sah1510 Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Eeeepp!! ...is all I have to say. Here is the info. I was asked on the last day of term to do some 'visuals' for a school battle of the bands on the 14th January, and was told "do what you want, you're the effects man" by the person organising it. Now, I am aware he is referring to video effects and in the past I have done some simple live feeds etc of shows projected onto a 'big screen' but this time they seem to want 'effects' or 'visuals'. Commence panic. I quite honestly have no clue what do to, and I don’t have that much information to go on. I know they would like the band names displayed, ok, fair enough. What else? A live video feed, some 'VJing'? So I am here looking for some inspiration, help, advice, anything. Has anyone done something similar to this, have any ideas? Of course there are the usual drawbacks: no budget and no video mixing equipment. I have a laptop, 3/4 cameras a long VGA cable, and a nice big screen and projector. Here's a bigger draw back though, the stage isn’t designed for this, the projector screen is slap bang in the middle of the stage, meaning that it has to be pulled up half way so the drummer can... drum. And, of course there is lighting to contend with. The lights simply drown out the projector and renders my work almost useless. I can’t help but feel I’m fighting a losing battle here. I am looking into the likes of Arkaos (free trial) and seeing if it will do whatever is wanted - and I will get back to you with any more details as I get them. Help! I need your words of wisdom! Thanks in advance, Scott. (NB: I apologise for the short notice and lack of information, but that's all I got) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gherriott Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Just and idea, but I did something similar years ago using winamp, and a plugin (the name of which I forget, but a search will find it I am sure) that allows you to create visualisations to a line input. Maybe using that in conjunction with an auxilary out from the sound desk will give one interesting effect? Just a thought. Good luck with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 If you have no video mixing equipment, how do you plan to show the Band names on the screen and then switch between this and the 3/4 cameras you mention? Is there truly NO budget? If there is even a hint of a budget, then get a small vision mixer so you can mix between the feeds and also, here's an idea, chroma key the cameras with whatever graphics you want to. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 try out visualjockey.comits free, does the graphic stuff and it doesnt have the horible DEMO watermark that arkaos has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sah1510 Posted January 2, 2009 Author Share Posted January 2, 2009 If you have no video mixing equipment, how do you plan to show the Band names on the screen and then switch between this and the 3/4 cameras you mention? Is there truly NO budget? If there is even a hint of a budget, then get a small vision mixer so you can mix between the feeds and also, here's an idea, chroma key the cameras with whatever graphics you want to. I have done this before. Live video feed(s) in screen monkey and overlay image (lower third type idea) of band the act name. I have been told of no budget, I doubt it would be enough to hire a vision mixer in all honesty. As I said I will ask around when the new term starts. Just and idea, but I did something similar years ago using winamp, and a plugin (the name of which I forget, but a search will find it I am sure) that allows you to create visualisations to a line input. Maybe using that in conjunction with an auxilary out from the sound desk will give one interesting effect? Just a thought. Thanks gherriott. I beleive winamp has the ability to play the 'linein://' source. This is something that never occured to me. Thanks. try out visualjockey.com Cheers, I will check it out just now. :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosxuk Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Just and idea, but I did something similar years ago using winamp, and a plugin (the name of which I forget, but a search will find it I am sure) that allows you to create visualisations to a line input. Maybe using that in conjunction with an auxilary out from the sound desk will give one interesting effect? Just a thought. Thanks gherriott. I beleive winamp has the ability to play the 'linein://' source. This is something that never occured to me. Thanks. I regularaly use the AVS plugin, which comes as standard with Winamp to do exactly this (it's replaced our visuals DVD for one of our club nights and even used it recently to do back bar drinks offer / info screens). We've created loads of custom presets in AVS, with various useful ones attached to the keyboard so they can be pulled up when wanted, but it normally runs in 'auto', randomly loading presets by itself (limited to only loading presets from a specific subdirectory). Another useful feature includes being able to import external BMP and AVI files to be rendered into the visuals. We have several 3D animations of the logos of our events available in AVI format which we load in. Simple bitmap images also look quite good when used to texture the output. Some of the syntax can be quite complex, but it's easy to get to grips with. Have a play, it's quite a powerful bit of kit used properly, looks quite good when fed with the feed to the PA, and it's completely free! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sah1510 Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 Thanks for the replies folks. I think I'm going to use Winamp along with ScreenMonkey. Another useful feature includes being able to import external BMP and AVI files to be rendered into the visuals. We have several 3D animations of the logos of our events available in AVI format which we load in. Simple bitmap images also look quite good when used to texture the output. Some of the syntax can be quite complex, but it's easy to get to grips with. Could you possibly enlighten me on this? Cheers,S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenalien Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 As has been said before on these forums, you could try Neuromixer - the basic version is free AV MIXER LITE although the latest full version AV MIXER PRO 1.3 is still a good deal at $65.95 (around £45) and also has a 15-day free trial, so that should last until after your event at zero cost. Probably the best feature of the Pro version is that it uses Freeframe open source effect plug-ins, that expands its already impressive special effects capability. Whichever version you use, it's not too difficult to get up and running, and the effects you can get are only limited by your imagination. Good luck with your show! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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