Hi, it's me again. So I have my hardware setup more or less figured out. I will need a few repetitions to get comfortable with it, but for now I have been concentrating on preparing a scenario of sorts.
My scenario consists of a sequence of source images and paint synthesizer presets. In order to have them available during the performance, I have stored them as separate steps in a paseq (see below image).
So every time I want to change presets, I have to move my stylus to the paseq screen and click on the little red box to execute each step: once to change the source, once to change the preset. This can take some time, and there's a lot of nothing happening on screen as long as I do that. Plus, sometimes I miss the tiny red square and then start painting with the wrong preset.
I suspect that this may not be the most efficient way of doing things... Any suggestions?
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You should read this tip on live Visual Performance using Studio Artist very carefully.
It discusses some features you might want to use.
For example, you can access Favorites presets via command keys.
Command keys can be used to load favorites presets in the toolbar as an alternative to clicking on a preset icon in the toolbar. Command F1-F6 will load the first 6 preset icons in the current bank. Command option F1-F6 act as bank shifts. A bank is a set of 6 presets. The F1 bank would be presets 1 through 6, the F2 bank would be presets 7 through 12, etc. These command keys can be especially useful when working with live visual performance using loop action since the Favorites Toolbar might be hidden from view when using full screen display mode during a video projected live performance.
You might also want to use these forward and backwards command keys to move between steps in a PASeq
Under the main Action : paint Action Sequence menu are 2 menu commands with associated menu hotkeys that will Move Forward (or Backward) to the next PASeq action step and load the interface with the contents of the action step.
I'm very open to any suggestions for new features to ad to Studio Artist that would make live performance using it easier for people. So please, speak up if anyone has any thoughts on that. Thoughts could include great ideas for new features, or things that you think don't work well currently , and should be thought through to work better in live performance situations.
John, Florence, as I mentioned in an earlier post, during live performances, I extensively use the "Favourites" folders (I roll my own) with the shortkeys, F1, F2, etc.
I had not done it for a while and noticed just now that something has changed since the last time I used it: F1 activates all the favourites presets numbered 01, 10, 11, 12, 13 in that order, and F2 triggers presets 20, 21, 22, etc.
I used to be able to call presets numbered 01 to 06 via F1, F2, F3 and so on, and switch to the next batch of favourites by using a modifier key (control?) with an F key for favourite presets 07, F2 for 08 and so on, and modifier key with another F key to go to another batch of presets numbered 13 to 19, again triggering them with F1, F2 and so on.
This is on an iMac 27" i5 running Snow Leopard (I just turned off the more recent iMac running Mavericks, so I can't test it there and it's bed time here), don't now if that has a bearing on it.
But for Florence, it is worth looking into creating folders of favourite presets and call the m via the keyboard, it makes them accessible as instantly as if they were notes played on a piano via the keyboard.
I'll have to look at keyboard shortcuts again, but I haven't found one that just activates the next paseq step and stops. I did read the tip many times John. Move forward and set interface doesn't seem to do what I need, plus to use it I'd have to switch to an American keyboard. On a French keyboard I have to use both hands to reach all the keys.
John, about the access to the favourite presets via the keyboard, I think I know what caused my problems: in past performances, I used a wired USB keyboard, but now I am testing those functions with bluetooth keyboards (on 2 different iMacs) and they seem to require the use of the function key to enable the commands I want to use. I don't have the time to really test this fully (with or without the standard use of F keys as defined in the System Preferences), but I wanted to report that the "problem" might not be a real one?
On both my MacBook's keyboard and my Bluetooth keyboard, I have to press fn with the function keys, otherwise they do something else, like change luminosity. And the function keys are tiny and I keep hitting the number keys instead.
I tried Jean's suggestion and the result was that I got confused very quickly: I didn't now what I was supposed to do next. The paseq solution is certainly not optimal, but it has a few advantages: one is that I can have all my steps lined up in order (although I would prefer one single click to change both the source and the preset), and when I click on a step, it is highlighted, which means I know where I am and what the next step is. I suppose I should not be so easily confused, but I want the process to be as simple and foolproof as possible for my first try.
So for the moment, the paseq still has my preference. This may change, I still need a lot of time to sort this all out before I'm ready.
I was about to send my reply when it just went "pouf!"
Anyway, in order to label favourite presets so as to have them triggered via the F keys, they have to have names starting with numbers (like this: "01 whatever" "02 whatever" 03 whatever" and so on, in groups or banks of 6, so group/bank one goes from 01 to 06, bank 2 from 07 to 12, etc...
This enables you to switch presets at will via the F keys, not just in contiguous ways, but (for example) to jump for 01 to 06, at will, and switch groups/banks as John explained, with the same speed.
This is especially precious when creating images in real time alongside improvising musicians, one can change "visual keys" almost as quickly as they can musically with their instruments.
Well worth learning.
The way the mac os has determined the alphabetical order of file names has actually changed from various mac os version to os version. So the way you numbered things if you started file names with numbers was very important, and the ordering of those associated files in the file system actually changed sometimes when the mac os version changed.
And we use unix calls to do it. So their behavior is probably more consistent, unless apple decides to arbitrarily change their behavior on a whim.
Which indeed happened in osx mavericks with anothe unix call we used, which is why everyone on mac needed to upgrade to 4.06 when they started using osx mavericks.
And the file name ordering is definitely very different when you switch from mac os to windows os. Which is why some of our preset file names might seem really strange, like starting with underscores _. We do that as a way to insure that certian things end up being listed first.
So now you know why we do those strange preset file naming things. And you can do them to if you want to use them to force the file name ordering a certain way.
Florence, i had not tried the function key trick to switch between favorites presets for a long time.
And when i tried it this morning, it was working fine until i tried to use the switch bank option part, and then it started acting weird. But now i just tried it again, and now it just worked fine for me.
To switch banks, hold down the command key, then then option key, then press the specific function key for the bank you want to switch to.
To switch between different presets in a chosen bank, just press the function key.
You can drag and drop presets on to the Studio Artist application icon to switch between different ones, just like you can do that to switch between different source images. Either in the Dock, or in the finder, or on an alias like Jean told you about. So that could be an alternate approach for you to switch between different presets on the fly if you were more comfortable with that approach.
So i'll try to look into what is going on with the function keys and the bank switching. Like i said, it worked fine for me, then it seemed like it stopped working, and now it's working fine again. Maybe i just needed to drink more coffee for it to work properly, since i just got up (it's early here) and might have been pressing the wrong key and been too tired to even notice.
Different parts of the interface can steal the focus of the keyboard when they are active, so it might have been associated with that. Or something else. So try pressing the mouse in the canvas if it's not working and see if that changes the keyboard focus. It's not a feature i use in my daily work, nor is that true for anyone else around here, so it doesn't get severely tested like a lot of other parts of the program do.
It worked beautifully in the past when we originally added it to the program. I'm running my tests on a relatively new imac. I'll also try it on a new mac book later today, because who know what strange surprises apple might have put in there to screw it up.
And you are very right. Keys that were free and available when Studio Artist was originally designed have been stolen by Apple over the years, because they like nothing better than to screw around with what developers already have working. Because in their mind, developers are people who should rewrite their software every year at apple's whims.
And apple has gone out of their way to steal keys away from general program usage over the years. So for example command spacebar originally was what Studio Artist used to run the action button. Because it was actually a standard in every single piece of mac based music software on the planet. And Studio Artist uses many music software metaphors brought over to the world of digital visual art.
And then one day apple decided, lets screw up every single piece of music software that runs on a mac by making that command spacebar hotkey magically transport you from your software over to finder spotlight search. Because usng the mouse and movign it a few inches to do that manually if you really wanted to actually leave your software and jump to the finder spotlight search was just too hard. And they screwed up Studio Artist when they did that to. And they screwed up every single piece of existing mac music software when they did that to. But they didn't care about any of that pre-existign mac software or screwing it up.
So we switched to command r instead. To run the action button using command keys. As opposed to command spacebar, which was way more ergonomic to use for a command key thing you do all the time in this program, like every 20 seconds.
As far as jumping to finder spotlight search while being in Studio Artist, i have never done that once in the last 10 years except when hitting command spacebar by accident.
So it should be apparent by now that i need to finish my morning coffee, and stop ranting.
My point was that we build all kinds of great features using things like command keys that our customers ask for, and then Apple just decides to just screw them up on a whim, so maybe you are running into something like that on the mac book with the function key features we added for live performance so many years ago.
Again, maybe drag and drop of preset files from the finder to the application icon (or an alias to it) would be better suited for you.
Good luck with your upcoming performance. And please set me straight afterwards on any difficulties you had with it, so i can better design the program in the future for this kind of thing. Because unlike apple, i actually care about these kinds of things.
I just had a look at Mac OS's system preferences. Under "Keyboards" there is a setting to use the function keys as F1, F2 etc or to do the function that Mac OS has assigned to it. So that's one problem taken care of. I'll have to give it a try, but I doubt I will use them. Still, good to know there is that option.