accumulated feedback
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:46 pm
hi there
during my use of magic i gathered some feedback i'd like to share (i really like how the name enables puns "how did you do this?" - "with magic" . it consists of small and big changes or additions. I'll add to this list when more comes up. the list conists of items that i think should be there or would be a good idea. i'll happily discuss the validity of them .
- middle mouse button for panning: using the scroll wheel and bars can get a bit tedious.
- overall sound volume / responsiveness: i catch myselv adjusting the system volume to controle the overall responsiveness of things. would be nice to have something like a "master volume" or "master responsiveness" within magic.
- particle systems: either a completely new particle system that can use the existing geometries as origin, or modifying the starsystem in a way that allows for more flexibility (emit in only 1 axis, emit radially, emit from a point, not a plane, and so on) and other particles than polygons.
- possibility to arrange many objects more easily: i find myself placing several polygons in a very tedious way. practical would be some kind of placing system or array that can place n objects in a grid or matrix or any other imaginable way.
- control module bypassing via midi/other: being able to use midi inputs to turn on/off certain modules or to bypass them.
- control modifiers via midi/other
- connect nodes easier: selecting multiple nodes at once and set them as input/output of one other node
- replace nodes with copied other nodes
- glow/bloom: some kind of another glow effect than the radial blur. (i imagine this will be possible with the freeform effects?)
- vignetting
- namechange of scenes with doubleclick or other conform shortcuts (F2)
- presentation mode: a mode where choosing where selecting scenes in the scene-bar is not making magic switch to them. this could be useful for adjustments on-the-fly ("darn, the bass dependent visuals are not working at all, better increase their responsiveness quickly"). this could also be done via midi of course, when modifieres could be controlled via that.
- possibility to use png-sequences as movie clips (because png actually support an alpha channel) (also other-format sequences).
- not keeping everything in memory: as far as i get this, the amout of objects and videos and what ever you are able to accumulate, is limited to your graphics memory. i get that the advantage of this is, that you can mix every single thing together and switch instantly to every scene. the way i'm building scenes they are often dependent on each other because i use scenes to group things which is pretty nice. however it would still be nice if i could unload a scene and the subscenes it depends on, because i'm not using them anymore. that way i'll be able to get more memory back for other things. this thought crossed my mind when i imagine myself doing a multiple hour show. my 2gb of vram wont last long in that case, especially when using a lot of movie clips.
i would it imagine like this: beforehand i predefine groups of scene (another suggestion here would be to use some kind of additional hierarchy level, eg. scenes and subscenes) which i want to use and not use at a certain point, let's call them scenegroups 1, 2, 3 and 4. i also predefine that scenegroup 1 and 2 are loaded at the beginning. during the performance i fade to scenegroup 2 at some point. scenegroup 2 is completely independent from scenegroup 1, so i decide to unload scenegroup 1. now i have additional memory free and i choose to preload scene 3. once this is completed, i can start to fade from 2 to 3, and so on.
that's that so far, i'll add more as soon as they pop up. thanks for everything.
\\Edits:
- being able to multiply a mask with a video or image input. (as i'm creating content in blender it's pretty easy to create a seperate movie file (or image) that is only a b/w mask). that may be a less resource-intensive method than lumakey?
- If a value responds to an input or not also should be controllable via midi. That way you could enable reactivity to bass at a certain point for example.
- as the volume often changes a bit from song to song, the response rom reacting parts also vary (suddenly values are too weak or too strong. This can be countered by adjusting the system volume of the mic in or screwing with the modifiers on the fly. However it's tedious. I wondered if it's possible to make some kind of feature that "listenes" to the imput for a few seconds and then auto adjusts a scale modifier in a way that the range of incoming values is between 0 and 1 (or other prespecified values). This feature could also be toggled via midi and "listen" as long as that midi button is pressed.
during my use of magic i gathered some feedback i'd like to share (i really like how the name enables puns "how did you do this?" - "with magic" . it consists of small and big changes or additions. I'll add to this list when more comes up. the list conists of items that i think should be there or would be a good idea. i'll happily discuss the validity of them .
- middle mouse button for panning: using the scroll wheel and bars can get a bit tedious.
- overall sound volume / responsiveness: i catch myselv adjusting the system volume to controle the overall responsiveness of things. would be nice to have something like a "master volume" or "master responsiveness" within magic.
- particle systems: either a completely new particle system that can use the existing geometries as origin, or modifying the starsystem in a way that allows for more flexibility (emit in only 1 axis, emit radially, emit from a point, not a plane, and so on) and other particles than polygons.
- possibility to arrange many objects more easily: i find myself placing several polygons in a very tedious way. practical would be some kind of placing system or array that can place n objects in a grid or matrix or any other imaginable way.
- control module bypassing via midi/other: being able to use midi inputs to turn on/off certain modules or to bypass them.
- control modifiers via midi/other
- connect nodes easier: selecting multiple nodes at once and set them as input/output of one other node
- replace nodes with copied other nodes
- glow/bloom: some kind of another glow effect than the radial blur. (i imagine this will be possible with the freeform effects?)
- vignetting
- namechange of scenes with doubleclick or other conform shortcuts (F2)
- presentation mode: a mode where choosing where selecting scenes in the scene-bar is not making magic switch to them. this could be useful for adjustments on-the-fly ("darn, the bass dependent visuals are not working at all, better increase their responsiveness quickly"). this could also be done via midi of course, when modifieres could be controlled via that.
- possibility to use png-sequences as movie clips (because png actually support an alpha channel) (also other-format sequences).
- not keeping everything in memory: as far as i get this, the amout of objects and videos and what ever you are able to accumulate, is limited to your graphics memory. i get that the advantage of this is, that you can mix every single thing together and switch instantly to every scene. the way i'm building scenes they are often dependent on each other because i use scenes to group things which is pretty nice. however it would still be nice if i could unload a scene and the subscenes it depends on, because i'm not using them anymore. that way i'll be able to get more memory back for other things. this thought crossed my mind when i imagine myself doing a multiple hour show. my 2gb of vram wont last long in that case, especially when using a lot of movie clips.
i would it imagine like this: beforehand i predefine groups of scene (another suggestion here would be to use some kind of additional hierarchy level, eg. scenes and subscenes) which i want to use and not use at a certain point, let's call them scenegroups 1, 2, 3 and 4. i also predefine that scenegroup 1 and 2 are loaded at the beginning. during the performance i fade to scenegroup 2 at some point. scenegroup 2 is completely independent from scenegroup 1, so i decide to unload scenegroup 1. now i have additional memory free and i choose to preload scene 3. once this is completed, i can start to fade from 2 to 3, and so on.
that's that so far, i'll add more as soon as they pop up. thanks for everything.
\\Edits:
- being able to multiply a mask with a video or image input. (as i'm creating content in blender it's pretty easy to create a seperate movie file (or image) that is only a b/w mask). that may be a less resource-intensive method than lumakey?
- If a value responds to an input or not also should be controllable via midi. That way you could enable reactivity to bass at a certain point for example.
- as the volume often changes a bit from song to song, the response rom reacting parts also vary (suddenly values are too weak or too strong. This can be countered by adjusting the system volume of the mic in or screwing with the modifiers on the fly. However it's tedious. I wondered if it's possible to make some kind of feature that "listenes" to the imput for a few seconds and then auto adjusts a scale modifier in a way that the range of incoming values is between 0 and 1 (or other prespecified values). This feature could also be toggled via midi and "listen" as long as that midi button is pressed.