTools, AudioVideo, OpenCV, ParticleTools, and PBMesh are leopard only. StructureTools might be Leopard only.

How are you looking through your patches? What are you searching for?

To attach a picture, see the "File attachments" link under the comment post text.

7pc's picture
I guess

...something's f... up. PhotoBooth can't access the camera any more since I installed the Patches. I Guess it's time for an update. Suppose everything will be fine then. Thanks for helping, but this is the part where I give up and get Leopard.

CU

BTW: That was when I was looking for speachsynt.

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jersmi's picture
problem: GLTools plugin

V. 1.1 of the GLTools plugin isn't showing up on my laptop's system (10.5.6). It's installed in ~/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches like the rest of the kineme plugins (which work). Any thoughts?

I was trying to look at some of the .qtz tutorials in the GLTools source folder, but before that I really discovered the problem with QC error messages and a disturbing computer restart to blank desktop screen (no menu bar, no icons/folders) cuz i was trying this patch, which was trying to load GLTools plugins: flambassadr.qtz

(patch from this post: http://kineme.net/Discussion/ProgrammingQuartzComposerPatches/qcfpssuffe...)

jersmi's picture
false alarm, sorry

I reinstalled the plugin and everything seems to be fine.

letra ruido's picture
installing plugins

Hi, I am sorry but I have problems with some plugins. I use a MacBookPro 10.5.8.

I've read the faqs and seen the tutorial, but something isn't working with: AudioTools, ParticleTools and TexturePatch. They are not shown in the Patch Creator List (not on the list nor searching). They are at Macintosh/Library/Graphics/QCpatches and doesn't work.

I also installed ACProcessorSuite plugin and Mandelbrot and they work correctly from Macintosh/Library/Graphics/QCplug-ins.

I've already quit and open QC but nothing... I send some images.

Thanks a lot.

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cybero's picture
Re: installing plugins

Firstly , try removing the unresponsive Patches and place them into your home folder ~/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches.

They should definitely work under 10.5.8.

That just might sort out your current problems.

:-)

smokris's picture
Re: installing plugins

Kineme patches do not appear under the "Plug-In" category, which is what you took a screenshot of.

You should find the patches you have installed under the "Kineme Audio", "Kineme Particle", and "Kineme Texture" categories.

letra ruido's picture
Re: installing plugins

Re-installed the patches again and now they appear as you say. thx a lot!!

:)

Letra Ruido

ml's picture
XCODE Resource & installation

I am interested in using some kinime plug-ins for a Cocoa application. If i copy a plug-in into the Resources section of the my project, will that assure it copies the plug-in along with the other application resources? Will my QComposition know it is there or will it only know about it if it is in the standard two locations.

I would like to avoid having to create an installer and allow users to simply drag and drop the application into their /Applications folder.

ml

mattgolsen's picture
This is something I'm

This is something I'm interested in as well. If I build an application with my composition, what is the best way to include custom/Kineme plugins?

cwright's picture
infos

Putting it in the Resources section of the project should ensure that it gets copied to the product bundle's resources folder (to make sure, build the project, and then explore the bundle to make sure it's there).

However, that's just the easy part. QCCompositions don't look through the app bundle to find QCPlugins, so you have to use some undocumented API stuff to load unofficial api plugins from your bundle. We've got code to do this, but it depends heavily upon what exactly you're doing (QCViews require modifications to main, QCComposition/QCRenderer can use a less invasive modification to the app controller. Let me know which set of QC objects you're using, and I'll try to whip up some sample code to show you how it's done.

ml's picture
QC objects in use

Any of the GL tools

thx

cwright's picture
QC objects

I meant, what QC Objects are you driving (your choices are one or more of the following: "QCRenderer", "QCView", "QCComposition") -- that's what determines the code you need. Not which plugin you're using (those are all loaded the same way).

ml's picture
using QCView's

oops. not reading carefully. I am using QCViews, subclassed.

franz's picture
QCview !

hey Chris, i'm using a QC view and i'm really curious on the sample code you mentioned... (you modified me some app back in 10.4, but things are broken now...)

any help truly welcome !

cwright's picture
fun

Ok, QCViews are fun, since you have to load stuff before Any app code starts running (as soon as appkit kicks in, the QCView is loaded, and all QCPlugins, and you can't add them later and have them work). Cowboy Bitmap, right franz? Fun stuff, that.

You'll need to modify the main function in main.m.

It usually looks like this:

//  main.m
//  LoadQCPlugins
//
//  Created by Christopher Wright on 12/22/08.
//  Copyright Kosada Incorporated 2008. All rights reserved.
 
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    return NSApplicationMain(argc,  (const char **) argv);
}

to load plugins from your app bundle for use in QCViews, it needs to happen bfore the NSApplicationMain call.

So change main.m to look something like this:

//  main.m
//  LoadQCPlugins
//
//  Created by Christopher Wright on 12/22/08.
//  Copyright Kosada Incorporated 2008. All rights reserved.
 
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
 
@interface QCPatch
+ (void)loadPlugInAtPath:(NSString *)pluginPath;
+ (void)loadPlugInsInFolder:(NSString *)pluginFolder;
@end
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
   NSAutoreleasePool *p = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
 
   // load plugins in our bundle's resource folder
   [QCPatch loadPlugInsInFolder: [[NSBundle mainBundle] resourcePath]];
 
   int ret = NSApplicationMain(argc,  (const char **) argv);
   [p release];   // probably won't get here, but good practice
    return ret;
}

This uses unofficial-api stuff (there's no official way to do this). You must have the Quartz.framework in your frameworks folder.

Let me know if this makes sense, if this works, or if this explodes.

LoGGi's picture
Re: fun

Hey ! I'm working on OS 10.5.5. I added my QC Plugins in ressource folder, they appeared in the bundle ressources well. Then I used your main.m but this doesn't work. When I run my app QC Plugins are not found Do you have an idea and thanks for your help.

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send_two's picture
GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen shots inc.)

Hey,

I believe that I have installed Kineme 3d , and GLtools 1.4 correctly. But Gltools doesn't show up in my patch library - or when I load a .qtz composition with the GLtool plugin in the patch.

My kineme core says it is installed, but I can't see it! Any help much appreciated, I was moved to investigate this plug in after being amazed by George Toledo's work.

Many thanks - I hope I haven't missed something simple - I have tried many things before posting.

I have attached a screen shot - of my (system) library/graphics folder, and my (user) library/graphics folder, plus my kineme core plug in read out, and my mac info.

cybero's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

Put your Kineme Core into your main Library folder in Graphics / Quartz Composer Patches, do not keep it in your User Library folder.

That should help smooth things out methinks.

Not sure about a couple of your plugins, but you might try removing the odd plugin like CF_apchEncodePlugin and see if that doesn't help.

smokris's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

Are any messages printed on the Console when you start QC?

gtoledo3's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

Also, have you tried manually shutting Quartz Composer off, and then restarting it?

It shouldn't make a difference if you put it in the User location or not. That should be fine in 10.5 or 10.6.

In addition, one can't type in "GL Tools" in the Patch Creator/Library and have all of the "GL Tools" patches come up in one list. Instead, type in "gl", or just scroll down and see if any patches show up in the "Kineme GL" category.

The "auto install" feature of Kinemecore should usually work and push the patch to your system without restarting QC if it's a new plugin to your system, but I believe I may have seen that fail in one instance very recently (I was too busy on something else to take the time to check at that moment). Given that, my thinking is that you should try a QC restart (or maybe even a restart of the computer), just to make sure that everything is "ok". My bet is that after that, it will populate your list.

Keep us posted! This is a bit unusual. (Thanks for the compliment.)

send_two's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

Hey guys,

Thanks for all your thoughts and quick responses, its wonderful to get such help.

I am accessing the GL tools no problem now - (in fact I think they were probably there all along since I installed them, stupidly I was looking for an actual patch called gl tools - when of course there are many Gl Tools patches)

But your comments have helped me to clear up a couple of other important things. Cybero you were right about all those excess plug ins - they were not compatible with the current architecture, and Smokris thanks to your suggestion of looking at the Console I was able to establish this. Now I am not getting any Console errors, beautiful.

One last thing. When I was playing around with all this stuff yesterday - the 3d kineme stuff, trying to install the Gl tools, open CL stuff, I was getting an amazing number of hard core freezes. I believe they are called kernal crashes when the screen is wiped with that error message in various langauges.

Do you think that the out of date plugin's might be the cause of these crashes or should I look somewhere else for the cause of these issues?

Thanks again guys, great help

Tim

cybero's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

I had thought that you were running Leo not Snow Leo, so I guess you don't actually mean OpenCL.

[just noticed you have a dual boot system - L and SL - yes ?]

Whatever 10.5 or 10.6 , if you are getting a load of kernel panics then you need to be doing some maintenance. Are those pictures showing you have a Previous System folder showing a folder that is also loading in frameworks at boot time?

All I can tell you is that if you've got an accretive installation - built up bit by bit over time with loads of apps you cherish and require then you must investigate and carry out the maintenance you obviously need.

Maintenance http://www.titanium.free.fr/index_us.html is worthwhile investigating. Runs on both .5 and .6 OS X.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

If you're getting loads of kernel panics while using OpenCL in 10.6, especially while having the Viewer running, it's just as likely that it's OS/OpenCL bugs.

When you have a plugin that's old and doesn't use proper methods for that particular OS, there's a tendency for it either to not load, or to have a memory leak of some sort... that almost never results in kernel panic. I've had them result in exceptions occasionally but never an actual kernel panic, though it may well be possible (though I have quite the collection of obscure plugins).

In my entire use of 10.5, I've had something like 2 kernel panics, and I'm absolutely sure that one of them had nothing to do with QC. In 10.6, kernel panics are a fairly regular occurrence (I've had dozens), especially when using OpenCL, or the (broken) Iterator.

If the kernel panics ARE happening in 10.5 (I guess this goes for 10.6 as well), and while using QC, one can go ahead and introduce plugins/patches into the system one by one, and try out associated example compositions.

Getting kernel panics from any of the Kineme plugins is a very rare occurrence. It's actually never happened to me, on multiple installs of all different types of Mac hardware, in Leopard or SL, even having outdated Tiger era plugins installed, having used all of the Kineme plugins. Especially when using things like Kineme3D or GLTools... those are really solid.

Let me also clarify that I'm talking about actual kernel panics, they grey multi language screen... I've had a million crashes and exceptions, particularly when doing ridiculously intensive things, loading malformed models, or with combos of weirder plugins that have floated around the internet.

The best thing you can do is try to narrow it down to easily reproducible steps, using as few patches as possible to illustrate the problem. If you're not sure about what's causing it, or if it's a legitimate bug, you can post the sample qtz somewhere like the QC Developer mailing list, or here, and see what people have to say before reporting to Apple as a bug.

cybero's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

Loads of kernel panics you say, I've been doing the dangerous sport thing of OpenCL in QC and suffered lots of application crashes and sometimes forced a quit at the shutdown button as I couldn't be patient enough to wait for the process to crash.

Kernel panics - not one - lucky old me I guess :-)

Just as a matter of interest, have you got anything loading as a system wide boot strapped framework that's non-standard?

send_two's picture
Re: GL Tools 1.4 - installed but not appearing (screen ...

Thanks for the info guys,

You're spot on about the years of upgrading with apps collected over the years. I have often thought that I should attempt to clean this situation up but haven't really known how to go about it. That link will be helpful thanks Cybero.

I am confused as to what you mean about a dual boot system however! As far as I am aware I only have SL on this computer, what makes you think otherwise? I believe I did an upgrade using the snow leopard disk, I didn't intentionally keep Leopard, and as far as I am aware, I didn't.

I didn't have one single kernal crash yesterday after getting rid of the depreciated plug ins. Having said that I didn't muck around too much with the Open Cl stuff yesterday. The good news is that the Open GL tools and Kineme 3d stuff seems to working well without issue.

I have heard generally over various forums that quartz 4.0 is a very buggy program, so I guess i should proceed with caution and be patient! I'm sure the maintenance will help though, about time!

tim

Rubenamado's picture
unable to load the patchs

Hello. I'm having some troubles with the plug-ins instal, my console drops this error message when I open QC:

8/11/10 5:25:10 PM Quartz Composer[566] *** : Could not load bundle at path "/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/GLTools.plugin" (Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3585 UserInfo=0x1153d01f0 "The bundle “GLTools” couldn’t be loaded because it doesn’t contain a version for the current architecture." (dlopen_preflight(/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/GLTools.plugin/Contents/MacOS/GLTools): no suitable image found. Did find: /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/GLTools.plugin/Contents/MacOS/GLTools: no matching architecture in universal wrapper))

I'm using OS 10.6.4 and QC 4.0 Any ideas?

Rubenamado's picture
unable to load the patchs

Hello. I'm having some troubles with the plug-ins instal, my console drops this error message when I open QC:

8/11/10 5:25:10 PM Quartz Composer[566] *** : Could not load bundle at path "/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/GLTools.plugin" (Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3585 UserInfo=0x1153d01f0 "The bundle “GLTools” couldn’t be loaded because it doesn’t contain a version for the current architecture." (dlopen_preflight(/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/GLTools.plugin/Contents/MacOS/GLTools): no suitable image found. Did find: /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/GLTools.plugin/Contents/MacOS/GLTools: no matching architecture in universal wrapper))

I'm using OS 10.6.4 and QC 4.0 Any ideas?

cybero's picture
Re: unable to load the patchs

This sounds like you don't have the latest GL Tools [1.6] installed, wrong architecture indicates it is non-Intel in nature. You need to download the GL Tools, and get the Alpha Mode plugin too and install them to ~/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches

gtoledo3's picture
Re: unable to load the patchs

Also, maybe they are opening up a composition that was made with the old OpenCV plugin, vs. CV Tools (?)

There were a few patches that were thrown out, because they either didn't work well or weren't really necessary.

Look at the actual sample compositions that came with CVTools as an example of how to use this, not older compositions that have floated around.

That said, I've had a number of older compositions work correctly, and even one or two that open with missing patches that end up working correctly still. My memory fails me, but smokris may have done a hack to have connections renoodle in some way for the patches that don't restore because of them being thrown out (I remember asking when this was being modd-ed, just can't remember if it was done or not).

Rubenamado's picture
Re: unable to load the patchs

thanks for the help. all plugins working atm :D

Antima55's picture
Re: How to Install Custom Patches

I don't have the "Quartz Composer patches" folder I only have "Image Units" and "Quartz Composer Plug-Ins" If i just create a new folder would that be okay? any response is very much appreciated. Thx

benoitlahoz's picture
Re: How to Install Custom Patches

It will be ok !

gtoledo3's picture
Re: How to Install Custom Patches

Try to look and see if you are installing it in your actual "User" folder. If you have an Image Units folder, it sounds as thought you are installing it at Library/Graphics or System/Library/Graphics instead of Your_name_here/Library/Graphics, inside of your "user install".

juanquy's picture
Re: How to Install Custom Patches

Kineme artnet tools already installed but when I try to open a example comp I got this error message :

(null) : Patch with name "StructureMaker:KinemeNamedStructureMaker" is missing

any help will be appreciated

smokris's picture
Re: How to Install Custom Patches

@juanquy: StructureMaker is now part of DataTools. Please download and install that plugin, restart QC, and the composition should restore correctly.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: How to Install Custom Patches

Maybe this doesn't need clarification(?) but I think I would have needed it when I started out.

Sometimes, example compositions exist that mainly show the function of the given plugin, but also require you to install other plugins in order to run that composition, and have it fully restore. The main function of the composition still showcases, artnet, for example, but the structure maker was used to help create the structure for it.

It's somewhat customary for the author to list required plugins, in a "note" inside of the composition, but it doesn't always happen (I know I try to do this, but certainly do not always).

So, you may see some example compositions for some patches that require installation of datatools, gltools, etc., in order to run them. :-)