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modV Workshop

modV workshop

By using the open source software modV you will be able to create audio reactive visualisations by combining different kinds of visual modules (2D, Interactive Shader Format and WebGL Shader) with any kind of audio input like a microphone or computer audio. In the end you will know all the basics in order to create a music video for your favorite song.

Prepare before the Workshop

If you have problems to prepare for the workshop, please make sure to reach out to us: Tim Pietrusky or Sam Wray!

modV setup

Install the latest version of modV.

When you start modV, two windows should open: The main window and the output window.

modV main window modV main window

modV output window modV output window

Audio Routing

In order to get audio into modV to be able to visualize it, you need to follow one of these guides for your operating system.

When everything works out, you can select your Audio Input under Input Device Config

modV Audio Input Config Audio Input Config

If it doesn't work out, you can still use the microphone of your computer!

Download / clone the repository

In order to get all files that are needed for the workshop, please download or clone the repository to your computer.

The important folders are:

  • modules: Example modules to extend modV
  • presets: Configurations that will be used during the workshop

1. History of modV

In this workshop we are using modV 3.x, the latest version of modV that comes as a standalone desktop application. With modV, you can combine modules with each other to generate visual output. Every module has properties that can be updated in real time to change how the module is drawn. Each of these properties can also be updated automatically using audio features based on audio input (e.g. a microphone).

What does modV mean?

modV stands for "modular Visualization" and at it's core, it can be used to combine different kind of visual modules with each other to create a certain outcome. This is especially useful for live performances.

Who is behind modV?

  • Sam Wray, founder and core contributor
    • Created modV in 2014
  • Tim Pietrusky, core contributor
    • Created NERDDISCO Studio in 2014 to generate visuals in the brower
    • Joined modV in 2016 when both Sam and Tim did a collab-talk + performance for dotJS 2016 in Paris

Since then we are using modV for shows around the world and also as part of LiveJS.

Where is modV being used?

2. How to use modV

Before we dive into creating audio reactive visuals, we want to explain how the UI of modV is structured so we can talk about the same things.

User Interface

modV User Interface Overview

  • A: Groups. A Group contains modules. Modules within Groups can be arranged to change the drawing order.

  • B: Module. A module represents a visual element that draws something to the screen, like the Text module that can draw any kind of user generated text to the Main Output

  • C: Info View. Shows information about the different panels in modV when you hover over them using your mouse.

  • D: Gallery. Contains all modules that can be added to a Group. Modules are categorized as 2D (Canvas 2D), ISF (Interactive Shader Format) and Shader (WebGL Shader / GLSL). You can either scroll the list or use the search box at the top to find a specific module.

  • E: Input config. The panel allows creation of Input Links. Select a Module Control in the Module Inspector, then use the Input Config to assign an Audio Feature, MIDI control or Tween to automate the Module Control.

  • F: Module Inspector. When a module is focused, it shows all of it's properties. Each property can be updated to change how the module is drawn to the Output Window.

  • G: Preview. Shows the output of all enabled groups and modules. When you leave the default Main Output, it will show exaclty the same output as the Output Window.

  • H: Input Device Config. Configuration for devices (Audio, Video, MIDI, BPM) that can be used as an input.

Input Device Config

modV User Interface: Input Device Config

  • Audio/Video:
    • Audio: Microphone or other audio source. Useful for audio routing.
    • Video: Webcam
  • MIDI: Lists all MIDI controllers.
  • BPM: Lists all "Beats per Minute" sources

Output Window

This window will be used to render the output of all enabled groups and modules. It can be used on a second screen or projector to show the generated visuals full screen.

modV output window

Menu

There are multiple menu elements, but the most important ones are File and View:

  • File
    • Open Preset: Load a preset from your computer into modV
    • Save Preset: Save a preset as JSON onto your computer that contains all groups, modules & settings of what you have created in modV
    • Open Media Folder; Uses your default application for exploring files (e.g. Finder on MacOS or Explorer on Windows) to open the media folder of modV. There you can put your images or third-party modules.
  • View
    • New Output Window: Opens the output window if this was closed.
    • Reload; As modV is a web application we can reload modV as we can reload any website in order to get a clean state.
    • Toogle Developer Tools: Opens the developer tools of the underlying browser, useful for debugging.
    • Reset Layout: Makes sure that all panels are back in their original position after they were rearranged.

Rearrange the panel layout

Every panel in modV can be dragged and placed into different positions. This makes it possible to create any layout you want and feel comfortable with.

  • Move the Info view by clicking on it's title (keep the mouse button pressed) and dragging it onto the title of the Gallery. When you release the mouse button again, you can drop the Info View as a second tab besides the Gallery
  • To give the Gallery even more space, we can click (keep the mouse button pressed) on the border between the Gallery and the Input config. Then we can move the mouse to the right to make the Gallery wider

Add a module to a group

Now let's get some visual output.

Text

  • Find the Text module in the Gallery, either by enterting the modules name into the search box or by scrolling trough the list of modules (hint: It's a 2D module)
  • Double click the module to add it to the active group (you might have to click on the group to focus it) or drag and drop it into the group
  • Enable the module by clicking into the Enable checkbox, which will render the module into the output
  • We still don't see anything, so let's go into the Module Inspector and change the property text by putting any text inside
  • We still don't see very much, as a black text is rendered on a dark background, so let's change the fillColor to red
  • To make the text bigger, we increase the size
  • Now let's also enable stroke which gives us a white border around each character
  • We also can change the font, where we can select any font that is installed on the computer
  • Why do we see a morph effect and not just the 2D text?

Change group preferences

Each group determines how it's modules are drawn to the Output window. The default for this is inherit, which means that each frame is drawn on top of the frame before and the output is not cleared. Let's change this.

  • Open the group preference by clicking on the arrow on the left side of the group, which will show you these options
    • Enable: Draws the group to the Output window if enabled
    • Inherit: If enabled, the Group will draw the output of the preceeding Group to the screen before drawing contained Modules. If there is only one Group enabled, the Group will draw the output of itself to the screen before drawing contained Modules
    • Clearing: If enabled, the Group will clear its Canvas before drawing contained Modules. If there is only one Group enabled and Inherit is on, clearing will have no affect.
    • Pipeline: If enabled, the Group will not draw each Module's output directly to the Group's Canvas. After each Module has drawn, the Group will cache the output, clear the Group Canvas and the next Module will recieve the cached result as its input. Find more info & example
    • Alpha: Sets the opacity of the group.
    • Blend: Sets the Blend (e.g. Multiply) or Composition mode (e.g. Source in) of the group.
  • We disable Inherit and enable Clearing and close the group preference by clicking on the arrow again
  • Now our Text is rendered only once

Use a filter: Pixelate

There are two kind of modules in modV. Some of them draw something "new", like the Text module did. Others changing the output based on what is actually drawn and do something with this. We call them filter, even when they are also "just" modules.

  • In the Gallery find the Pixelate 2D module
  • Add it into the same group as the Text, but make sure to add it on the right side of Text

The order inside of a group matters, the modules are drawn on top of each other from left to right!

  • We Enable the Pixelate module and see that the Text has a pixel-effect
  • With focus on the Pixelate module we can now change the Amount in the Module Inspector to see the pixels getting bigger and smaller, depending in which direction the Amount is changed

Change module preferences

Each module also has some default preferences which are visible all the time.

  • Take a look the preferences:
    • Enable: If enabled, draws the module to the output.
    • Alpha: Sets the opacity of the module.
    • Blend: Sets the Blend (e.g. Multiply) or Composition mode (e.g. Source in) of the module
  • We set the Blend to Multiply and the Alpha to 0.5

Add another group and rename it

We can also add more groups into modV.

  • In Groups, click on the New Group button and see a new group under the first group
  • Initially, the group is disabled, so let's enable it by clicking on the checkbox in the top left corner
  • We also want to rename it, which can be done by double clicking on the group label New Group and entering a text (e.g. My Group in modV)
  • Confirm this by pressing the Enter key

This makes it possible to group modules together that work well with each other. And during a live performance we can enable / disable a couple of modules at the same time by enabling / disabling the group.

Use a filter: Optical Flow Distort

We add another filter:

  • In the Gallery find the Optical Flow Distort ISF module
  • Add it into the group we created (.e.g My Group in modV) and enable it
  • Change the Alpha to 0.5 and Blend to Color Burn

Groups can inherit the output of other groups and change the output of the modules inside of it.

Save / Load a preset

A preset contains all the groups and modules with all of their properties and can be used to switch between different configurations or exchange this with other people. In this workshop we use it to save the things we are doing or to load the predefined presets that come with the repository.

To make sure we don't loose what you already created, we first want to save our preset

  • Im the menu choose File > Save Preset, which opens a dialog
  • Enter a name for your preset and save it somewhere on your computer
  • The file that was created is named <name_of_preset>.json

Now that we know how to save our configuration, we can load a preset

  • Im the menu choose File > Open Preset, which opens a dialog
  • There you can select the preset 001_modV_in_Action.json that comes with this repository
  • After it is loaded, you will more or less see what we have created so far

🎇 001_modV_in_Action.json

Breakout Session A

Breakout Session A

  • Play around with modV and get used to the UI
  • Add modules from the Gallery and change their properties in the Module Inspector to see how they behave
  • Change the Blend of the modules to make them interact with each other

Add images into modV

Let's put an image (like a logo) into modV and apply some visual effects.

  • In the menu choose View > Open Media Folder which opens the media folder
    • If you want to know more about the strucutre of the media folder, please take a look at the documentation
  • Navigate into default > image and put any image (not SVG) into the folder (you can also choose images/modv-logo.png from the repository)
  • In modV find the Texture 2D module in the Gallery and add it to the second group
  • In the Module Inspector for the module in the texture property select image, which adds a new list underneath
  • In the list, select the image you added into the image folder

Now that we have the image in modV, we can change some properties to make it fit the output window, depending on how small or big it is.

🎇 002_custom_image.json

(you have to select an image yourself, this preset just contains the Texture 2D module without the image)

Add modules into modV

One of the most important features of modV is that you can extend it with your own or other third-party modules as modV supports different kind of visual sources (Canvas2D, GLSL, ISF). So let's see how this can be done.

Module licence

Every time you take visual modules from other people, you have to be sure to check out the licence. Some work is only allowed for non-commercial projects (e.g CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), others you can use for commercial purposes (e.g. MIT), but you have to make sure to credit the author.

Let's take a look at platforms where you can find modules:

Platform Default License
Shadertoy Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
CodePen MIT
ISF Editor Depends on each shader

So when you are taking something from someone:

  • Make sure to find the license
  • Get in contact with the developer if you can't find a license or the license doesn't suit the purpose of your project
  • Don't use someone's work if it's not covered by their license
  • Credit the author for their work
  • Thank the author!!!

Add a module into modV

You can pick one of the modules in the repository.

  • In the menu choose View > Open Media Folder which opens the media folder
  • Navigate into default
  • You will find different folders here, the ones we need are:
    • module: Contains 2D and GLSL modules with this line ending: .js
    • isf: Contains ISF modules with these line endings: .fs & .vs
  • Put the nd-torus.fs into the isf-folder
  • Add the module into the second group after the Texture 2D module (which holds our image) and enable it

Use blending to make logo visible

The last thing we want to do is to make the logo visible again, as the module we added is overwriting everything that comes before it.

  • Select the nd-torus module and select Source in in the Module preferences as a Blend

🎇 002_custom_module.json

(in order to load this, you have to complete "Add a module into modV", otherwise the preset is broken)

Create your own modules for modV

Instead of using predefined modules, we can also integrate our own modules into modV by converting the original code into a format that is usable inside of modV. As this would go into too much detail, we are showing you some guides on how this can be achived:

  • 2D module
  • ISF module
    • We recommend to use the ISF format and not putting your GLSL shader as a WebGL shader into modV as the debugging possibilities in modV are very limited.
    • Using the ISF editor as described in the guide is way more advanced, especially for debugging problems.
    • You can also use the Dev Tools in modV to see problems in your ISF code and write your code directly in your favorite editor to be fully offline

3. Use Audio in modV

Audio processing in modV

Meyda

modV uses Meyda to analyze the incoming audio.

Meyda is a JavaScript audio feature extraction library. It works [...] to expose information about the timbre and perceived qualities of sound.

Meyda gives us specialised "features" of the audio which allows for some extremely punchy visualizations.

The key part to know about Meyda is that it gives us access to values that correlate to how our brains inteprate the audio and music.

Traditional audio-visual programs give allow access to the frequencies of audio (FFT values).

So with Meyda, rather than a value which says the frequencies in one specific range are loud or quiet at any one time, Meyda abstracts that information into more useful values which could tell us a part of the song is still loud, but it sounds mellow, so our visuals will more-or-less follow how the song is being intepreted by the audience.

Let's take a look at a demo of Audio Features vs FFT.

Audio routing

  1. Open the Input Device Config panel
  2. In the sub-panel Audio/Video, select the Audio Input drop-down menu
  3. Find your audio source

Note: at the time of the workshop you must have a working video input, or modV is unable to capture your selected audio source

Audio reactive visuals

With Audio in modV we can create audio reactive visuals by assigning audio features to module properties.

Assign an audio feature to a module property

  • Select any module (in this case we use nd-torus) so that the Module Inspector is opened
    • (Make sure that Blend is set to Normal so that we see the module completely)
  • Click on the radius_x property to select it
  • In the Input Config, expand Audio and select rms (= Root Mean Squared) as the Audio Feature

We can now "use" our audio source (e.g. talk into the microphone or play our music) and see that the value of the property is changing in the Module Inspector. What we can also see is the raw value of the rms Audio Feature right next to it in the Input Config

The value of the Audio Feature is updated

🎇 003_audio_routing_rms.json

(in order to load this, you have to complete "Add a module into modV", otherwise the preset is broken)

Shape the property value with an Expression

In order to have more control on how an Audio Feature is changing the property of an module, we can use an Expression.

  • Select the nd-torus module
  • In the Module Inspector, select the radius_x property
  • In the Input Config > Expression click into the textarea
  • We see the content value which represents the value of the Audio Feature, in this case the value radius_x of the module nd-torus
  • We can do math operations in this textarea so let's try that, copy and paste the following expressions into the textarea and then click outside of the textarea to save the change
    • value * 2: makes the value bigger
    • value / 2: makes the value smaller
    • value > 0.3 ? value : value / 2: A condition that checks if the value is bigger than 0.3. If it's bigger, then value will be used, if not then value / 2 will be used
    • 1.0 + value: sets a minimum value of 1.0 and adds value on top of that

💡 If you want to see the actual value of a module property, you have to right click on the range slider. Another right click changes back to the range slider

Make sure to checkout the expressions documentation for more insights.

Smoothing

In order to get a smooth change when the Audio Feature is updated, we can also use Smoothing

  • Select the nd-torus module
  • In the Module Inspector, select the radius_x property
  • Now let's make the value-transition smooth by changing Input Config > Audio > Smoothing to 0.5
    • You see that the transition is now way smoother than before, the module is now moving more slowly towards the new value
    • 0.0: no smoothing
    • 0.999: maximum smoothing

🎇 003_audio_routing_smoothing.json

(in order to load this, you have to complete "Add a module into modV", otherwise the preset is broken)

Breakout Session B

Breakout Session B

  • Play around with audio reactivity
  • Use RMS / ZCR / Energy and find out how they are different from each other
  • Use an expression to shape the value of an property
  • Combine different audio features with each other

4. Techniques to get certain effects

Note: Concentrics has been used an example module here. This can be substituted for any module drawing to the screen. Feel free to experiment!

Tunnel effect

Before After
Tunnel effect before Tunnel effect after

Module order

  1. scale
    • Update prop scale to anything over or under 0
  2. Concentrics

🎇 004_Tunnel_effect.json

Background fade

Before After
Background fade before Background fade after

Module order

  1. block-color
    • Update prop Alpha to a low value over 0
  2. Concentrics

🎇 004_Background_fade.json

Hue rotation for trailing colors

This builds upon the two previous techniques.

Before After
Hue rotation before Hue rotation after

Module order

  1. Hue-Saturation
    • Update prop Hue to anything just over or under 0
  2. block-color
    • Update prop Alpha to a low value over 0
  3. scale
    • Update prop scale to anything over or under 0
  4. Concentrics

🎇 004_Hue_rotation_for_trailing_colors.json

Text mask

This builds upon the three previous techniques.

Before After
Text mask before Text mask after

Group 1

Group settings

  • Un-check Inherit in the group settings
    • This prevents the group from drawing the output of the previous (or last, if it's the first group) to the screen again

Module order

  1. Hue-Saturation
    • Update prop Hue to anything just over or under 0
  2. block-color
    • Update prop Alpha to a low value over 0
  3. scale
    • Update prop scale to anything over or under 0
  4. Concentrics

Group 2

Module order

  1. Text
    • Ensure the text fill color is #000000 (black)
    • Set the blend mode of the Module to Difference

🎇 004_Text_mask.json

Liquid text

This preset makes heavy use of Blend modes and two very powerful ISF shaders, "Edge Distort" and "Optical Flow Distort". Combined in the right way it's possible to achieve a "liquid" effect.

This is similar to the effect seen in a video clip of modV from JSConf EU 2018, though that was modV 2 so the composition was likely different.

🎇 004_Liquid_Text.json.

Breakout Session C

Breakout Session C

  • Play around with the advanced techniques, load each preset once and see how they behave

5. Use modV for a live performance

  • How to recover from a crash

Limit the FPS

Sometimes you want to limit the FPS (frames per second) in order to avoid a performance problem with your computer. For this you can double-blick with the left mouse on FPS in the bottom left corner of modV.

This will open a dialog, where you can specfiy the max FPS you want to use.

Using OBS to record locally and/or stream to Twitch

OBS Studio is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Currently Linux, Mac and Windows Builds are available.

excerpt from obsproject.com

Prerequisites

Guide for all platforms

You don't need to set up Twitch to record locally.

Set up your OBS scene

  1. Open OBS Studio
  2. Find the Sources panel and click the "+" icon
  3. Add Display Capture
  4. Select your secondary display in the display drop-down menu and click OK
  5. If you see nothing, right-click Display Capture in the Sources panel, hover Transform and click Fit to screen

Configuring video settings

  1. Open OBS' settings
  2. Click Output
  3. Set the Base (Canvas) Resolution to your secondary display's resolution
  4. Set the Output (Scaled) Resolution to your stream's target resolution
    • If you want the highest quality, then set this to 1920x1080 as Twitch's max resolution is this
  5. Set the Common FPS Values to your stream's target FPS
    • If you want the smoothest video, then set this to 60 as that is the maximum Twitch will display

Configuring streaming settings

  1. Open OBS' settings
  2. Click Output
  3. In the Streaming section, check Enable Advanced Encoder Settings and uncheck Enforce streaming service bitrate limits
    • Twitch has a maximum video bitrate of 6000kbps. If your internet upload speed is good, try streaming at this maximum
    • Twitch has a maximum audio bitrate of 320kbps, despite what OBS tells you. This is why we uncheck the Enforce streaming service bitrate limits, otherwise our audio will sound bitcrushed
  4. Encoder preset is up to you. We usually use Quality

Configuring recording settings

  1. Open OBS' settings
  2. Click Output
  3. In the Recording section, ensure Recording Format is set to mkv
    • mkv files are recoverable if OBS crashes which is why we use the container format
  4. Recording Quality will ideally be set to Indistinguishable Quality, Large File Size
    • this is to maximize the quality of the recorded modV session. Compression artefacts are more visible in the lower Recording Quality options
  5. Encoder should ideally be set to NVENC, if you do not have this option try selecting anything which has a Hardware option

Configuring Twitch

Follow this guide on how to connect OBS to Twitch: https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/us/how-to-stream-to-twitch,news-21077.html

Recording / Streaming

In the main OBS window, click "Start Recording" to record locally. If you want to stream, click "Start Streaming".

Use a MIDI to control modV

It is really cool to the the UI of modV, but during a live gig we want to change between different modules fast. This is where MIDI comes into play, as we can use any MIDI controller that can be connected via USB to the computer in modV.

  • Connect the MIDI controller to the computer
  • In the Input Device Config > MIDI make sure that your MIDI controller is shown
  • Select the Enable checkbox of any module
  • In the Input Config > MIDI click on Learn. This enables a mode where modV is listing for any MIDI input, for example the push of a button and then assigns this MIDI input to the module input that we selected before (in this case Enable)
  • Push a button on your MIDI controller and see that Learn transformed into Forget

When we now press the same button again, we can toggle the Enable checkbox of the module which makes it possible to turn on and of the module using a MIDI controller.

💡 What is still missing is a way to also create a virtual MIDI controller so we can create the layout of the hardware MIDI controller and assign labels to the different MIDI input elements (like a button or fader or knob) to see what they control in modV. We are working on this via: vcync/modV#296

Remote control modV using RTP-MIDI

RTP-MIDI (also known as AppleMIDI) is a protocol to transport MIDI messages within RTP (Real-time Protocol) packets over Ethernet and WiFi networks. It is completely open and free (no license is needed), and is compatible both with LAN and WAN application fields.

excerpt from RTP-MIDI on Wikipedia

RTP MIDI explained

Prerequisites

If you are attempting to network between two computers not on the same local area network (e.g. connected though the same router) and you and your partner cannot create a VPN between the two machines, you will both be required to open ports 5004 and 5005 on your router's firewall.

Please consult your router's documentation/your ISP/a search engine on how to do this as it can be different on each router.

Once your ports have been opened, you and you partner much each note down your public IP address'. On most home internet connections your public IP will not be static and could change at any time, so watch out for that.

System requirements

Guide for macOS and Windows

If you and your partner are on the same local network or are able to VPN between the two computers, Bonjour will auto-discover the partner machine in the Directory.

If you are not on the same network, please see the Prerequisites section above.
Add the public IP of your partner to the directory. The port number will be 5004.

Create and start a session.
Add your partner from the directory to your session.

Once you're connected to each other you will see the latency update. (this sometimes is a little buggy on Windows).

Now you can route a MIDI device to the network port in the bottom right.

The top drop-down menu sends the MIDI device messages to the network session. The bottom drop-down menu sends the incoming session messages to a device connected to your computer.

To use the incoming MIDI messages from the network session in an application (such as modV, Ableton, etc.), open the MIDI configuration and select the new virtual device which should share the session name.

Debugging

We used https://www.midimonitor.com/ to check for incoming MIDI messages.

On Windows, right clicking rtpMIDI and running as Administrator seemed to help, but this is not required according to the rtpMIDI documentation.

6. Keep in touch

We are super happy that you are now a modV user and hope that you will have a lot of awesome experiences with it. Please make sure to always tag your work with #modv so we can keep in touch.

Join the discussion on GitHub

If you have a question or idea or just want to leave us a message related to modV, then please use modV Discussions on GitHub.

7. Troubleshooting

Output window is white

Refresh modV by doing one of these things:

  • CMD + R or CTRL + R
  • View > Reload

Modules are broken after loading a preset

This happens when some modules or images, that were used when saving the preset, are not available anymore.

module is broken

Please make sure to complete Add modules into modV as this adds the nd-torus module into modV and this is used in all presets.

2020 - 2021 with ❤️ by Sam Wray aka 2xAA aka NOSIGNAL & Tim Pietrusky aka NERDDISCO

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