Masks and Transitions

Meno · Post by **Meno** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 14:58

Hi guys,

i recently posted this on VJforums, i thought i'd post a link so you all could see and maybe post some feedback if you try it yourselves.

Playing with masks in Resolume

Bart & Edwin - was your choice to use bitmaps as maps for the masks and transitions deliberately so this can be done. i'd be interested to know if you know if or when someone has taken advantage of this before.

...also i'd also like to thank you two - i absolutely love resolume! got thru my first few gigs recently absolutely fine, last saturday i did a 7hr set and resolume only froze once! not bad by anyone's standards!!

all the best

meno
myspace.com/vjmeno

levon · Post by **levon** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 08:45

it would be cool if we could use higher res images for masks and transitions.

Post by **bart** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:34

yes we always hoped that people would pick this up and start creating masks and transitions but al usual nobody reads the manual to find out

Transitions
A transition is a grayscale image. The grayscale values of the bitmap are used as a 1 bit alpha layer between to layers. Black is transparent and white isn't. According to the value of the opacity of a layer more pixels will be made transparent. You can make your own transitions by creating a grayscale image. This image must be a 24 bit .bmp (bitmap) file with a width of 320 and a height of 240 pixels at 72 dpi. In the transitions folder of resolume you can find some samples that we made. Your newly created transition should be copied to this directory or you can drag a .bmp file when running resolume on the transition icon of any layer.

Layer masking
Use any grayscale image to create a mask on a layer. A mask is a grayscale image, the grayscale values of the bitmap are used as an alpha layer between to layers. You can make your own masks by creating a grayscale image. This image must be a 24 bit .bmp (bitmap) file with a width of 320 and a height of 240 pixels at 72 dpi. In the masks folder of resolume you can find some samples to give you an idea of what is possible. Your newly created mask should be copied to this directory or you can drag a .bmp file when running resolume on the mask icon of any layer.

This txt from the manual is a bit outdated as it is now possible to use pictures of any size. It is even possible to simply drag a bmp image from the browser to the mask and transition buttons on the layers.

Post by **edwin** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 13:01

Hi There,
The speed of masks and transitions will be greatly improved in version 2.4.
Unlike the manual says you can use any resolution bitmap you want but when chosen they will allways be scaled up or down to the current process resolution.
So don't use 640x480 bitmaps when running 320x240, masks won't look that nice.
On the other hand when running 640x480 as process resolution it's better to replace our masks with 640x480 ones. Because the standrad ones will be scaled up and when scaling you allways loose quality.

the above is also counts for transistions of course.

Cheers
Edwin

Post by **edwin** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 13:03

Meno,
if you have some nice masks you want to share let us know.
we need some good example masks. The ones we provide aren't that exciting!

Cheers
Edwin

vj docmotion · Post by **vj docmotion** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 16:24

cool news.... thx a lot edwin

Meno · Post by **Meno** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 16:26

Originally posted by bart
yes we always hoped that people would pick this up and start creating masks and transitions but al usual nobody reads the manual to find out

Hmmm. not feeling quite so insightful now...

Sure; when im back at my own computer i'll send over some of the ones i was playing with.

Thanks for the info too that they can be resized and dragged and dropped etc, that'll save a lot of hassle. next time i'll be sure to read all of the manual, not just the bits i think i haven't figured out already!!

I think the truly good uses of masks though will be ones people have put together for specific sets and are designed for particular transitions they have in mind, not just generic ones that look marginally better.

having said that, perhaps 2.4 might contain a free pack of user-contributed masks and transitions??!!

meno

Post by **bart** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 09:15

Originally posted by Meno
having said that, perhaps 2.4 might contain a free pack of user-contributed masks and transitions??!!

yeah we,d love to put new transitions and masks in 2.4! Just post them here (640x480 bmp) so we can all have a look and use them!