SteamSHIFT

Beautiful

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art

Check it out … Sensible offers accepted.

SteamSHIFT out.

On the quartzcomposer-dev list, someone mentioned that the ‘Render in Image’ patch is pretty gpu etc. intensive. I use it quite a lot for switching between different visible patches, so I thought I’d check it out in a bit more detail.

This zipped Quartz Composer file is a simple composition that uses ‘Render in Image’ and a ‘Multiplexer’ to switch between different patches.

This zipped Quartz Composer file is the same composition, but using 5 standard macro patches and a javascript patch, designed to work as an inverse multiplexer (taking a index and switching the relevant output to 1, with rest set to 0).

What was the outcome? Well the latter, uses 10 less patches, uses less AGP memory (measured using OpenGL Driver Monitor - in /Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools), and shows a smoother line in debug for Execution Time and Rendering Time. It definitely shows savings even on such a simple composition.

I find it odd that you have to use a javascript patch to do something so straightforward - surely this must confuse beginners? Also I couldn’t find a way of making the javascript detect how many outputs there are. Finally, although the javascript patch is fine for this, it would be better to have a real patch that could take a default input and a selected input, and allow those inputs to be any type (image, number, index, etc).

Hope this helps someone eke a bit more speed out of their composition. SteamSHIFT out.

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VJ, quartz composer, mac, osx, experiments, macro, javascript

I have a very large composition which I use for my visuals (anybody got any good alternatives to having huge compositions - needs seamless switching from one composition to another). In fact it is so big that my default user account won’t load it! So, I’m doing a bit of work and I decide I want something out of it. The answer, create a copy of the composition and open it up in PlistEdit Pro, then chop out the stuff I don’t want, save and then open up in Quartz Composer. Bingo!

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quartz composer, experiments, plist

A simple update to the widget I made for the Category Tagging plugin: you now specify the parameters for the tag cloud in the widget control. Download the widget.

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developing, php, wordpress, widgets

Real quick post for really quickly knocked up widget. So I decided to stop using categories as categories and use them as tags; much more straightforward. I’m using the Category Tagging plugin which is really neat and works really well. However, I wanted to use it a widget. So here is my first widget: all it does is grab the cloud from the Category Tagging plugin and display it. It needs all the Category Tagging plugin options connecting to the widget control interface rather than being hard coded; but it works! Here is the CSS I used (I put it at the bottom of the stylesheet)

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developing, php, wordpress, widgets

When I am not mucking about with Quartz Composer and interesting electronic bits and bobs, I work as a web developer. I came across a problem recently where some of the work I was doing on one site affected another on the same server. As I wasn’t watching the log files of the other server, I was unaware of the problem - not good!

PHP has functions built in for dealing with errors, but these don’t extend to Fatal Errors and Parse Errors. What to do? The Apache error log mechanism where the PHP errors end up can cope with being given a program instead of a file. So some dubious shell scripting later, I now have a program that appends the result to the correct error file as usual, but also checks to see if the error contains either of the strings ‘PHP Parse’ or ‘PHP Fatal’ and if so, emails the error to me.

Problem solved - instant notification (contact me if you want the script)!

SteamSHIFT out.

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osx, server, developing, php, error

Coming soon:

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VJ, Southampton, music, club

This one stumped me for a bit … If you are using a Javascript Patch in Quartz Composer, watch out for the fact that if the inputs aren’t changing, it doesn’t process. The way around this is simply to add a ‘Patch Time’ node, connecting it to another input on the Javascript Patch. You don’t even need to reference it in the javascript.

SteamSHIFT out.

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quartz composer, tutorial, osx, experiments, javascript

Based on an experiment by Sam Kass (BTW check out his compositions - some very useful stuff there), here is a simple but useful quartz composer clip (put it in /Library/Application Support/Apple/Quartz Composer/Clips) that takes 2 images and makes the second one the same size as the first.

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quartz composer, mac, osx, experiments, clip, macro