Tom Ellard

2nd February 2002 07:40 UTC

AVS in the real world.
I've been using AVS in a live setting recently (video with live music). I know it was only intended as a sophisticated colour organ of sorts but quite a few people are trying use it as a performance instrument. I've got a few discussion notes....

- Not enough hot keys. The Function keys and the numeric keys don't offer enough presets to fill an hour long performance. I thought maybe of copying banks in and out of the WinAmp folder using a DOS script. Anyone got a cleverer idea?

- The size of the AVS window doesn't bother me - I run the lap top screen at 640 by 480, then use a scan converter to reproduce just the top left corner and the AVS window. (I'm using a Corioscan Select.)That small resolution is fine once you're projecting on a screen. It's fast and keeps up with the music.

- I would love to be able to put my AVI's in a different (bigger) folder. Any ideas?

- To the author of PRON and Slideshow APE's. I got PRON working well with a toy camera sold in Australia by Haminex - the Digipix 100E - only about $50 USD. Horrible quality but it is just fine with AVS. Slideshow works well too - except the Premiere transitions crash the machine (bad when performing live). Which version of Premiere is it supposed to support?

- I think that it's time that AVS is documented. I know that it's fun to dabble with the mysterious but I want to play the piano, not build one. :)

Regards to all.

Rovastar

2nd February 2002 14:34 UTC

Re: AVS in the real world.

Originally posted by Tom Ellard

- I think that it's time that AVS is documented. I know that it's fun to dabble with the mysterious but I want to play the piano, not build one. :)

cmountford

3rd February 2002 06:19 UTC

book on AVS
Tom Ellard: your post suggesting that AVS should finally be documented made me want to type this up just to see what sort of interest people might have in this idea I'd been considering for several months.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am considering writing a book on AVS with the help of any of the experts on AVS who might be willing to help me understand some of the more advanced aspects of AVS. It may sound weird wanting to write a book on something that I don't understand completely - but look at it this way: I write about everything I know about, and for the things I don't, I ask experts. I've never heard anyone else offering to write a book, so why don't I write the first book on AVS.

Unless I can see some evidence in the forums that it would sell well, I don't see a way of being able to convince somebody to publish it.

I'd appreciate any feedback from people who would be interested in helping me write this book. I'd also like to hear from people who would be willing to support me in pursuing this.

Any people who would support me in contacting Justin to get permission to write a book on AVS, please reply to this post-or you can e-mail me at cmountford@pccompsoft.net

Thank you for your interest in making this happen.



Sincerely,



C. Mountford

Tom Ellard

3rd February 2002 10:36 UTC

>Unless I can see some evidence in the forums that it would sell well, I don't see a way of being able to convince somebody to publish it.

A book about a free program should be free, really. Just make it HTML, put it somewhere. Run a banner maybe.

I'd start with the hard stuff. Buffers & how to use them, APEs & how to use/program them, effect lists. And stuff like what the hell does it actually mean when you place two effects in the one preset... are they parallel or serial? sequential? modulated? It's not actually clear...

Because that way it becomes a resource faster than if you start with 'double click the left button'.

>Any people who would support me in contacting Justin to get permission

Not so much permission (it's not as if nullsoft are charging at the bit to document avs) as 'are you going to change something that makes my book instantly redundant?' But I support you. Maybe could contribute some stuff.

If you could get a few people to explain their patches that'd be very useful.

JaY FaTBoY

4th February 2002 08:19 UTC

A book? Do you mean a one in HTML? Because if you mean a real book, i am not sure that AVS is popular enough so that many people will buy it. But documentation is needed really. AVS is a bit scary for people who haven't touched it before or dealt with vis plugins before that (almost like me). So writing a whole book would be hard. I know that Zen-X has been working on a "guide" and it is being finished,so you can talk to him maybe.

Illusion

4th February 2002 12:02 UTC

If you want a vis program with decent explanations and tutorials, try MilkDrop. It doesn't have quite as many featires as AVS but runs much quicker and has a comprehensive user guide on how to write presets. It looks a little complext to work out at first but has a number of very cool features, including being able to load particular presets in fullscreen, playlists, multi-monitor capability, and also custom messages (in the latest beta v1.02 beta2). Give it a shot and post on the forums with what you think...

UnConeD

4th February 2002 16:57 UTC

Why is it that Milkdrop people take every opportunity to 'convert' AVS users to their game? :)
There was an "AVS vs. Milkdrop"-thread a while ago (it was a friendly discussion, not what the subject may suggest) which talked about the fact that AVS had no guides and Milkdrop did... well AVS does have more help inside than Milkdrop.

I've written some tuts on AVS here as posts, you can use the search feature to locate them.

Rovastar

4th February 2002 20:15 UTC

Illusion,

The Force is strong with this one!

Patience, my friend. In time he will seek you out. And when he does, you must bring him before me. He has grown strong. Only together can we turn him to the dark side of the Force.


UnConeD,

If you only knew the power of the dark side.

Give yourself to the dark side. Yes UnConeD, your thoughts betray you.

You underestimate the power of the dark side.

Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side.

It is unavoidable. It is your destiny.

I'm looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.


Rovastar

cmountford

4th February 2002 22:06 UTC

sorry I didn't reply sooner
I would have replied sooner, but I had to write a speech.

Anyway...whatever you guys want is okay with me. If you don't want AVS documented, then I won't bother writing it. It was just a possibility if you were interested.

C. Mountford

Illusion

5th February 2002 03:48 UTC

Sorry unconed, didn't mean to interfere. I'll keep to the AVS v MD post next time....

BTW, nice Star Wars-style post there Rova :)

Anyhow unconed, where can I find some of your AVS presets? So I can see whether they are worthy ;)

loungeroom

10th February 2002 12:08 UTC

CMount,

I think a book would be an excellent idea.

As mentioned previously there are numerous resources to draw from (all referencable as links in appendices) and plenty of examples that could be used as explanatory projects. Certainly as an author, you may be able to plead to the Winamp developers for some "inside info" on the workings of AVS. If you've read a few of the posts in this group you'll notice there is a lot of uncertainty and conjecture about the true machinations of this awesome tool. I believe that it's popularity would increase no end with the publication of a Wrox style instructional text (that's how I interpreted your concept of a book).

I imagine the style would be a little like "Viz for Dummies" to begin with, setting up, understanding the various facets and controls, documenting technicalities for initially getting started. That would get all the newbies started and experimenting, and then you could get into more complex preset sets demonstrating how to combine presets for various effects. The final few chapters could be rather terse in describing some of the more complex transformation and scope presets ( and their associated arcana in formulae and expression).

As a bonus (or perhaps even a second edition) you might like to explore preset programming (or provide some preset development resources on CD-ROM).

Pleased to discuss this topic further.

loungeroom

UnConeD

10th February 2002 19:37 UTC

Mmm it seems people always have a hard time finding my presets, because it's the n'th time I've posted the URL here :)

The url is http://avs.acko.net/ or do a search on "Whacko" here on Winamp.com. Or you can click my name and grab the URL from my forum-profile. Works for most people really :)

By the way, who says Milkdrop is the dark side? You guys obviously haven't discovered the new subliminal.ape I included in my last preset pack!

dirkdeftly

11th February 2002 00:31 UTC

Hmm...I guess I'm not alone in making a guide.
Mine should be finished soon also, I'll upload it to my site.

cmountford

12th February 2002 06:09 UTC

AVS pack
I was just wondering whether people would find explanations of plugins as simple as the ones in the pack useful or not. These are some of my simplest, but I still like them because of the colors.

Thank you very much for everybody who has posted a reply to my post.

C. Mountford

cmountford

12th February 2002 06:15 UTC

I forgot the pack-but it won't let me use.exe
I originally forgot entirely to attach the self-extracting .exe file I created, but it only allows .zip files. Will get back later to send correct format-but don't know when.

cmountford

12th February 2002 06:33 UTC

here's the .zip
here's the .zip file of a .exe file.

NoSage

14th February 2002 18:39 UTC

I don't like the idea of instructions of anykind for AVS. It would make everything too easy, for everyone. If everyone knew how to make far-out presets then whats the point. Imagine if everyone had the power of someone like Bill Gates? That would be something called a utopia. The only thing I do with AVS is superscopes, sure I can create simple movements and dynamics, but superscopes is something not everyone can make. I taught myself how to do AVSs by looking other peoples work like El-Vis's and Tonic's. They are geniouses because others can't do what they can. People can buy books on how to program in c++, but i basically taught myself, now there are literally millions of video games and programs, so now what good is my knowledge in c++?

Rovastar

14th February 2002 19:26 UTC

NoSage,

So your argument as to why there should not be a guide is that people will create better stuff than you can??

For new comers to AVS they surely need direction of where to start. A published book is a bit much but there is a huge community here and if every one chipped in with there knowledge it would be easy.

Detailed walkthrough of the default and your own presets line by line would help people trying to understand AVS. I feel this would help me being an 'outsider' to this community.

If as someone that can make 'superscopes' then surely you should share that knowledge help others.

I sometimes get disillusioned with certain parts of the AVS community as I feel that you do not want to attract new members. Surely the more members you have, the more AVS presets made therefore more good quailty AVS presets and then getting more ideas of things that YOU could do in AVS therefore creating more presets helping everyone else.

Or am I missing something?

A short while ago there was a thread of how to attract more people to the forums? Maybe that thread should have been how to reduce the number coming to these forums. :confused: :weird:


Unconed

'it's the n'th time I've posted the URL here'

You should feel good that you are so in demand.:) maybe you need to have a sig.:)

Rovastar

ShoutingMime

14th February 2002 19:27 UTC

AVS Hard to work with for a reason?
speaking as a newbie I can say that Yes AVS is hard to work with at first. And the idea of having a "book" / "Guide" would be nice... but... for the folks who make this look easy I believe it would not be fair to just hand us newbies a book that breaks it down to a simple easy to read format.
From what I've seen, it's math that stops you from being good, or just okay.
Even I asked for help with the math, once I was pointed in the right direction though it was a whole new world.
So I'd say a book is a bad idea. Us newbies need to struggle with AVS for awhile. I'd rather earn the respect from the "forefathers" of AVS.:weird:

transfrmr

15th February 2002 00:00 UTC

Hey guys...
I haven't been around much lately, took a little "cyber-break" and enjoyed the outside world for a while, but that was then and this is now... Hey to everyone I remember and those of you I don't.. I'm no AVS pro, far from it, but I've dabbled and continue to do so, mostly to satisfy my own unhealthy obsession :)

First and foremost, I'd like to mention something personal. Avs is largely responsible for my going back to school after a 3 year "break". Finally, that math has a physical representation that can wrap my head around. Now I want to understand and manipulate it... I'm not just going to study math though, taking some programming classes next semester hopefully. If I'd had a guide to AVS, I probably would have gotten bored of it in a week, it's thelearning that makes it so great!

too once conceived of compressing the wealth of AVS knowledge into a guidebook format, but thought better of it later.. The more I played with equations and figured out more of it myself, the more I realised that it's not really about inputting numbers to get specific results, anyone could do that. The cool part about AVS is the Journey that it takes you along as you figure out each part of it and how it interacts with others. Without that learning experience, the mystery, the challenge, and the passion will also fade away. I've always said that if someone doesn't want to bother making AVS's, there's already enough to download and keep them busy watching for a long time. But those who chose to create them get the joy of spreading something from their mind across the world. It should be hard and it should be work, because in the end, that's why it's so rewarding.


As for the specifics of your post. I don't think the hotkey issue is important. I think that instead (and I've said this before) an AVS Playlist is needed for those wishing to use them as a VJ'ing tool. With the playlist, you can organise the files, and re-organise just as you would music, and use the hotkeys for select presets that you want to have "on hand". I got around this at a couple of events by making avs directories with good combinations of files that I'd set on random auto. Then I'd have some files on the hotkeys (DJ-intros, special thanks and promos) that I could cue in any time... however, you haveto organise and move the files manually and physically, where a playlist would enable you to just pick which files to play in what order. I know nothing of programming, but I wonder how hard it would be to take the playlist code from winamp and apply it slightly changed to AVS...


Anyways... no need to ramble any more...

The true masters will always get there on their own, the rest will use Milkdrop etc... It's all personal opinions anyways.

BTW... Guys like Unconed and El-Vis still make me cry... after a few months hiatus from avs'ing (burn-out sorta needed spacef from it all) I downloaded their new packs and drooled all over the floor..

Rovastar

15th February 2002 00:45 UTC

Re: Hey guys...

Originally posted by transfrmr

The true masters will always get there on their own, the rest will use Milkdrop etc...

transfrmr

15th February 2002 03:29 UTC

pffft!
Actually...

hehehe... sorry about that.... I meant Geiss, but had Milkdrop on my mind from the previous posts.. that's what I get for trying to post and watch a movie at the same time....

milkdrop or avs, it's all the same, you'll end up doing whatever you want anyways... right?

NoSage

15th February 2002 05:14 UTC

BTW... Guys like Unconed and El-Vis still make me cry... after a few months hiatus from avs'ing (burn-out sorta needed spacef from it all) I downloaded their new packs and drooled all over the floor..

cmountford

15th February 2002 05:47 UTC

becoming a senior member/major dude
In response to your question about how you can become a senior member/major dude:

You can't just sign up on a list or anything to get promoted in the forums; it's simply a matter of the number of posts you've made. It was most likely made to give newbies a general idea of the skill level of the people in the forum.

The senior members and major dudes you see in the forum have most likely been in the AVS discussion forum just about as long as it's been around, so don't think that just because you aren't a senior member or major dude that you are destined to know nothing about AVS until you become one. It's really not about how good you are compared to others; it's mainly about having fun just tinkering with it. Sure everybody knows that there are a few people in this forum with exceptional talent; but you shouldn't sweat it if you're not that good. It's mainly about just having fun with the level you're interested in pursuing in AVS.

cmountford

NoSage

15th February 2002 17:54 UTC

It's just about havin' fun...:winamp: