Start of the week with some fresh pixels.

Cytology by Catmac
As cells divide and recombine, life continues to evolve.

Get Cytology from Resolume Footage

Geometrika by Videomaster
The use of volumetric lighting in this pack is nothing short of spectacular

Get Geometrika from Resolume Footage

BlackDancer by Chromosoom
Infuse some class into your set.

Get BlackDancer from Resolume Footage

We've only heard about Compton in rap songs but like Eazy-E, we did get the 8 ball rolling. Here is Resolume Avenue & Arena 6.0.8. This version has more than 40 ounces of bug fixes and is packing some nice additions to the Parameter Envelopes. You can now create envelope presets. Edit the parameters of an envelope keyframe and when you're done fold it to make it smaller.


Now don't drink brass monkey but get funky on the 6.0.8 download.

New
9153 Envelope Presets
8682 Envelope Keyframe Parameters
10526 Envelope Folding
10970 Slice Transform, allow flipping in Mask mode
9668 Can i has F2 to rename a screen/slice?

Fixed
10883 Resolume indentifies two displays as the same on PC
11038 Clip loading hangs on a grey bar
11024 MM can't relocate files which have & (&) character in the original file path
11062 Input & Output Guide when importing image stays blank
11013 After duplicating a clip, you cannot add effects to the original
10919 Cannot select stereo FFT input.
10978 Group dashboard assignment is broken
10953 MM: Relocate by double click doesn't work
10957 Alley shortcut on desktop points to wrong folder
11224 Instant app crash Shift + dragging clip onto layer's playing clip thumbnail slot
11187 Layer master fader dashboard assignments are bound to the composition dashboard on reload
11212 Decklink mini hdmi signal contains transparency
10954 Distribution of DMX values over ParamChoice is incorrect
11014 Allow reordering of decks without switching
10991 When you set a clip to SMPTE timeline, the time remaining label initially displays milliseconds
10989 Envelope: if Value is at max you can't edit it anymore using the spinner
10987 Autopilot incorrectly triggers action after being reenabled and clip has been around the block
10976 Don't render a VirtualOutputDevice if its texture is not being used
10964 Add a 'Blur Distance' parameter to the Blur plugin that acts as a multiplier to 'Blur X Distance' and 'Blur Y Distance'
10912 slide effect shows black gap between texture instances when animated.
10904 Fix last used layout not being restored on restart
10873 Hue jumps back to 0 when saturation is 0
10724 Crop effect on a layer: Right and Bottom max out on composition reopen to 1920 and 1080
10722 OSC mapping: clip in/out points have the same address as the playhead, they can't be changed this way.
10658 Weird result when envelope is first applied without automation
10542 Slice input list gets messed up when screen and layer/group names are the same as screen names
10176 OSC: composition/layers//clips//connect not launching clips when getting selectedclip/connect at the same time
9883 OSC output all preset doesn't output /composition/layers/position
8848 group audio/vst source not cleared corretly after audio clip eject
7674 Envelope editor, placing several points to the most left or right edge, the lines connecting the dots disappear
11000 After duplicating a clip it can't be replaced any more by dragging a file to it's clip slot
11174 Shaper Source controls can't be assigned to dashboard
11029 The NanoKontrol MIDI preset does not actually do what we says it does
11041 Don't set audio device type from input device combobox
11163 OSC: Shaper source Shape1 and Shape2 OSC addresses are incorrect

Ultra Music Festival is a technology lover’s Disneyland. Every year, the month of March has all eyes on Miami: Artists showcasing fresh sounds and music; Visual artists showcasing fresh content & mad skills; festival organizers showcasing new heights of production design; and fans showcasing new levels of outrageous clothing. The festival has it all.[fold][/fold]

Photo by Rudgr.com

A close look at the Main Stage over the years tells us one thing: It is a visual artist’s wildest dreams come true. With super complex rigs, a robust mega structure to hold it all and processing power to tickle our nerd parts, it is always a really well-designed canvas where visual artists can come and show off. And man, do they come all guns blazing.

This year’s stage was remarkably symmetric. Not just left to right but also top to bottom. We especially liked the L’ shaped LED mesh columns that were used to create a massive X. Arranged in a way to make full use of the Z axis, with the ‘L’ shape, the designers ensured no gaps in the LED- no matter what angle you view the stage from.

Photo by Rudgr.com

A small almost unnoticeable detail, but this makes all the difference in the world for an LED heavy stage. The countless pixel strips and a massive lighting & laser inventory perfectly added the cherry to the top.

Photo by Rudgr.com

In our Ultra series of blogposts, we take a look into what went down in making the enormous Main stage, this 20th year of Ultra, a reality. To start off with, our go- to person is, of course, Vello Virkhaus – Resident VJ at Ultra Worldwide for over 15 years.

Vello in the mix: Photo by Eric Mintzer

A genius in anything related to pixels and visual production, Vello & V Squared Labs are real pioneers and have been such an integral part of making Ultra reach the technological heights it’s achieved.

Photo by Eric Mintzer

Thank you for doing this, Vello! Let’s get right into it.

How long have you been on this crazy ride with Ultra?

I have been associated with Ultra as a VJ and visual art talent resource for close to 20 years. Time flies when you are having fun!

Over these past 20 years I have seen so much growth in the visual arts community, having met visual artists from around the world, touring with the Ultra family.

Ultra Japan 2016

Ultra Brazil 2016: Photo by Rukes

Talk to us about this growth. What has stuck with you the most?

During the formative years of Ultra, I would VJ from opening till closing, performing 12 hour sets, back to back with very few guest VJ’s. This was an epic journey with wild weather thrown in, to say the least. I used to have management deliver artist visuals on DVDs and VHS tapes. Artists like Armin and Paul Van Dyke used to provide me with visual loop DVD’s, some containing logos on blue backgrounds so I could key them out on my analog switcher to layer over additional elements. Most of my show was standard definition and was still partially mixed off tapes.

Looking back to these early days feels like the dark ages now. This is just an example of the remarkable growth that has occurred. We have come such a long way in our technology and methods of expression. Look at the Armin show now, and see how much the visual art and music scene has exploded globally.

Ultra Miami 2012

Another visible sign of growth has been the increased scale of the production and audience attendance. There was a time when rave culture was illegal and not commercially acceptable. There was a time when Ultra had only one 16x9 LED screen on stage as a backdrop with two flanking IMAG screens stage right and left. Maybe 100 tiles max. Now the main stage is 1587 LED tiles. WHOA. I still remember protesting for the Right to Dance and VJ’ing the night away at illegal warehouse raves in Chicago. Look at us now.

Ultra Miami 2016

That is an incredible story. Look at us now, indeed.
So Circa 2018, let’s talk about the creative process behind the stage and content.

For content creation, I typically get animated materials from Luis Torres, Ultra's animation lead. The process involves a technical review and then a final delivery. I usually get 10-15 pixel mapped animations which I incorporate into all the change- over looks throughout the day. This process has been established and in effect for many years now.

Luis Torres, Ultra Music Festival

Luis Torres, Ultra Music Festival

Luis Torres, Ultra Music Festival

I also program custom generative effects using the Macro Editor/Panel Effects and Chasers/Tracers systems in Crescent Sun. The combination of pixel mapped content layered with architectural, generative panel based visuals makes for some good looks, and lots of possibilities.

I also curate content from my visuals library, along with integrating artist visuals for every Ultra. My approach has always been to group content into large theme banks, and to make sure I have enough, stylistic variation in the main project to hop across aesthetic choices in a rapid manner.

For Ultra Miami 2018, I used Resolume 6 along with Crescent Sun as the primary media server package. I use Resolume to quickly trigger columns of preset mixes, running in 8 layers x 200 columns of content for my primary deck. I capture Resolume into Crescent Sun via a magewell capture card, along with IMAG cameras. The combination of the two different programs (Touch & Resolume) has always been my jam.

When it comes to the all things Stage design, Richard Milstein is the mastermind behind Ultra’s unique stages, of late. I know he currently collaborates closely with Ray Steinman and The Activity/Patrick Deirson for rendering, production and lighting design.
As the House VJ, I really enjoy the canvas I am provided to paint on.

Main Stage Render by The Activity

And how much LED went into this colossal canvas?

A LOT!

The video was 50 ft (15 mtr) high by about 150 ft (45 mtr) wide.

Most of the stage was made up of 8 mm tiles. The columns and top fingers was 37mm.

With the Upstage Video Wall, UMF logo, DJ Booth & IMAG there were around 1240 x 8 mm tiles & 350 x 37 mm tiles for the columns and top fingers.


Wow. That’s close to a 1000 sq mtr (10,000 sq ft) of LED. Massive massive.
You guys seemed to process all of that like child’s play..

For processing AG provided the Barco e2 as the primary screen management tool. It easily handled the complex number of HDMI / DisplayPort inputs and outputs.

The e2 also provided the ability to have multiple preview monitors setup so guest VJ's could view their signals and check pixel maps before they go live. The e2 is very low latency at 1 frame or less for progressive sources.

When our international vendors do not have Barco technology, we also integrate the Analog Way Ascender units.

Running one of the biggest festival stages around the world, you obviously face an onslaught of guest VJs running timecode, live feed and inputs to LED processors- How do you handle the madness?

Overall, we have been trying to consolidate and group 1920 HD outputs into 4k signals to reduce the number of cables needed at FOH, per setup. There are usually 3-4 VJ positions at each Ultra around the world, which have ethernet for TC, audio PGM and HD-SDI for camera feeds as well as inputs to processors.

Ultra Miami 2018- Pixel Map 1

Ultra Miami 2018- Pixel Map 2

My solution to the FOH craziness was to create an Ultra VJ rider that we can distribute to the various production vendors around the world. This combined with effective artist rider review and solid team communication makes the experience flow smoothly. With the rider and emails our teams know exactly what everyone needs/wants and can provide enough runs to accommodate all artists way ahead of time.

Coordinating it is definitely tough, and could not be done without the help of Ray Steinman and the awesome production team from Ultra.

When you’re pushing so many outs & running systems continuously in the heat, your equipment must be top notch.
What gear do you recommend?

Photo by Eric Mintzer

For my hardware, I run a custom-built Windows 10 PC, inside a cooler master case.
I chose this setup as it can accommodate a full-size graphics card, hot swap drive bay, m.2 slot and the ability to support a Corsair high performance liquid CPU cooler. With this configuration, I can run 3 x 4k outputs no problem utilizing the Titan X Pascal card.

This portable setup stays cool in the most demanding circumstances, like Ultra China when it was 100 degrees + outside during opening sets. While my laptop slows down to a crawl, this rig keeps on rocking.

What was your biggest challenge this time round? Any words of advice for our budding VJs out there?

For me the biggest challenge this year was using the experimental VJ software Crescent Sun, along with the new version of Resolume 6. I went a little crazy on clip loading with over 200 columns. Figured.. hey its 64bit and can take it. Then it took 5 minutes to load my show file. Oh Boy!

Photo by Eric Mintzer

The best way to overcome challenges for me involves as much practice as possible and pushing through it with good old elbow grease ;-)

As for advice, don't ever take things personally, it's a very challenging business.

True that. Wise words.

Thanks Vello for talking to us. It has been a pleasure. Congratulations on your many accomplishments and on being such a boss-man. Here is to creating a lot more magic and pixel pushing together :)

Vello’s (gorgeous) studio

Vello’s (gorgeous) studio

See you guys in the next blogpost. Until then, go grab that elbow grease.

Credits:

Ultra Creative Director & Production Designer: Richard Milstein
Ultra Animation Lead: Luis Torres
Ultra Production Director: Ray Steinman
2018 Main Stage LED & Tech: AG Lighting & Sound
2018 Main Stage Video Engineer: James Watral
Lighting Designer / LD: Patrick Deirson and The Activity
Main stage MC : Voice of Dance Music, Damian Pinto
Imaginex VJ assist / system programmer: Eric Mintzer
Photos: Eric Mintzer, Rudgr.com & Vello Virkhaus

Just in time for your show this weekend!

Transvolt is a gorgeous piece of motion design, which uses the full power of DXV HQ and alpha channels.
Get Transvolt by Ablaze Visuals


I don't care what style of music you play, it always needs more mech.
Get Mech by VJ Galaxy


And Albertus Luki is just bringing out banger after banger.
Get BluredLines by Albertus Luki

This is such an all-star line-up. Like going to a festival with Hardwell, Armin and Garrix. Or AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Slayer. Or Dr Dre, Eazy E and Snoop. Or Taylor Swift, Adele and... Well, you get my point.

Come on, enjoy the show. After all, you always have front row seats to your own set.

Unit 44 opens the show with the follow up to his hit series Enter.
Get Enter by Unit44


Next up is crowd favorite Laak, playing the amazing new fifth VJ Survival Kit album.
Get VJ Survival Kit 5 by Laak


And closing the show is Nexus 6, dropping another crowd pleaser with AbrilBeats.
Get AbrilBeats by Nexus 6.

With this Resolume release the Easter Bunny hops to version 6.0.7. Fixes a couple of bugs, makes some performance improvements and eats his chocolate eggs. Download!

8877 OSC, /composition/direction sends -1 for each direction
10163 MM: unable to relocate files when path is the same, cross platform
10408 Fix of #9842 results in Envelope Graphs being bugged with Shaper Effects
10529 Selected Clip on Selected doesn't give a midi feedback
10695 DMX Input is disabled until you open Preferences unless you have a DMX Output enabled in ASS
10720 Deadlock using Text Block
10843 Sometimes frame prediction breaks on start of clip
10882 Composition 16 bit color depth not applied on Resolume start composition auto load.
10886 Global Playback Controls have Piano options; but doesn't have the expected effect.
10895 Colorize and Tint effects don't use input color's alpha value
10907 Composition Master's parameter ranges not set to default when creating new composition
10915 Fix output shortcut manager eating entire core although no output shortcuts are enabled
10920 Clip in group with unpinned direction does not have composition's pinned direction applied on launch
10921 Group direction gets pinned to composition's pinned direction on composition open if group direction is not pinned.
10927 Stingy sphere's near side is transparent so you see through to the far side
10930 Playing with Transport controls (on BPM Sync) on clip level creates a feeze
10940 AutoMask, add Channel option to determine which channel defines the mask
10960 "DNA upload test" is part of the generators in 6.0.6 public release
10969 Fix layer's connectSpecificClip param being serialized
10971 Fresh installation of 6.0.6 on windows 7 is broken
10975 ConnectSpecificClip does not send upstate for clip triggers
10978 Group dashboard assignment is broken
10982 Cannot add audio track when dropping audio file on video clip panel
10995 OSC "All" shorcuts send * as index instead of a number
11001 Fix 0% opacity layers still being rendered
11034 FPS doesn't recover when you have ran out of vram (possibly)

...and of course an assortment of egg shaped crashes have been boiled, painted and oooh-ed at.

Minor point updates are like those songs that get stuck in your head.

In time, another song will come along and you'll wonder why you liked this one so much. But right now, it's the best thing in the world. You're blasting that baby on repeat, singing along at the top of your lungs, moshing out in the bedroom. While your significant other looks on in equal parts amusement and embarrassment.

Fire up your guilty pleasures on Spotify while you hit that download.


[fold][/fold]
6.0.6 adds two new songs to the album!

New
6966 Identify Slice or Fixture: new option in the Show Slice and Grid menu, will draw a slice white when mouse-overing
10830 NDI Ptz controls: Pan/tilt/zoom and focus controls in the Clip Properties

Also, we hang our head in shame for ever listening to these songs. We were young and emo was still cool, ok.

Fixed
10660 Shortcuts panel missing
10670 Random BPM Sync drunk walk is broken
10694 Slow loading time when entering MIDI Shortcuts
10734 Midi Clock jumps to 20 or 500 bpm
10779 Unable to save alpha type of an transparent image file
10787 External FFT broken on group parameters and effects

While we were at it, we got rid of these annoying commercial jingles and various crashes.

Fixed
9475 Only open the audio device channels we need
9575 Not all thumbnails are correct for GIF images
9946 Resolume hangs when using multiple USB ports for capturing.
10199 FFmpeg implementation not 100% ok
10200 AudioFormatReaderFFmpeg leaked on shutdown
10228 OSC output shortcut dropdown can be empty
10254 shortcut multi select changes target when multi selection contains composition level target
10285 can't select soundcard for audio input on Windows
10389 Group transport controls in deck UI don't behave properly when Envelope is on it.
10404 Appcrash - Unplugging Black Magic Intensity while active
10449 Touchbar controls don't respect parameter ranges
10459 Fader Start = On; shows one or few frames where you last went on 0 opacity instead of picking up from the beginning.
10524 Don't set Text parameter when applying a Text animator or Text Block preset
10537 NDI memory leak when dragging in (non connectable) source
10556 Some text fonts lose the style setting on deck switch or composition save
10560 Assigning multiple midi input - gives incorrect feedback
10587 FFT Animated parameters on effects on non playing clips cost a lot of FPS
10602 Memory leaks when plugging / unplugging monitors on windows
10616 Transport freezes when using beatloopr & bounce
10635 OSC Output /composition/selectedclip/... doesn't get updated when selecting new layer
10666 Slice's input list headers are missing, when multiple slices are selected
10671 Text Editor Changes Parameters when switching decks
10675 No footage installer should not include example comp with footage
10719 Ableton push not working in Resolume 6, works on the same machine in ableton.
10727 Exiting mapping mode leaves unlinked dashboard dials in enabled state
10730 Fix animation getting into a state of having no duration.
10731 Parameter shows when using FFGL mixer on effect
10732 Composition Master and Video opacity movements do not show in recording
10733 Premultiplied & Straight options for NDI
10737 Fix generators not getting released
10753 Better sorting of available formats for capture devices
10757 masks don't load properly sometimes when you replace a masking file
10775 SMPTE input from high number sound card input does not work
10777 size of attached files is incorrect on composition reopen
10783 Cursors in Default Key Shortcuts doesn't work properly on Windows
10794 Changing the Hue, Saturation or Brightness of color through OSC has no effect if Color is in RGB or Picker mode and vice versa
10799 Fixture Editor: Generic channels can only have even numbers as default
10833 Control + clicking on a parameter - + buttons set the parameter to -1 or 1 respectively
10834 AV DXV flashes file's first frame start on launch if clip is set to loop.
10841 DMX clip, column launch relaunches clip constantly above the launch threshold value when channel is changing
10844 Link Unavailable after assigning VST effect parameter to dashboard
10848 Fix ffmpeg file reading taking too long (windows)
10855 apphang dropping magewell source to composition in 6.0.5 works in 6.0.4
10857 ContextManager warnings on shutdown
10858 Magewell PCIe boxes no worky
10881 Displayed time remaining on license is a non-existent number
10885 Generic channels can only have even numbers as value
10894 Pre-updating video clips breaks group direction & speed

Finally, some new Resolume apparel is available. Our friends at Rectangle were inspired by subpixel arrangements in displays and come up with this nice design. We hope you like it too.





The price is 29 Euro, worldwide shipping included. Order in the
Resolume Shop

When making software, it's very easy to get carried away. Before you know it, you're adding new things, without having made sure that the current feature set is working as best it can. So, we've been using "No New Features!" as our mantra since the release of 6. Stick to the plan.



Of course, we couldn't resist doing what we love: making new features. So we just decided that not being able to set the duration for multiple stills is actually a bug. So we could sneak in a new feature that "fixes" it! Because that's how we do.[fold][/fold]

FIXED (BUT REALLY ACTUALLY NEW BUT DON'T TELL ANYONE):
10708 Make sure you can set the duration of autonomous clips using multi select

Peak the rest of that fix list below while you quickscope that download.

We also streamlined video playback, so performance is improved even further. You really start to notice this when using 4K resolutions and higher.
10633 Fix buffering doing too much work and not buffering one frame in advance
10569 High resolution DXV playing at very low fps compared to R5

We fixed some issues when using two Directshow capture devices at the same time:
10713 Same type directshow capture devices show up with same name, only one can be used.
10265 Connecting two Magewell cards; will only show the image of the first in both instances

Also, we corrected a booboo where opening v5 comps wouldn't work in 6.0.4
10718 Unable to Open Resolume 5 Composition in Resolume 6

And of course, all of this wouldn't be possible without Tim and Joris tackling the dreaded 'Insert Infuser Assembly' warning:
10758 Fix the coffee machine

Aside from this, again we fixed a boatload of minor crashes and smaller annoyances. Browse the fix list below while you get that download started, son.

10774 Apphang closing deck
10725 Midi shortcut isn't saved after user toggles piano button
10701 Audio Preview Waveform not being drawn anymore
10684 MediaManager sorting on Size is incorrect
10664 Datapath VisionAV-HD source fails to load on R6, works in R5
10652 Particle System does not reset its transformation matrix
10613 OSC input shortcut gets added to the list twice
10611 Dropping a clip from Explorer on windows to create a new clip slot overwrites the next/prev clip instead.
10608 When you load a Mask the image is actually sent out as binary data via OSC
10603 APC 40 not working after disconnect and reconnect, can cause apphang.
10601 VideoWall zoom parameter affects other effects
10593 Relative Knob on Clip Parameters makes them jump for the first time while adjusting.
10587 FFT Animated parameters on effects on non playing clips cost a lot of FPS
10507 Envelope in combination with Relative Midi input jumps all over the place.
10500 Can't downgrade by running an older installer
10355 Unable to Open Resolume because of OpenGL 3.2
10350 Unable to change Pin Properties & Resolutions for Input cards
10335 Fix files browser thumbnailing incorrect files
10283 OSC output shortcut can be duplicated
10207 Slice transform: Shortcut doesn't update on slice 1 when it's unnamed
10120 OSC: ?/composition/decks/1/selected doesn't give a reply
10011 Fragment effect removes alpha channel
10003 When autopilot triggers a new clip it stops the selected clip's preview
9770 auto pilot launch flashes black then AV clip flashes disconnected position's frame when relaunched
9769 Scrollwheel not adjusting clip speed parameter
9664 Deinterlace on Blackmagic is shaky

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

The popularity of Resolume 6 took us by storm, so we've been all hands on deck since it was released. It's been an overwhelming and rewarding couple of months, but now things have quieted down enough to resume normal operations. This means Resolume Footage will start releasing again.

And what better way to start than with some fresh faces. We're very proud to welcome Kongfoo Motion and Albertus Luki, both from Indonesia. They join our roster of footage producers, whom you'll see much more of in the coming months. The label is back, baby.

Kongfoo Motion captures that Jack Kirby classic comic feel with AnimaMix. Grab it now.


Albertus Luki goes bold with black and white banger FlicKit: Grab it here!


And Visual Delight is back after a long break with PlasticFantastic. Grab it here!