Motiion dive.

[merseyj0ker]

I am just starting out as a vj and I am searching for a copy of motion dive. I understand that it is only available in Japan. Can anyone help??

[vjpixylight]

you can pick up motion dive 3 at
http://www.audiovisualizers.com
for $200.00 US

[merseyj0ker]

Thanks forr pointing me in the right direction. Have you used it yourself? Any recommendations for decent dual head video card?

[vjpixylight]

yea I use it, and it is pretty nice...I am using it on a 500 mghz celeron lappy with a ati 16meg video card, and it does okay..
(16-20 fps with 320x 240, a bit slower with 640x480, but faster than most other VJ softs that I have tried...
MD3 also plays flash files, and has a nice character generator(also flash based)...
MD3 can also write video files up to 640x480 and in amimation codec, which is nice and clean...

[Akira]

Just out of curiosity, is Motion Dive good for very fast cutting e.g. mixing video into each other using quick cut styles. I've been contemplating purchasing it for a while now but I'm just not sure if it's what I need.

Guess I'll just have to try the demo :D

[vjpixylight]

well with MD3 you can use the transition fx's to flip between the 2 clips using the space bar, and use your mouse to load clips as you switch back and forth(with a dual head video card) or
you can just play the clips from the keyboard(standard full screen display) for a cut up stylee....

[DogBoy]

By preloading the vid into the other deck, you can fast-cut. Therefore you can fast cut between the two decks.

However, just using the keys to switch vidz results in a certain degree of latency.

I think MD3 is pretty damn fast on the cut. However the FX layer is less fast, as there is no way of preloading. MD2 allowed a preload for each deck, but I think they realised that this was surplus to requirements.

Has anyone thought of benchmarking all the different engines, using a set of predefined clips?

I'd like to know MD3 users opinions... I find it way accessible, but part of me thinks it might just be cos I paid for it :)

Is there anyone out there who owns a copy of resolume MD3 etc..., who can make subjective observations on which is fastest and most usable.

[vjpixylight]

good idea dogboy...
any bench would have to be somewhat generic tho, because different proggies have different fx's, and different ways of processing the video...for example, text generation in MD3 (using flash) is different from the way it might be done in Resolume of VJo... that said, playing the same clips within a pure mixing
enviro, without fx's or character generation, could be done...
I think that someone out there should be able to do this... it would have to be someone like Dave or Exhale, that are hosting a VJ site, as they would be more objective towards the softs used..

I would be curious how MD3 would stack up against VDMX???

[eXhale]

Hahaha I don't know if I'm more "objective". In fact I'm rather subjective when it comes to Resolume... :D How do you do a benchmark anyway? Is there some soft to do this kind of stuff?

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
it would have to be someone like Dave or Exhale,

Hmmm I think these guys have enough on there plate already.....

As for teh benchmarks themselves it a good idea but its gonna be pretty hard to messure latency in the progs manually (if there that slow, you should use something else) and I'm not sure of what could do it automatically......

[trm164]

sorry.. but i played around with md3 and i like it but i can figuere out how to record with it..
i tryed div posibility's... but that japan text is killing me..:(

[namba]

I just started my VJ-ing career since I got Motion Dive. It's the prog I've been waiting for! Before I cut videos for parties using FinalCut and AfterEffects. What I like most about MD3 is the possibility to react to the music instantly, and it only takes a few sessions to get into it.
My debut at a house-party in Stuttgart/Germany was a huge success. The crowd was so enthusiastic about the visuals that I`m already dreaming of a neat VJ-ing career. ; )
Are any or you guys specialized in MD?
What about the DENON hardware interface for MD featured on audiovisualizer.com?
I`m more into using my own material, but what about the MD-CDsets? Are they worth the money?
That`s it for now. Great forum! Peace, I`m out...

[spook]

one quick point to make a note of when fast cutting between clips using MD3...

when you load a clip into one of your slave inputs it does not automatically begin playing, and therefore, is not completely preloaded. thus, when you cut to it, there is a slight jerk in the framerate before the movie actually gets going. depending on how much RAM you have, this usually only happens the first time you use it in your set, cos it's usually still sitting in RAM the next time you go to use it.

i have found there is two ways of fixing this...

1. when you drop the clip into the slave input, manually press play on the controller. (my preffered method)

2. before your set, load all of your clips once to preload them (this is only good if you have less clips than you do RAM and then some)

i have emailed the developers with this problem and even coded them a solution that they can fix it with, but im not sure if their version of director/awfulware codes in japenese or english, so who knows whether it will be implemented.

any questions about MD3, feel free to email me, as i am now giving it a good flogging with the plan to purchase as soon as i have $200USD.

[MoRpH]

Welcome spook......

As I said it would be damn nice to get yer hands on the uncompiled movie as I'm sure there are plenty of good coders out in teh VJC community that could improve on it for them :)

[spook]

:nod:

too true.

although i can understand their hesitancy in letting it go (damn nice piece of software if you ask me, i am still having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that it was made using director).

<tangent> lingo isnt really code anyway, its more like english that computers understand! </tangent>

it WOULD be good to see them open up a users forum that they would read and possibly take comments from, BUT, we can only expect so much.

full props here to Dave, for his efforts in setting up an international point of reference for motion dive 3. However, i dont know if it will have any interaction from/with the developers.

[robotfunk]

(damn nice piece of software if you ask me, i am still having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that it was made using director).

<tangent> lingo isnt really code anyway, its more like english that computers understand! </tangent>

erm .. if you like md so much, why do you have to slag off the software it was made in? what's with this 'if humans can read it, it can't be code' stance? not just you but a lot of other posters seem to feel this way. Would you rather see poor developers shifting bits around manually with tweezers?

[MoRpH]

Settle Jilt... I don't think Spook was slaging director, I'm pretty sure he actually works with it on a daily basis so I'm pretty sure he @ least like it and I think he amazed because he didn't realize it could actually do that..... me to actually and I have worked with director aswell. BTW for those that don't know why jilt might be taking this a little to heart is that if I recall rightly Flowmotion (jilt's great VJ tool) is written in it :)

As for lingo not being a real programming language I think they mean its sort of a cross between psuedo code and real actual code like C/C++ in that it is interpreted @ run time, which can be VERY slow if you not effiecient with it. Perosnally I don't care as long as the job gets done and the frame rate is high....

[spook]

Hehehe :jump2:

firstly, many apologies to robotFunk for not making my poor attempt at humour obvious enough. i had no intension of offense and certainly never meant to slag anything or anyone (except maybe, myself)

As far as Director goes, MoRpH is quite right on all accounts, i DO work with it each and every day of my life (and twice on sundays) and have nothing but props for the Jamaican marathon runner who developed its programming language - lingo AND macromedia for giving it life beyond version 1.

in regards to my comments about lingo, they were really intended as a humble remark to elevate the status of those C/C++ programmers out there (many of whom, i know, hold the belief i made reference to). i apologise for this comment, as i forgot there were other lingo programmers in the world at the time of submission - i really only intended to bag myself out.

<joke>
sign me up for the sheltered workshop with the tweezers and paper will you? as long as i dont have to write the functional specifications document for it!
</joke>

BTW well done with Flowmotion - very impressive!

spook.

[robotfunk]

:D no offense taken, as I indicated this was not really targeted at spook, just amazed at how bad a rep director has generally .. maybe cos it's so easy to pick up that a lot of ppl do and make something horrible with it as with flash ( which i don't like much at all , and is something that macromedia inhereted/bought instead of designed). Maybe most people pick up flash, see how crap it is and reckon director is similar cos its sold by the same company.

actually c++ is not THAT difficult, I can easily read it, converted several image effects from c++ to lingo, writing a working program is something different though. The thing that makes it difficult is not the language itself but the horrible system-level shit you have to endure.

I don't know why I'm compelled to defend director at every opportunity, maybe I like working with it too much.

i'll light up a spliff now and be quiet :)

[infopocalypse]

Flowmotion is director too? That's it... I'm going to buy a copy of Director again... just so I can start fooling around with it. 31 programming languages, here I come.

I'm still basically distrustful of anything written in Director, or VB, or anything other than C or Assembly... the closer you can get to the hardware the faster it will run, and really, aside from doing 3d rendering (and on some levels due to hardware support that becomes easier) you don't get any more difficult than realtime video processing. The pure math of its ridiculous... suppose my B&W force takes 20 opcodes per pixel (it actually takes about something like that), but using MMX it processes four pixels at once... using something like that I'm still using about 384,000 clock cycles to force something to black and white per frame, or 11 megahertz just to do that 30 times over a second. But that's at the near-hardware level... imagine doing this with abstraction layers upon abstraction layers (Director or VB) and I can only imagine a BW Force would take a good 100 Mhz with all of the extra crap built in (BW Force is one of the harder ones to do, a color invert is actually doing one operation on the color data, or about 600,000 operations per second).

Addressing how to benchmark something like this, the easiest way I can think of is to take the EXE into dissasembly, copy and paste into something like c++, and profile it. This would be tedious, however. Something with a built in framerate support would be much better/easier, but I doubt Director would be able to interface with hardware on that level.

James

[robotfunk]

The interpreted nature of lingo imposes some limits. If your effect needs to do an operation on every pixel things can get slow. Thing is, there is a great imaging lib inside director, stuff like inks allow you to do an invert on a whole image in lingo call... the actual inversion is done on the c++ level (director core engine). A lot of times you can use tricks like this to make fast effects. Just about every 'transfer mode' in photoshop is available as an ink in director.

Also with c++ or delphi you can make xtras for director so you can call lower level stuff from director. I'm talking with some other developers incl. the vjamm people to make an open plugin standard for vj software with possibly a director xtra.

Also director uses MMX so stuff like inks are accelerated by it.

[infopocalypse]

I'd strongly doubt that Director makes good use of MMX as Director IS written in MetaWorks CodeWarrior, which is the "write once, work on two platforms" C++, thus a lot less efficient... but I will have to check it out. I might be interested in at least being privy to such a conversation or its results, as the general goal of the project is to provide the most filters in the most efficient shell, and, although I'm not a huge fan of open architecture (it tends to slow things down quite a bit (that and since our filters are objects (not straightline C) we'd have to find some sort of COM/ATL solution)) I would be interested in getting in line with such filters.

I would however try to run it past some larger heads as well. If you're going to develop a video filter format, you will probably want the support of Adobe, Avid, SonicFoundry, Roxio, and various other manufacturers... if you go this route and can quantify yourself in the right manner you may be able to get research grants (I can talk to my friend who is currently doing research for Adobe to find out more if you'd like). You're going to run into some huge problems when you try to make it work on a Mac though.

I'd also say a Director XTra wouldn't be the way to do this, as it would limit you in the long run, and this is somewhat like coming up with a really good DTD... you want it to work in ALL cases.

James

[robotfunk]

Maybe the mac version is written in metrowerks, the pc version of Director is written in MS VC++.

Director can use MMX since version 6.
Adobe, Avid, SonicFoundry, Roxio don't make any realtime software AFAIK, and this is more of a ad hoc collaboration between several vj soft developers, then again a grant is hard to turn down :)

If it's gonna happen at all, the director xtra would only be one of the number of its manifestations, it is gonna work in the 'other cases' too.

I don't think anyone involved is thinking about getting it to work on Macs at the moment.

Anyway its way premature to be even talking about this project, you'll hear more news when something comes of it.

[infopocalypse]

Well you're going to find a lot more support with something like Illusion, which makes effects for Avid, or any company of that like, as it would enable them to rapid-develop a video filter for a larger market share (god I sound like such a lackey). Adobe would most likely get on board because it could enable them to chip into Avid's market, and Avid for the opposite reason.

[arboretum]

so, i read on AV site that there was to be a translation of the help
-" we are almost finished translating the original Japanese model to English, and when that's done, various members of our community will be translating that further into Spanish, German, & Dutch.?"

does anyone know if this is out and about?

[spook]

not sure....Dave will know....there is a forum devoted to it on his server somewhere (sorry i cant remember the address)

but if you have any questions, just ask....i have successfully used all of the functions in MD3 and im happy to help...

[eXhale]

the MD3 support forum is here:
http://www.vloops.com/forums/viewforum.php?forum=1&79