Loop Action for Live Video Processing

[Synthetik]

I've been playing around with live video processing in Studio Artist 4 quite a bit recently. My latest experiments have been on an intel powermac, and the performance is really turning out to really be quite good. I've been using a 640x480 canvas size for these experiments. I can work with a large number of image operations, MSG effects, and even the vectorizer, adjusting parameters in real time and watch the live processing change in real time as i adjust individual effect parameters. I wanted to point this out because i think a lot of people coming into version 4 from older versions of Studio Artist tend to not think in terms of real time processing or real time feedback. But the new loop action feature gives you the ability to edit parameters on the fly and see the effect change in real time as you edit. This can be a great aid in editing or fine tuning an effect. You can use the iSight camera on your mac as a live source input, or you can load a movie file into the source and have that auto advance, or you can even use a static source image. Typically you would want to use an image operation effect's IP Source set to Source Image when doing this kind of processing, so that the incoming video frame captures in the source area are what is processed by the loop action effect. You can use the appropriate File : Source Settings menu flags to advance the source movie during loop action, or to capture video frames during loop action. This image link was generated by processing a live video source with a loop action image operation. If you are processing the canvas as opposed to the source image, then you recursively apply an effect to the canvas image. This can be pretty cool for some kinds of processing effects, but is very different than processing each individual incoming source video frame since the processing is cumulative as the canvas is processed and then used as input for the next cycle of processing. This image link was generated processing the canvas with loop action. Loop action works with Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) presets as well as the other op modes. When using a PASeq in loop action, sometime it would be nice to have the canvas update only at the end of the PASeq loop cycle as opposed to updating when each action step in the PASeq processes. There's a brand new PASeq preference option in the latest v4 builds called Loop Action Canvas Update that lets you control this. I typically set it to cycle end when using loop action so that the canvas only updates at the end of the loop cycle. This lets me build live video processing effects that are composed of multiple individual processing steps while only seeing the final effect output update the screen for each loop cycle. The image in this link was generated using live video processing with a PASeq.

[Thorrific]

Yeah I love it!!! Live loop action is amazing! Thanks!