Thank you everyone for the great ideas.

SMPTE code is encoded in an audio track, it can be easily sent and converted over distance. You can also use midi timecode for sync this works well. Many motu cards have the ability to convert to and from MTC <> LTC but their drivers for USB are awful so this only works on firewire.

This software is designed to do what you want, 

https://sononum.net/horae

It can be done in a variety of ways from Isadora but search sync in the forums, avoid jamming the position of one system into the position of another, a better way is to compare position and adjust speed of a slave accordingly, less overhead, I have worked like this a lot and been able to get pretty tight sync.

It would be much better to play the video and audio from the same system (or as much as you can)

You can also make the movie with an audio track that is timecode (you can generate LTC here http://elteesee.pehrhovey.net/) then send thius as audio to an LTC receiver, or convert it to MTC with this on mac https://figure53.com/lockstep/ or this on PC https://www.videotoolshed.com/...

Dear All,

Thank you so much for all your responses! 

I don't have the time right now, to answer all of your great feedback.

I tried using the position method , where the position of one "master" movie player controls the position of the rest, but that resulted in jittery playback.

I will try out the speed 0/1 method next, thank you for that idea!

best regards

mo

@bonemap thats a lovely patch! Thanks for sharing, uups was this a thank you too much 😝

Hi,

I've read through the feed and notice @symac mentioned to make the audience wear hats. Then he could maybe solve the IR problem by mounting little IR LED with battery on the hats. You can have very fine tracking after and no more echo problem with your projection.

That seems also easier than preparing the proper IR lighting of the area

@mark_m

Thanks for sharing your experience with these tools. I am only just starting to work with expressions in After effects mostly through using the DUIK character animation plugin. I have seen that After Effects has realtime output (including Syphon). I know it also has the Adobe face tracking functionality. I imagine it will be far more extensible than Character Animator but the area of realtime output and expressions functionality in After Effects is still a bit opaque to me. If you come across any useful tutorials I would appreciate the link.

best wishes,

bonemap

@DusX I do not have animata anymore

@fubbi thanks, sadly is mac only. BTW my problem is not to archive the task, with ableton or other DAW I can do it, my problem is to do all inside Isadora.

@craigw

Awesome!

Also, follow this link to @DusX 's post on a handy way to reduce clutter in your patches. I've been meaning to try it out myself. Maybe not the solution you were looking for, but could help reduce the clutter and therefore make things a bit clearer.

@jandraka et al thank you for your swift responses the advise has been so valuable. 

I purchased an Arduino and touch sensor to try out in our rehearsal this afternoon and I was able to trigger Isadora successfully with this little system. During the workshop we actually decided that this approach was not ideal for the performers to interact with so the Artistic Director has opted for a small i cube x system. Should be with us on Monday to test. I'm sure I'll be back on the forum with new questions very soon 😄

A great day of new learning, thanks Izzy community!

Is there a way to displace vertices with the GLSL actor as is normally possible with a Vertex Shader? How do we send in some shape or mesh etc. to the shader actor? All that seems available is the rectangle the fragment shader renders to. I can move the four corner vertices of that rect at least, left and right but not in the Z plane. Is this a limit of the GLSL actor in Isadora? Would love to have full range of vertex shader in Isadora. Thanks!

Very happy of my Teradek Bolts too.

I've been touring two years ( more than 100 performnces ), with three of them on stage ( 3 different video feeds), no problem.

Hi @gauze,

Here's the line you have to copy and past inside the TCP send to control the shutter :

to open :   "%1AVMT 30\r"    (keep the "   ")

to close :  "%1AVMT 31\r"

Each line must be in a different TCP send actor.

I think that starting with that, you'll be able to write the next control line and recall your memory.

I also think that Panasonic recently implemented ArtNet in their projector... Maybe it could be a path to explore too.

Best

@anrost said:

I worked it out! 
I had two Common Files folders, One in the x86 folder, and one in the regular one, i had simply made the FreeFrame folder with the reciever/sender files in the wrong one. 
Just a stupid little mistake, thank you for the help anyway!

 Ah great news! So glad! 

This will be helpful for new users reading this thread in times to come!

hi @andraka

evident!

so dumb...didn't try this one... thanks a lot.

AE is pretty straight forward, indeed. Thank you very much ;O)

@Maximortal Perfect its working. Thank you, much appreciated.  L 

@tomthebom

The Data Array is a tricky actor to work with as it stores values in an external text file. It is extensible, which means you determine the number of data values in the matrix and the variables of each of the data values are stored in corresponding 'lines' in an external text file. If I specify 10 data values (these are referred to as 'items' in the data array actor), 10 delimited values are stored across one line in the text file and the line number is then used to call up a corresponding set of data values or 'items'. The text file can store a growing number of lines (sets of item values) and the data array actor can read and write the item values within these 'lines' to the text file. The way to edit the 'items' in the text file is to determine the values of a set of items and then record them using the actor inputs: recall, erase, add, insert, replace, delete. None of the functionality to write, store, retrieve and edit the data array sets (stored in 'lines') is intuitive and the layout of the actor adds additional hurdles in determining what is being written to the text file and in what line order - hence it is both a powerful and frustrating actor to work with. It is very easy to inadvertently overwrite a specific line of values because the 'index' input is set to the wrong line number. In addition input values that can be written to the text file do not visually align with current values being read - therefore I recommend the construction of a user actor so that some sense can be made of data writing to the text file and data being read from the same text file and exactly where lines are being inserted or replaced.  Initially, I worked with the data sets as lines in the text file itself as it was easier to access, copy and paste lines of values or tweak values in the text file, rather than wrangle the read and write functionality of the data array actor itself. A good starting point is the Isadora manual.

If you can get yourself a cheap thermal spectrum camera you can save a lot of set-up time, because you can achieve IR tracking without the need for IR lighting. The thermal camera sees the heat of your performers bodies - so as long as the performers are emitting more heat than their surrounding environment it is a simple threshold calibration to separate them as tracking blobs. I continue to use a FLIR VSR6 for blob tracking - it was the least expensive 'surveillance' style thermal available at the time and I used an arts research grant to purchase it. The camera has serial controls and BNC analogue video output - I have never had to use the serial interface - just plug straight into the BNC video jack. It is analogue so not without latency when converting to a digital signal - however the time saving in reduced set-up worked for me as the original show toured for a few years and had many other interactive components including Kinect, along with eight blended projectors mapped around two 6 mtr scrim/gauze cylinders. The thermal camera was set at the top of one of the cylinders and tracked audiences that were in there - spatializing the soundtrack and visuals.

The FLIR VSR 6 is no longer in production and might not have the field of view that you require, or the resolution (160x120 pixels). I was getting a tracking zone of around  4 x 6 mtr with the camera mounted at 6 mtr in the grid. I used simple cat 5 baluns to get the thermal video signal to the I/O unit and into Isadora for tracking. The tracking data was also converted to midi and sent out to a companion machine running max msp controlling a quadraphonic soundtrack.

Thermal cameras appear on e-bay from time to time. A HD digital thermal camera carries a fairly hefty price tag. 

regards

bonemap 

I'll test these ideas,

Thank you.