I’m thinking about some vvvv-related activities… but one question stuck in my mind, stopping me from further details:
Is vvvv already dead?
hei bo,
where are you getting your news from? i assume you’re following the monthly recaps where we update you on the progress of our roadmap?!
also we’ve since announced a series of summer workshops (with more to come).
what exactly are you missing?
for me its more than alive.
I think, it really depends of your needs.
4 me, personally, it’s one-of-the-kind software, that gives me pleasure of just working with it.
Tried TouchDesigner and… Nah, not the same.
Right now I’m working on the music video project — I could use Adobe After Effects for compositing needs, or NukeX, but I still prefer to do as much as I can on VVVV — and therefore achieve possibility to play my scenes as live videoart scene.
I just love VVVV)
@joreg hi!
I’m not considering my question as “news” yet. In terms of news vvvv is breathing, of course.
I’m refer to 2019 survvvvey.
Looks like community goes smaller and older.
What exactly am I missing? I missing someone young and hungry to patching.
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There are plenty of people getting into patching nowadays.
And I want to point out that the Person above you could fit your description, too.
@Totenkind
nice to meet you! you are a new person here for a long period of time! Especially from such nice city, which is becoming nicer and nicer :)) Hope things go well
Yes, there are. And we all know each other in person for years and decades. And only few rookies appear here from time to time. Am I wrong?
I also think community is not growing as much as before. Or looks kind of fragmented into facebook riot, forum, whatelse ?
Also, I guess most of the things are kind of solved for real audiovisual projects.
In the past it was a quest to see what software can do it, who can bring that next functionality, etc. Computers are so powerful now that you dont need to stay at the frontier of development and performance to do most stuff.
Is new media arts already dead ?
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The feeling is that there is a kind of stasis around, maybe it’s a by product of the absence of the Node festival that boosts the community with new knowledge and sustains it, but also because of the jump into vl, which a lot of users(like me) might be in between, at unsure phase.
Seems the new vvvv is still mainly for those skillful developers who could get the hold with it, but the rest basic users are left behind with no answer.
Short workshops are good for limited area and nearby users. This website is the main site of happening. There were only very few introductory tutorials, quite a while ago, and nothing since then, vvvv.tv was a nice start, but seems to be abandoned.
Where are the days of westbam’s tutorials spreading vvvv power with so much joy… I think it should be less sporadic and more systematic and constant.
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In my opinion Cables does a nice job, having different kinds of tutorials, updating them regularly and posting them in several social networks / groups to reach people outside the established community.
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Actually, I thought that I’ll maybe have some time now (quitted my dayjob) to help VVVV somehow – clean some basic GirlPower patches, maybe record some videolessons, don’t know.
If I’ll manage to stay that way (will not have to spend 40h per week to write duuuuuumbest user tutorials for EDMS) – I really think, that it might happen. But I’ll not be able to do it all by myself, of course.
And what about workshops… There were plenty of them in Moscow over last 3 years, but no sign of a stable community appeared. TD has it’s community, VVVV – not, which is quite unfair FMPOV.
I’m 100% agree with @manuel
New media arts are not “new” for years already. They not gone, but just take their shelfs on market. When we’ll structure media art, creative coding, interaction design etc. we’ll see major branches, like:
- custom interactiove exhibits (to show products&facilities)
- interactive presentations (to illustrate speaches)
- big data visualisation (to show statistics)
- vjs/interactive lights (to fun at parties)
- theatre&artistic perfomances (to stage decor)
- art objects (to tell stories)
- light objects (to decor interior/exterior)
All the branches were here from the beginning but borders were much more blurry than now. And when you choose a branch, you will find vvvv is not unique tool for selected branch and vvvv loses to its competitors.
- I can easy extend vvvv with custom plugin, but it is still pain to do a 3D scene with softshadow and multilighting.
- I can easy mix dozens of hardware inputs and devices with vvvv, but is still pain to do common UI functions.
- I can easy change output resolutions and amount of screens, but it is still pain to seamless mix of two videolayers.
I can not be such flexible and fast with competitor software, but competitors do all priority tasks far better. Does that mean vvvv is a tool for prototyping only?
Multipurposing was very great 10 years ago, but is it great now?
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In genral I’m agree with @shual and @bjoern too, but only on 75%, not 100)
Last 5 years vvvvgroup and @robotanton made very great job with vvvv documentation and helpatches. Back to 2012 and now it is night and day in terms of documentation & help-patches quality. But is it enough?
@Totenkind
I made a book for newbies (very obsolete now), I made few workshops by my own and visited many by others and, I think, I understand why they do not work.
All workshops I saw so far (included my own) were “general workshops”. Except for Node workshops for advanced vvvv users.
But 95% of audience do not understand what programming is. They do not want to solve puzzles and build algorithms, but looking for ready solutions for their ideas.
And 95% of audience do not want to learn vvvv or it’s features in general, but looking for exact solutions for their needs.
Do we give them answers? No.
Can we find the answers here? Very limited.
Do they want to become pro patchers? No.
For 95% of audience media art / creative coding is a hobby, but none of workwhops help them to feel it like a hobby.
And here we are:
- Professionals mostly use other tools, since other tools give better results on priority tasks.
- Enthusiasts do not join community because we do not solve their needs in direct way.
I see a lot of job to do, but I ask myself - is it worth a penny?
Very interesting ( and current) topic
I don’t want to diminish anton’s work, he did a great job. But still I think the vvvv group has to do much better in terms documentation if they at least want to catch up to the competition. Others (e.g. cables) are far ahead in that regard despite being the “new kids on the block”.
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The above a fairly accurate picture I think, vvvv is on life support, VL is yet to be birthed, the dev’s are busy in labour, and the environment has changed.
So really its not dead, but in a half limbo, still good enough to do what it used to, but not as well as some other ankle biters, we’ve got to hope that when VL gets birthed, its solving the things vvvv lacked, but not at the expense of loosing the things it excelled at. I do hope it hurries along.
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About the general workshop attendees: I’ve been doing workshops and talks in south america since I started using vvvv, to get more users in my language. But I would say 99% of the people attending general workshops do not continue with their learning.
And thats not a problem of vvvv, but because people who want to get everything on silver platter dont have the will to struggle and learn more. My guess is that this happens in every software. Look at pro developers on any field and noone starts attending to a workshop, but learning on their own.
I agree with @bjoern and @manuel. I believe what we miss is the focus on target audience needs.
The table below shows my thoughts (it does not include self motivated professionals since they do all on their own).
| Target audience | Themes / Focus | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby | Step-by-step guides with clear & useful result. A teacher helps students to complete tasks, explain and fix every step, praises students. | Students pay for participation. |
| Rookies who attempt to work for money at a field of interactive multimedia. | Action scripts explaining how to get the best result in the shortest time. Scripts focused on employers’ needs. A teacher force students to do their best. | Employer invest into new employee. |
| Strong vvvv users | Targeted workshops with greatest professionals (Node alike). A teacher share experience and examples to students to help them uprise their skills. | Students pay for participation. |
| Professionals from connected fields | Targeted workshops to explain benefits vvvv can bring to professionals life, with a strong focus on connection between vvvv and current professional tool. | Free for both sides or one side paid to another (depends on exact details). Might be open to the public for money or for free. |
To focus on target audiences from the table above we need to:
- Target the audience much more accurate - split it by professional fields, their backgrounds and interests.
- Find best vvvv practices that brings benefits to each targeted audience.
- Reorder current help patches, girlpower examples and contributions to best reach each target.
Sounds like huge work (potentially useful), but if vvvv is already dead or on life support, that make no sense.
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interesting read here. I am totally with @bo27 and i talked about this often already with @joreg and the others. And belive me, they are aware of all this. (does not mean it is solved)
This topic is super important for the future of vvvv and it is also why we are putting together a worskhop program for this year in my new space here in Berlin and get more people on track with vvvv (beta and gamma). This also helps to find the best way how to teach and how to prepare workshops for specific needs. This is obviously also a good test balloon for the program for next NODE.
The above and the described developments are the reason which made me picking up the work on NODE and its programs for the community. We are working on the next edition next year. And very soon we will start calling contents and workshops, needs and ideas here on the forum. They are welcome anytime.
I think what is missing from the vvvv group side of things is a clever marketing and a clever support program with official well produced tutorials that answers to the needs of the different target audiences. The differentiation of specific problems and specific ways of using vvvv has to be reflected in the NODE programs, but hopefully also on vvvv.org and the way the devs describe the features and design the documantation and support for individual industries.
and huuhh… for your year planner: Expect NODE20 to happen in fall (sept or oct) next year in Frankfurt. Heay rotations… Until there we will be offerning community meetings and workshops here in Berlin.
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I wish to clearly splitting this topic to 2 branches.
-
If vvvv still the right tool for a complex scenario?
(which does not have much to do with new users!) -
Why now days in workshops participation are not sure/serious enough?
(I think it has been always the case!)
Recently I start most beginner workshops by a fresh gamma document! and it just works! I mean, its not like selling a product, there are issues to consider, indeed. And of course I miss a Gray Book, more WestTricks-like series, more Prototyping Interface Patches, etc…
But honestly VL blog posts, dottore’s series on vvvvleaks, demo patches in Help Browser, etc are promising. Looking forward if I can do my share since this platform and community has been comfortable enough to say
yes, it does!