VS - Visual Synthesizer by Imaginando Lda

Edward_Alexander

@sinosoidal said:
We have bad news... we will not be able to integrate Giphy inside VS. We requested a production api key and this was the answer:

Thanks for your interest in using our API. Per our terms of service, we require users of our API to call our API each time a GIF is served or requested and do no permit caching or downloading of our content. We also do not permit users of our API to manipulate our GIFs in any manner to create a derivative work. This includes, but is not limited to, adding filters, cropping, altering the aspect ratio, changing the duration, and placing text or other media on top of an existing GIF.

Oh no!

I’ve been busy as hell this week and am just now seeing this… 😭

@Toastedghost said:

@sinosoidal said:
We have bad news... we will not be able to integrate Giphy inside VS. We requested a production api key and this was the answer:

Thanks for your interest in using our API. Per our terms of service, we require users of our API to call our API each time a GIF is served or requested and do no permit caching or downloading of our content. We also do not permit users of our API to manipulate our GIFs in any manner to create a derivative work. This includes, but is not limited to, adding filters, cropping, altering the aspect ratio, changing the duration, and placing text or other media on top of an existing GIF.

Ouch! Am sure a few folks will be disapointed in that response. Were Giphy original contacted when you began the beta?
There must be another simular service out there? Is there any anything to be gain by changing a video for a gif apart from storage space?

Ouch is right!

Well sh$%t 😭😤

Edward_Alexander

That’s ok, we don’t need no stinking GIPHY! We can make our own GIFs!

sinosoidal

@Edward_Alexander said:
That’s ok, we don’t need no stinking GIPHY! We can make our own GIFs!

The media providing system is built. In the future, we can easily add providers that don't have such rigid usage terms.

Fingolfinzz

Yeah that’s a bummer about Giphy but oh well, it was stifling my creativity. I’ll make my own clips

Ailerom

Can I bring my own song into VS? Seems kind of obvious but I can't find anything about t in the manual or by scouring the app.

sinosoidal

@Ailerom said:
Can I bring my own song into VS? Seems kind of obvious but I can't find anything about t in the manual or by scouring the app.

That is not possible yet. You will need to feed it via audio input in some way.

Ailerom

@sinosoidal said:

@Ailerom said:
Can I bring my own song into VS? Seems kind of obvious but I can't find anything about t in the manual or by scouring the app.

That is not possible yet. You will need to feed it via audio input in some way.

Fingolfinzz

@Ailerom I've been getting good results using the midi from the music I want to use into Drambo and just triggering each layer by midi channel. Even just doing the drums and bass gets you pretty far

Ailerom

@Fingolfinzz said:
@Ailerom I've been getting good results using the midi from the music I want to use into Drambo and just triggering each layer by midi channel. Even just doing the drums and bass gets you pretty far

Yep, ok, that sounds like an option. The songs I want to work on are a few years old now so just a bit of a pain to get them off backup and export midi. Especially when I have the audio file sitting right here.

wim

@Ailerom said:

@Fingolfinzz said:
@Ailerom I've been getting good results using the midi from the music I want to use into Drambo and just triggering each layer by midi channel. Even just doing the drums and bass gets you pretty far

Yep, ok, that sounds like an option. The songs I want to work on are a few years old now so just a bit of a pain to get them off backup and export midi. Especially when I have the audio file sitting right here.

AUM file player into VS AUv3 version. Not full-screen, but it works.

mojozart

@sinosoidal said:
We have bad news... we will not be able to integrate Giphy inside VS. We requested a production api key and this was the answer:

Thanks for your interest in using our API. Per our terms of service, we require users of our API to call our API each time a GIF is served or requested and do no permit caching or downloading of our content. We also do not permit users of our API to manipulate our GIFs in any manner to create a derivative work. This includes, but is not limited to, adding filters, cropping, altering the aspect ratio, changing the duration, and placing text or other media on top of an existing GIF.

I don't see these restrictions in their API Terms of Service:

https://support.giphy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028134111-GIPHY-API-Terms-of-Service-

Ailerom

@wim said:

@Ailerom said:

@Fingolfinzz said:
@Ailerom I've been getting good results using the midi from the music I want to use into Drambo and just triggering each layer by midi channel. Even just doing the drums and bass gets you pretty far

Yep, ok, that sounds like an option. The songs I want to work on are a few years old now so just a bit of a pain to get them off backup and export midi. Especially when I have the audio file sitting right here.

AUM file player into VS AUv3 version. Not full-screen, but it works.

Thanks. I hope audio import will make its way into the feature list but till then there are options. Cheers.

Edward_Alexander

@sinosoidal Thank you guys for sharing yet another one of my videos!

You and the the whole Imaginando team are awesome!

I guess that particular video with the car GIF will go down in history as being a rare one; created within the short period of time where GIPHY was integrated in the BETA. Maybe it’ll be worth some money one day! Hahaha 🤣

Edward_Alexander

Hey @sinosoidal I have a question, for some reason, while I’m working on a new project (using latest VS beta) the presets are being triggered by something (I don’t know what) and switching. How do I stop this?

Seems like it’s doing it on a beat, but I can’t see where I have anything tied to that.

sinosoidal

@Edward_Alexander said:
Hey @sinosoidal I have a question, for some reason, while I’m working on a new project (using latest VS beta) the presets are being triggered by something (I don’t know what) and switching. How do I stop this?

Seems like it’s doing it on a beat, but I can’t see where I have anything tied to that.

Do you have program change messages being sent to VS?

Edward_Alexander

@sinosoidal said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
Hey @sinosoidal I have a question, for some reason, while I’m working on a new project (using latest VS beta) the presets are being triggered by something (I don’t know what) and switching. How do I stop this?

Seems like it’s doing it on a beat, but I can’t see where I have anything tied to that.

Do you have program change messages being sent to VS?

I don’t think so?

This particular setup is:

VS in standalone

Drambo stand-alone

And that’s it. In Drambo, I do have several instances of Atom 2, which do have pattern changes hmmm

espiegel123

@Edward_Alexander said:

@sinosoidal said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
Hey @sinosoidal I have a question, for some reason, while I’m working on a new project (using latest VS beta) the presets are being triggered by something (I don’t know what) and switching. How do I stop this?

Seems like it’s doing it on a beat, but I can’t see where I have anything tied to that.

Do you have program change messages being sent to VS?

I don’t think so?

This particular setup is:

VS in standalone

Drambo stand-alone

And that’s it. In Drambo, I do have several instances of Atom 2, which do have pattern changes hmmm

Stick a MIDI monitor on whatever MIDI stream is being sent to VS.

To confirm that it is the result of something sending MIDI to VS, turn VS's MIDI input off.

Edward_Alexander

@espiegel123 said:

@Edward_Alexander said:

@sinosoidal said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
Hey @sinosoidal I have a question, for some reason, while I’m working on a new project (using latest VS beta) the presets are being triggered by something (I don’t know what) and switching. How do I stop this?

Seems like it’s doing it on a beat, but I can’t see where I have anything tied to that.

Do you have program change messages being sent to VS?

I don’t think so?

This particular setup is:

VS in standalone

Drambo stand-alone

And that’s it. In Drambo, I do have several instances of Atom 2, which do have pattern changes hmmm

Stick a MIDI monitor on whatever MIDI stream is being sent to VS.

To confirm that it is the result of something sending MIDI to VS, turn VS's MIDI input off.

I figured it out; I had two different MIDI out modules on different tracks competing for the same MIDI channel. (2) So I decided to try giving everything it's own MIDI channel starting at 4 and up, and that fixed it.

sinosoidal

@Edward_Alexander said:

@espiegel123 said:

@Edward_Alexander said:

@sinosoidal said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
Hey @sinosoidal I have a question, for some reason, while I’m working on a new project (using latest VS beta) the presets are being triggered by something (I don’t know what) and switching. How do I stop this?

Seems like it’s doing it on a beat, but I can’t see where I have anything tied to that.

Do you have program change messages being sent to VS?

I don’t think so?

This particular setup is:

VS in standalone

Drambo stand-alone

And that’s it. In Drambo, I do have several instances of Atom 2, which do have pattern changes hmmm

Stick a MIDI monitor on whatever MIDI stream is being sent to VS.

To confirm that it is the result of something sending MIDI to VS, turn VS's MIDI input off.

I figured it out; I had two different MIDI out modules on different tracks competing for the same MIDI channel. (2) So I decided to try giving everything it's own MIDI channel starting at 4 and up, and that fixed it.

Glad to hear!

sinosoidal

Yesterday we have released VS 1.1.0:

• New engine architecture to support render to file
• Added built-in recording system (video only for now)
• Quality setting replaced by explicit output resolution setting
• Seizure warning at startup
• General bug fixes and optimizations

https://apps.apple.com/app/id1560330289

Pxlhg

@sinosoidal said:
Yesterday we have released VS 1.1.0:

• New engine architecture to support render to file
• Added built-in recording system (video only for now)
• Quality setting replaced by explicit output resolution setting
• Seizure warning at startup
• General bug fixes and optimizations

https://apps.apple.com/app/id1560330289

Hi Nuno, I sat up a project with Gadget and VS standalone. In Gadget I dedicated 5 Taipei for output midi to 4 different channels to use with VS. All worked great albeit despite having the M1 i don't get more than 15fps using four(4) animations in VS. Now, I recorded the video and planned to put the sound in afterwards. The video I stopped at 02:20.

When I imported all to Luma Fusion I discovered that the video was only 01:37. It had cut but red indicator in VS let me stop, as I say at 02:20. Framerate is sat to 30 and quality full. Please check if you get something similar recording a bit longer clips. I'm on 14.7.1 and iPad Pro 11 M1

Edward_Alexander

@Pxlhg I’m not sure about the video recording length thing, but I would think you should get much better performance and frame rate with the M1.

Guess I should actually look at the FPS counter next time I have a session loaded up.

Pxlhg

@Edward_Alexander said:
@Pxlhg I’m not sure about the video recording length thing, but I would think you should get much better performance and frame rate with the M1.

Guess I should actually look at the FPS counter next time I have a session loaded up.

There are not many apps yet that cant take full advantage of all RAM whatnot available in the M1, if I understood things right it's kind of a premature release and it will take time before we can really enjoy the super machine it (supposedly) is.

Edward_Alexander

@Pxlhg said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
@Pxlhg I’m not sure about the video recording length thing, but I would think you should get much better performance and frame rate with the M1.

Guess I should actually look at the FPS counter next time I have a session loaded up.

There are not many apps yet that cant take full advantage of all RAM whatnot available in the M1, if I understood things right it's kind of a premature release and it will take time before we can really enjoy the super machine it (supposedly) is.

Yeah, I’ve read the same. Hopefully some of these devs will update accordingly.

sinosoidal

@Pxlhg said:

@sinosoidal said:
Yesterday we have released VS 1.1.0:

• New engine architecture to support render to file
• Added built-in recording system (video only for now)
• Quality setting replaced by explicit output resolution setting
• Seizure warning at startup
• General bug fixes and optimizations

https://apps.apple.com/app/id1560330289

Hi Nuno, I sat up a project with Gadget and VS standalone. In Gadget I dedicated 5 Taipei for output midi to 4 different channels to use with VS. All worked great albeit despite having the M1 i don't get more than 15fps using four(4) animations in VS. Now, I recorded the video and planned to put the sound in afterwards. The video I stopped at 02:20.

When I imported all to Luma Fusion I discovered that the video was only 01:37. It had cut but red indicator in VS let me stop, as I say at 02:20. Framerate is sat to 30 and quality full. Please check if you get something similar recording a bit longer clips. I'm on 14.7.1 and iPad Pro 11 M1

The problem here is the frame rate. When the recording is started we need to tell the encoder the video frame rate. At this point we say that the frame rate is the one selected under settings. However, if the scene is having an hard time being painted, it will be below 30 or 60.

The consequence is obvious, the encoder will not be fed with the necessary frame rate. If we record a video that has a 1 min length at 30 frames, it needs to be fed with 30 frames in a second, otherwise it will have a different length when played.

Right now, you should try to balance what you have in screen with the quality settings. There are some materials that are more expensive than others. And some of those material parameters can make them lighter or even more expensive.

M1 is a powerful machine CPU wise, but GPU is not there yet. We have an M1 Mac Mini here in the office. In terms of GPU I find it very similar to my laptop Intel Iris Plus Graphics.

I'm sure there will be possible workarounds and solutions. We need time and more feedback to find them.

Pxlhg

@sinosoidal said:

@Pxlhg said:

@sinosoidal said:
Yesterday we have released VS 1.1.0:

• New engine architecture to support render to file
• Added built-in recording system (video only for now)
• Quality setting replaced by explicit output resolution setting
• Seizure warning at startup
• General bug fixes and optimizations

https://apps.apple.com/app/id1560330289

Hi Nuno, I sat up a project with Gadget and VS standalone. In Gadget I dedicated 5 Taipei for output midi to 4 different channels to use with VS. All worked great albeit despite having the M1 i don't get more than 15fps using four(4) animations in VS. Now, I recorded the video and planned to put the sound in afterwards. The video I stopped at 02:20.

When I imported all to Luma Fusion I discovered that the video was only 01:37. It had cut but red indicator in VS let me stop, as I say at 02:20. Framerate is sat to 30 and quality full. Please check if you get something similar recording a bit longer clips. I'm on 14.7.1 and iPad Pro 11 M1

The problem here is the frame rate. When the recording is started we need to tell the encoder the video frame rate. At this point we say that the frame rate is the one selected under settings. However, if the scene is having an hard time being painted, it will be below 30 or 60.

The consequence is obvious, the encoder will not be fed with the necessary frame rate. If we record a video that has a 1 min length at 30 frames, it needs to be fed with 30 frames in a second, otherwise it will have a different length when played.

Right now, you should try to balance what you have in screen with the quality settings. There are some materials that are more expensive than others. And some of those material parameters can make them lighter or even more expensive.

M1 is a powerful machine CPU wise, but GPU is not there yet. We have an M1 Mac Mini here in the office. In terms of GPU I find it very similar to my laptop Intel Iris Plus Graphics.

I'm sure there will be possible workarounds and solutions. We need time and more feedback to find them.

Okay, good to know. Guess I'll follow Ed's suggestion and do a screen recording. I did, for the fun of it raise the fps to 60 and the video got even shorter as expected per your explanation. Hope you find some good optimizations and improvements.

Gravitas

@sinosoidal

Slight problem with the B Layer.
When using Position with Mode ,'STILL ', VS stops cycling through
the footage when position reaches 0.
If Position is at 0.5 then I can still cycle through the footage.
When it stops working I have to toggle the Loop/Stills button to reset it.

auxmux

@sinosoidal Also, noticed an issue in desktop version in Ableton. Layers are not responding to different midi channels, only channel 1 is being received by all layers. Standalone is working correctly.

sinosoidal

@auxmux said:
@sinosoidal Also, noticed an issue in desktop version in Ableton. Layers are not responding to different midi channels, only channel 1 is being received by all layers. Standalone is working correctly.

I'm pretty sure you are doing it wrong. I've just tested and it is working alright. Have you seen our Ableton Live tutorial?

sinosoidal

@Gravitas said:
@sinosoidal

Slight problem with the B Layer.
When using Position with Mode ,'STILL ', VS stops cycling through
the footage when position reaches 0.
If Position is at 0.5 then I can still cycle through the footage.
When it stops working I have to toggle the Loop/Stills button to reset it.

We need to investigate. Thanks for reporting.