morgan wrote: >Max/Jitter due to the installed base of support and the well >documented video tools. It is also a question of having students dive >right in, or fight with a poorly documented and poorly considered user >interface.
i'd agree. I just went into Pure Data as well as Jitter (but Joris (being good at python/c++) found the UI annoying in Jitter and I really liked pythons' overview-like way of coding). Also because I'd done that workshop in PD it was not so difficult to try stuff out, but then I got stuck with trying to get the GEM to work with the webcam. I don't think i could have handled starting PD without that workshop though, whereas with max/MSP i found by following the online manuals I could. Admittedly my experience with both is v. little. In my course we don't get much in the way of lessons. The expectation is you know that already or can work it out. When we were doing our assignment (in April / may) I didn't want to go for processing because want annoyed me so much about it, was the slowness with graphics, even though it was designed as a more graphical way of working. My background is the visual arts not programming, so the sort if imagery I was trying was different to just lines. Then in late May i attended a lecture given by Casey Rheas (http://reas.com/) and was impressed by the exciting visual stuff he was making, so it was really my lousy coding and not knowing that processing could handle speed if planned well enough. Though - my feeling is that PD is better for any complicated live feed stuff. Or at least in the examples made by fellow students (most are v. good programmers) all examples choked with any great amount of processing work, whereas the stuff we did in python involved a lot more processing power. Admittedly the guy who made interactive fairy dust topped the bill with his custom-made c++:) But that was beyond the scope of most of the rest. The problem with python was that the window size was a restriction, whereas in PD + Jitter you don't need to resize (and slow down things). Of course it could be that we never found the right possibility in python. Anyway Joris and I had such a good time that we are going to develop what we did further after September in either python or PD. Casey Rheas mentioned a new book on processing which, going by his extremely clear and stimulating presentation, i'd highly recommend. (Perhaps he could be invited to give a session in NZ? He explained processing is ways I never dreamed it could sound so unthreatening to non-programmers) Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists. Casey Reas and Ben Fry. Published 24 August 2007 by MIT Press. 736 pages. $50.00 It is a pity that his website doesn't really show the power of his work, which he showed us. On the other hand he said that he'd been focusing on the book for the past 2 years. this is it for me. i'm going travelling now >> venice biennale, croatian beaches, documenta, etc. till august or so. hei konei ra, Sonja _________________________________________________________________ Fight Allergies With Live Search http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=Remedies+For+Spring+Allergies&mkt=en-ca&FORM=SERNEP _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
