This is a screen grab of me testing out some settings on a recent Quartz Composer based application that used Quartz Builder and GL Tools.

I'm putting together this visual instrument as part of a an idea for a music video I'm putting together. I have made the app available (in this version), and am still having fun with it, and plan to add some more looks.

This idea was to have a "pen" that could draw many different types of looks, made up of line systems. Even though this screen grab is pretty long, I still haven't shown all of the variety of things that can be done with this by a long shot. This screen grab reflects me scrolling through some settings and seeing what I get, more or less.

This has some different view environments, some line offset stuff, color controls, audio reactivity controls, and some other stuff. It is a bit dense, but a rewarding visual instrument. I definitely feel a bit like this is a valid instrument that can be played like a music instrument, in many ways, and I look forward to refining it even more.

I've been kind of itching at doing this for awhile, so I've been having a blast putting this together, and as always, have a next version that is a few steps ahead of what is shown here. I've been wrapped up in some interesting QC work for the past week and a half or so, and this was like a fun, artistic release, but in a "programming way".

This is a bit of part of a quest to do stuff that looks more and more unlike what people thing of as being the Quartz Composer "look" (ala rotating cube tutorials). I had someone asking about this on the QC mailing list, and it was something I had already had on my mind from seeing some tv ads. I had someone mention it another time, so I took that as a good reason to make this a current side-project!

So, this is really just a whimsical scrolling through my app to feel it out.

The app is available at the Composition Repository at kineme.net, as well as georgetoledo.com. If you download it, keep in mind that the parameters are available via the menu bar or by hot-keying "command-I". Two finger x/y scrolling "does stuff", camera position can be inferred by "grabbing" the viewer window and repositioning (in all but "classic mode), and that there are a great deal of looks that can get made with this by changing the particle number at the bottom, and playing with the blend modes.

I plan on making the actual Quartz Composer source code available as well once I have it locked in exactly how I wish it to be. For now, I'm just compiling versions of the app as it evolved with Quartz Builder. Very alpha phase!