mysterious_w

5th October 2004 13:18 UTC

A Rant On AVS By mysterious_w
Note: This rant is not directed squarely at anyone, it is a rant against the general AVS community.

I suck at AVS. Well.. maybe that isn't quite so true, I do think I've gotton a lot better over the last couple of months, but I'm still nowhere near calling myself 'skilled' at it. Now then, I admit that most of this is my own fault, I don't have a lot of patience or dedication, or any artistic skill whatsoever, but I believe some of the blame lies on the AVS community.

When a new guy enters the world of AVS and asks what he so do to get skilled in it, he is told to do two things, work on your math and look at a lot of other people's presets.

Well that's a load of utter bollocks.

First of, work on your math. Math is bloody huge for hell's sake! Alrighty then, you may say work on your geometry. Yeah ok, but I bet if I picked 5 random chapters out of a geometry textbook 4 would be utter useless to me. What you skilled AVS'ers need to say is ' work on your geometry, but most importantly look at Trigonmatric Levels and Cosine Theomaitrics (yes I made both of those up).'

Now let's have a look at the other main inroad to AVS sucess; looking at other people's work and learning their techniques. Bag of sh--e that is. You look at any decent avs'ers work of code nowadays and all you see is bloody z4=sin(x+cos(x*invsqrt(ts1*$PI)). What the f--- is that supposed to mean? Now I admit that I have learnt a few techniques of some of wotl's work, but that's because his chronology collection included everything he's ever done, so I could look at his earlier, less complex presets. If some guy who's trying to figure out SSC's looks at something from EL-Vis' hyponotized pack or Shook Value's Total Immersion, he'll just give up there and then.

Now I admit you're not all so bad at this, Pak-9 normally gives his code decent varibles so you can at least at least attempt to decipher it, and whenver wotl's given me something to look at he commented it properly so I know what it means, but most of the time you bust a gut trying to figure out 3D dm's, or aspect ratios or whatever's cool at the moment.

There. I'm done. Feel free to comment/praise/berate on whatever I've said, or maybe add some of your own thoughts.

Mr_Nudge

5th October 2004 13:54 UTC

I'm right with you there. Slowly but surely i'm gaining skill in AVS, and since i'm only doing yr 10 maths theres really bugger all i can do in the way of understanding most of the maths that goes on.
What i want to know is how these advanced avsers know what the crap they're doing. I hate the feeling you get when you finally make something your proud of (like a dm that uses more than 4 variables) and then looking at someone elses just to find theirs has 12 lines of code in every box and it's absolutely impossible to follow what does what. There should be avs classes of something, hey thats not such a bad idea!! They could be held at the forums every week or so with liitle projects and tutorials and explanations and so on.. it would be great!

I'm right with you Mysterious W, it sucks listening to the same answer every time you ask some code-related avs question, "get better at maths". Just a reallity check for all you pros out there: you can't just "get better at maths" it takes a long time and it's not upto us to decide the rate at which we learn, it's not possible (imo) to learn any faster than whats set by the schools and unis and the like.
So if this is a "community", a little "city" of it's own it sure doesn't have good "childcare facilities", ok i'll stop now, that was a little wierd. Man, this has got to be the longest post i've writen. Ok, i'm finished.

OnionRingOfDoom

5th October 2004 15:22 UTC

Well see, you don't have to know that much math to do decent AVS. Look at some of yathosho's work. It uses very simple math, but it looks awesome, because he has style. I only know math up to algebra II, but I know how things like sine and cosine work in AVS. I just don't know how they work outside of that :P

Raz

5th October 2004 15:44 UTC

How about you stop listening to the dicks who have nothing to say but that and just do what you want at your own pace. Just because someone appoints himself judge of all that is worthy doesn't mean you have to listen to them.

sidd

5th October 2004 15:51 UTC

Yeah, and don't listen to me. I only really use these forums for spleen venting.

But feel free to keep saying more incredibly stupid things. :)

Zevensoft

5th October 2004 15:54 UTC

budget

sidd

5th October 2004 16:37 UTC

The first thing any new AVSer does when they discover the forums is post a selection of their finest eppilepsy-inducing presets here.

After being curtly and kindly made aware how fantastically crap their presets are, the newcomer will oft' reply: "So, how can I improve?"

This question is extremely difficult to answer, especially for experienced AVSers, who mostly like to keep their words/variables < 5 letters and sentences in lambda form. So unless you get very lucky, someone will reply with "uh.. get good at math" or "uh.. study good presets.." or more likely, you will get ignored.

The thing is, AVS is a very screwball language. It is very easy to write, and very hard to understand once it is written. So if you want to learn math, or learn anything at all, studying other peoples AVS code comes slightly behind banging your head against a brick wall.

My advice is to experiment. And keep making presets no matter how much everyone says they are crap.

If someone does give you useful advice listen to them!

If you need help, ask specific questions, and make sure it hasnt been asked ten times before.

If you have some vivid idea, you know exactly what you want to do, but you can't quite work out how to go about coding it, that would be a good thing to ask about.

And don't go making presets to show of some fantasticlly klever code, but look like shit. Especially if the fantastically klever code is somone elses to begin with.

Anyway. Work at your own pace. You will get better at maths as you need to. People have explained alot of the trickier concepts in avs in these forums. Take a look at the tips and tricks thread(s) and read through atero's defunct primer.

Keep in mind that everyone on these forums was new at some point. And most of us have not studied any math beyond high school.
[/civilized]

Tuggummi

5th October 2004 16:55 UTC

My advice is to experiment. And keep making presets.

Doggy Dog

5th October 2004 18:04 UTC

Heh, I started as well by making crap.. but in 2000/2001, and most of the presets made then can now be considered crap, believe it or not, the only thing you could do "advanced" things with was Superscope.... there was no fancy stuff such as the Dynamic movement.... the only thing that came close to it was maybe Dynamic Shift or whatever it's called, and the "wonderful thing" called DDM noone's ever done anything proper with (with exception of tug in his Rainbow Puddles or whatever it's called)... I didn't know anything about trigonometry, but still, I tried to make presets someone, not just me, would like. They weren't epilepsy inducing, and they had "pretty colors" I guess, but they were crap, and I was quite aware of that, even though they got good reviews from some people. That was my first pack. Then I started to experiment more, make presets with more stuff, and soon I had enough presets to make my second pack. Which was worst than the first one. Half the presets were incredibly slow, and the other half used the visfrac and tv apes most people didn't have. And I became pretty aware of that soon enough. And some months later, I made my third pack, which was pretty good by the standards of that age. DM was then really, really new, and I used it in some presets without even knowing what I was doing, but I slowly began to understand it. I looked at Tonic's and Nixa's presets (they were quite "famous" then), and learned from that. Someone (Nemo I think) reviewed my pack on devart quite positively, and said what I should do from then, and I tried to actually do that. Then came the fourth pack, which was IMO great for the time. And I started to make even more complex stuff, even made two presets that were really, really good, even wanted to post one on devart, but changed my mind in the last second. That was a big mistake. I lost them in a HD crash, and my interest in AVS faded away, I even lost most of my skills (all my meager maths skills too)..... now I only make remixes from time to time.

Dunno why I wrote all this. Maybe cos I'm drunk enough to write stuff that isn't necessary, and sober enough to write it properly. Dunno.

Yathosho

5th October 2004 18:42 UTC

i still like a couple of paranoya's presets :)

Tuggummi

5th October 2004 18:55 UTC

Paranoyas scopes were AMAZING! They still make me wonder "how on earth did he do that?"

Also Troubleshooter made some very advanced scoping too.

:)

Doggy Dog

5th October 2004 19:47 UTC

I forgot to include "AVSociety stuff excluded" in that sentence. Yeah, paranoya's scopes were great.. and he was very, very protective of them, I remember him getting REALLY pissed at someone who used one in his pack. And that one other guy, how was he called... Leo ? had great scopes too, I loved a preset where he made a face out of that (actually the preset was a pencil drawing a face).

PAK-9

5th October 2004 21:27 UTC

Wow, there are some big posts in this thread (touched a nerve methinks mysterious). Well here's my splurge:

First of all, some people need to accept that they're never going to be that good at AVS. OK its a hard pill to swallow... but deal with it. When I look at a NemoOrange pack I think "Shit, this looks GOOD, I can't make presets this pretty" and its true, the PAK man doesn't do 'pretty', I just cant... but I can live with that.

So often you get noobs posting presets that look like someone puked on your screen and you just think "This is AWFUL"... and it is. I made a few ugly presets sure but I got over it pretty quickly and started getting better, I didnt upload that crap onto the web for everyone to vomit over. I've got to my current level of ability under my own steam, so excuse me for not shedding a tear for your sob stories about noone helping you. If you cant make it on your own, maybe your just not cut out for AVS.

Personally I'm happy to help people with coding, because I appreciate that AVS is a pretty ugly language, but only as an aid to people learning. The best way to get peoples help is to ask for specific help "I want this DM to smoothly move to a random X and Y on beat" not "how can I make this preset better".

As a final note, I presonally dont find looking at the code in other peoples presets very helpful (although ironically people seem to like looking at the code in mine). I have done it before to learn effects but I usually feel like I'm stealing even if I take the basic principles and re-apply them. Plus as people have mentioned code tends to be complicated and hard to decipher, so I find it better to redo it myself.

My final point is: "DONT RELEASE CRAP"... if you think a preset looks rubbish, theres a 99% it does. Keep fiddling with it and tweaking it (NO I dont mean adding ANOTHER DM or EL with more crap in it) until you think you have something good.

Warrior of the Light

5th October 2004 22:32 UTC

What I did to learn AVS'ing and SSC's in general, was to rip a preset to Notepad and follow all variables. Ripping a code to pieces helps too. I tried to understand the 3D rotation, which isn't that hard if you can follow the sines and cosines (using imagination, a graphical calculator and some other program) I was able to do this within a day, but took some effort, but all difficult math had already been done, all I needed to do was follow. Then I started messing around with the variables and stuff, inserting my own code for rotation and movement. Once finished, all code was my own and I even sped the thing up by myself (I took some old El-Vis preset, I believe it was the spiral-sphere in 'Sentinel', not sure)

Random fiddling around helped me too. I found out that asin(sin(... made my circle square and sure some other stuff that I can't remember.

And again: a lot of code isn't needed but to slow things down. Keep it minimal. Helps in speed and complexity. Question is if you still can see the difference between 20 lines or 200 when the preset is done.. the pp2 preview (glascid) has only 27 lines of code and it's one of my favorite presets when it comes to attraction.

Another thing i'd like to add is not to try to become the best AVS'er in the world. Just do what you can and don't expect more from yourself than you can, it will only bring frustration. Don't stare yourself dead at code, style is more important Remember why you started AVS'ing. It was the beauty of the presets, not the code.

So if this is a "community", a little "city" of it's own it sure doesn't have good "childcare facilities"

S-uper_T-oast

5th October 2004 23:34 UTC

I basically taught myself everything I knoe about AVSing. I got a few little nidges here and there, mainly just the theory behind 3D rotation and raytracing. Most of everything else way just picturing the space I was working in an imagining what I wanted to happen, then trying to make the math/effects to work. If I couldn't get it myself, I'll go and look at other people's presets that do pretty close to what I want to do and try and isolate how everything works in it, then figure out how to do what I want it to do.

EXPEEEERIMENT!EXPEEEERIMENT!
EXPEEEERIMENT!EXPEEEERIMENT!

roboBOT

6th October 2004 06:41 UTC

I learned to do complex AVS stuff mostly by taking apart other peoples' presets. That's how I learned raytracing and how to use gmegabuf(). I'd just take apart presets, mess with stuff, put stuff together, be confused, screw up, etc. After a while, I figured out all the basics and I was able to turn out som presets that weren't total newbie crap. I actually got good comments when I released my first pack .:eek:

Anyways, to make good presets, I've found you need to know math, art, and programming. It's definitely not about throwing together all the default effects into a flashing, pulsating mess and then releasing them thinking they're good. Send them to experienced AVS artists thinking they suck and ask how to make them better.

Doggy Dog

6th October 2004 08:33 UTC

Point is that there's no-one who has a 'job' here, no-one has any responsibilities.

---

PAK-9

6th October 2004 21:29 UTC

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....hreadid=195792

Warrior of the Light

7th October 2004 11:17 UTC

Okay, i'm sorry. There's you, UCD modding the forum and there are probably some others with different 'jobs'(yathosho modding @ DA).. But still no-one can personally be blamed if a newb doesn't get the attention that he/she needs, just the community in whole; But who's that?? Who can stop you or anyone else if you'd just decide to quit or just not reply? (not making any suggestions so please don't reply to the quitting part. There are (were) other places to discuss that)

NemoOrange

10th October 2004 00:54 UTC

You bring up a lot of points in regard to starting out an interest in AVSing. Yes, its a very hard field to begin in. Especially now-a-days, because so many more popular AVS artists are utilizing all of the capabilities of AVS, myself included. When I started, AVSers were using fairly simple scopes and movements, not a lot of buffer saves. Things were easier to break down and understand.

But, you also bring to light another good point, the advice for AVS newbies is inadequate. Improving your math skills & looking at other presets will help, but that will only get you so far. I believe that the two secrets for good AVS are understanding the effects & how they work and artistic composition.

Every now & then someone will create a preset that is pure genius becuase it relies on very few elements, but uniquely implements them. I've been really wowing at some of the new stuff being doing with the Convolution Filter lately. Couple that with a decent Color Map and an interesting Render, & you will have yourself a very good preset. However, to get to that point, one needs to understand how the Convo Filter actually works. But there are plenty of effects to work with other than movements, DMs, Superscopes. You can get some very cool effects with Interferences, Water, simple combinations of Buffer Saves, or even a Fast Brightness. But remember, you can't just throw these effects together & expect something spectacular automatically. The more you know about an effect, the better you can use it & manipulate it in other fashions.

UCD provides a good example of this quality. He has such a good grasp of what each effect does, that it allows him to get the most out of it. Look at the way he uses Convo Filters, makes gradients, and simple movements. Of course there's a lot of other things going on with super scopes and DMs, but much can be learned by the way he uses those other effects.

Artistic Composition is the flip side of that coin. Having a preset "look good" isn't so hard if you have a basic understanding of the elements that make a good piece of art. In fact, I'm guessing that a majority of the AVS artists out today still don't know some of the guidelines. Here's a few to keep in mind:

- 70% / 30% composition - Less than one-third of the AVS window should be negative "dead" space.
- Rule of thirds - don't split the screen into halves, split it into thirds, to give it a more dynamic feeling. Also try not to place the main element directly in the center of the screen. This will also make it a whole lot less newb-ish
- Colors - when using multiple colors, use a wide range of contrast. This means you should have light colors and dark colors. Not just the same shade of red & purple & green.

But aside from that, there's a certain quality that can't be put into words that you'll develop. Again, look at the work of UCD. It wasn't until later in his packs he got a true sense of how a preset can look really good.

Always keep in mind that AVS is not an easy thing. We AVS artists are make up a small community because few have the patience & appreciation for the craft.

gah, I hate long posts.

Rovastar

10th October 2004 19:43 UTC

Helping newbies is a difficult problem at the best of time.

Most peopel want the qucik and easy 'answer' like thety are missing a variable the will make there preset insantly better.

e.g.

Cool = 10;

or something......

The state of play of AVS is hugely different that what it was years ago. Explain to a newbie to to do the most complex preset around is near enough impossible. There is soo much code in one of these it can take an experienced AVS time to work out what is happening.

It reminds of a VJ gig I did earlier this year at a big trance night in London I was using R4 and I some people were watching over my shoulder and asked "how do you do that?" I was too out of my head to answer properly and talked jibberish for a few seconds then they said "How do you make it move to the music?" I was too wasted to answer anything. So they suggested themselves that "it is like asking an artist to explain how he painted a picture.". I nodded in agreement. :)

Which does sum it process up in a way. Admited not a helpful way to people asking the question.

ANyway years ago what I did my MilKDrop guide I said this

"
Four things are useful for writing presets: Mathematics knowledge, artistic flare, persistence and luck. If you have any of these you will be able to create a decent preset and the more of each of these you have the better presets will become.

And before you go any further please read Ryan's "MilkDrop Preset Authoring Guide" guide found in the help. There is a lot of useful stuff in there. Print out a copy, if you can, along with this guide it will help when editing your presets on the fly.

If you have not got a clue after reading this then maybe a mathematics textbook will be handy. If you are thinking about maths "Arrrah, let me out!!" then don't worry you can create decent presets with very little mathematics knowledge. You will need to know what the sine (sin), cosine (cos), and (to a lesser extent) tangent (tan) and logarithms (log and log10) equations roughly do. These are used loads in the MilkDrop presets.

But to be fair the more you know the greater your potential of writing a better preset. You can just randomly put things in and possibly get a decent result, but if you actually understand what you're doing with the mathematics, you'll be able to get specific effects with relative ease. A background in programming doesn't go astray either.
"

I think a lot of that is stil relevant.

Nice guide PAK-9 soem the AVS community has been missing for years.

PAK-9

24th October 2004 12:58 UTC

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