Actually you can make your own by downloading Axogon Composer. This is the predecessor to MainActor and the beta is still available for free at many download sites. (Just do a Google search). Be forewarned it is not an easy program to master but it has some nice compositing features. The moving backgrounds are made by using the Image Processor set to randomize. You just keep pressing the generate random image button until you see one you like and render the clip. They automatically loop. Sweet!

~jr

I found the set 16-20, but not other combination of five.
Do you know the names ?
Thanks in advance

Riccardom

I found only 21 - 25; where did you locate the others you spoke of?

Peter

Copy the address of 21-25 set and change the number to 16-20.
It works but only for this range.

Just downloaded them. Thanks!

Sticking with Vegas, you can also do weird and wonderful things with the Noise Texture, Checkerboard and Color Gradient media generators.

Quote:I found only 21 - 25; where did you locate the others you spoke of?

Hm - they have obviously got a bit more diligent with their 'housekeeping' because at one stage you could still get to 001-005, 006-010 and 016-020.

Looks like we will have to be pretty quick about downloading them each month.

I'll try and post a new alert as soon as each month's new loops go up.

Once we've all gone off and downloaded the Axogon software we could maybe build our own downloadable set of archives somewhere.

I appreciate free as much as anyone else, but I can't get their loops to load in V4. I get a status message of: "Video: Stream attributes could not be determined."

If I try to load them into Windows Media Player, the CODEC cannot be found.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Steve

"Hm - they have obviously got a bit more diligent with their 'housekeeping' because at one stage you could still get to 001-005, 006-010 and 016-020."

Hm, you could email the others that are no longer available (001-020) to a willing recipient, say, at info@sieved.org :)

- jim

OK, since you guys are planning to download Axogon Composer (good move) I figured I'd save you some grief and explain how to make texture loops with it. At first glance Axogon can be a bit overwhelming but it’s an extremely powerful compositor if you take the time to learn it. Here's how you make a texture loop:

Start by using File->New to create a new project that is the format you want and press OK. I use "NTSC DV, 720 x 480". You will be presented with a blank timeline with one track that hasn't been assigned.

Step 1: Double clicking on the word Track 1 on the left will bring up the preview window for that track. Every track has its own preview window. This one will have the title "Track 1 Error" because no clip has been assigned yet to preview. First move the preview window to the right so future dialog boxes won’t cover it. Now let’s fix the error by assigning a clip.

Step 2: Double clicking on the track itself (in the middle) will bring up a dialog with the title "Choose Clip to Create".

Step 3: Double click on Complex Filtering to display the options under that folder/category.

Step 4: Double click on Image Processor and an image processor will be assigned to the track. You’ll see the I-Proc icon on the track.

Step 5: Double click on the I-Proc icon and you’ll get the IMAGE PROCESSOR dialog box.

Step 6: Click the Random checkbox to enable random generation.

Step 7: Click the Generate button and you should see a colorful texture appear in the track preview window. Keep pressing Generate until you see one you like. You can view each frame by giving the preview window the focus and use the left and right arrow keys to view it on frame at a time. You can also drag the timeline to see different points in time. There is no way to play it.

If you like what it looks like, give it a render. Here’s how:

Select the menu item Rendering->Render Options from the menu bar.

On the "Rendering Options" dialog select the Format, Name, and Path you want to use and press OK. Now would be a good time to save your project before rendering just in case you hit a bug. (after all, it is a beta). Then just press the last button on the button bar below the menu that looks like a pressure cooker. (the popup/hover text will say Render). It’s that easy. I usually do a preview render at 320x240 using a fast codec just to make sure I like the loop before I do a full DV 720x480 render which takes a lot longer.

Saving the project file is also a good idea because you can save the only the projects and render the actually footage only when you need it to save on hard drive space. This also makes them easier to swap. Hope this helps.

~jr

Now how did you know that I was going to ask for a quick tutorial??? :o)

And I guess the process for PAL is identical apart from the very first step?

Thanks John

GSpot tells me that I need the Indeo Codec. My PC has the SP1 version of XP, so the codec is not installed. Do I need the codec to load the AVI files into V4?

Wayne,

> Now how did you know that I was going to ask for a quick tutorial??? :o)

It’s what I would have wanted once I saw the blank interface of Axogon staring back at me. =:-O

> And I guess the process for PAL is identical apart from the very first step?

Yep, just use a PAL template instead.

> Thanks John

You're welcome. This forum gives so much to me that I appreciate having the opportunity to give something back. ;-) Thanks to all of you. This is an awesome community to be part of.

~jr

This helps:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;327979

or download the update from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3c9464fb-7cd7-461b-ad24-6a4d1c5df8ff&DisplayLang=en

Cheers, Alistair

Hi Jim,

Quote:Hm, you could email the others that are no longer available (001-020) to a willing recipient, say, at info@sieved.org :)

I tried to email you at this address, but my email keeps bouncing back!
Wayne

Thanks - that fixed it.

I'm curious if any of you programers out there have studied the algorithims in the image processor from Axogon Composer? It would be really cool to have a plug-in for Vegas that does this.

And if anyone wants to tackle the task, it would be really beneficial to be able to save a video track to a file sraight from the plug-in rather than having to render from the timeline.

Also, it might be cool to be able to define a transparent color region after the pattern is generated and allow a couple of patterns to be stacked on top of each other.

I've also seen a few patterns from Axogon that I liked except for the fact that it was a dull muted color or something. It would be nice to be able to adjust hue or something from within the plug-in. I know you could slap a HSL filter in the chain, but then that would make saving straight to disk a problem.

JBJones

Back again...

I've created quite a few textures that I like using Axogon Composer and I'll post them on a web site shortly. Can everyone use QuickTime JPEG image sequences? That seems to give the most quality/compression.

The designs I seem to like the looks of the most are single color patterns against black or white. I think if the Axogon generater would keep colors separate more as they blobulate (is that a word?) and move around I would like multiple colors better. Most of the multi color patterns just seem to fade into one another making some puke awful schemes.

By the way here are some numbers that generate a my idea of a cool pattern.

#-60518
P-34

#-60548
P-34

#-60588
P-34

#-10588
P-34

#-10588
P-54

I might re edit this message with more numbers later.


JBJones

> That is an excellent tutorial that you may want to include with your others.

Tom (Marquat),

Thanks, that was a good idea. I added it to the other tutorials on my web site. I haven’t seen the free Meditator screen saver. Have you seen particleIllusion SE 2.0? It’s a fairly powerful particle generator and you can also generate some nice moving color backgrounds with it. I’ve been playing with the demo and I’m thinking of buying it.

Jeff (jbjones),

Thanks for posting your favorite numbers. If you like a pattern but don’t like the colors because they’re dull of muted, scroll down to the bottom of the algorithm and you’ll see R,B,B get assigned. Don’t be afraid to experiment by adding *0.05 or *2.0 to one of them and multiply the color amount. For example, take #(60548) P(34) which is purple and change R = v0; to R = v0*0.1; and it change to blue.

~jr

JohnnyRoy,

Thanks for the color change tip. I tried changing items in the RGB lines earlier but left the second V in there which caused a variable error. I didn't think to just remove the V. That's the tip I was looking for.

JBJones

Try these: #(14392) p(90), #(23691) p(86), #(17390) p(81), #(17854) p(31), #(14214) p(97)

BTW, #(17854) p(31) is a good example of a muted blue. If you edit the script and change the assignment of B= to divide by 2 instead of 3 the blue gets brighter. (i.e., B = (v0+v1+v2)/2;)

Don’t forget you can do color correction right in Axogon by adding another track and using Filtering->Recolor. You will also see that under Filtering there is an Adobe Photoshop Filter which will allow you to apply any Photoshop filter you want to a clip.

~jr

You wouldn't happen to know how to change the length of these generated textures? I can't seem to get them longer than 115 frames which seems to be the default when the project loads or something.

JBJones