Hello drago
I Have been giving some workshops by now, not with vvvv as the central theme, but mostly as the main tool to achieve the goal.
I think it is really important for you to have a theme for the workshop other than just vvvv. to people not using vvvv it is just a strange looking patching tool that looks complicated.
You need to attract the intrest by choosing a theme that people find interesting, I think something like: “real time audio reactive visuals” or something similar would work for the people attending your festival.
You can then use vvvv as the main tool to achieve the goal.
Be aware that 1-3h each day is not a lot of time, although it should be enough to give people a glimpse of vvvv as a powerful tool and they should also be able to patch very basic “box scales to sound” things themselves during that time, depending on how much they work outside your hours.
So make it clear to yourself what you want to achieve during the workshop.
And one thing is very clear! Your enthusiasm is very important for the enthusiasm of the students, I always end ud spending a lot of time and energy, but I always find it being very rewarding, both in enthusiasm from the students but also in the quality of the results. I find it worth it to put a lot of efford into it.
Some general info on how I usually make the workshop:
Usually the students are in the field of architecture 4th semester and up, have a strong understanding for 3D and are very skilled in all the “regular” 3D software. If they have been using grasshopper for Rhino beforehand they have a real bennefit of understanding nodebased patching already. So my experience is based on this group of students and the context is thus mostly mediated architecture of some sort. and my obeservations might not fit cmopletely on other groups of students.
Usually I have from 3 whole days to 4 weeks for a workshop, where the use of vvvv range from the central tool to a secondary tool needed for just a part of the workshop. The amount of time for a workshop depend mainly on economy.
I generally use around 4 hours to cover the very basics, this includes a very basic thing with quads with images on, where I first show how to make aquad and how to transform it, change the colour and add a picture as texture.
Then I give an assignment designed to show how clever spreads are, eg. make 5 evenly distributed quads in a circle, each with a different filetexture on it… the fast ones quickly makes that and I ask them to change it from five to seven and still have it ecually distributed.
then I show them an example of how this can be achieved using spreads and the next little assignment is to make a matrix of quads that qhange colours and each quad is scaled so all the quads excactly cover the whole renderer.
from here on, how I progress depends on what the end goal is, 3D, sensors, light control etc. this basic approach is pretty simple and can be taken into many directions from here (And by now I have doen it enough times so that I dont need to prepare for this part)
tips:
If the workshop is a bit longer and the students have little idea about the tools being used and their capabilities it is a good idea to have them begin the process of conceptualizing before they get affected of the possibilities and limitations of the tools. This way you often get results that are not what you usually expect, that is also why I hessitate to show too many examples beforeforehand, although I agree that showing the examples just before the technical parts begin is a good idea to spark interest and enthusiasm before the often not too advanced basic examples designed to teach the basics, often the link from flat 2D thinking to more complex 3D is not really easily visible.
I usually don’t make a lot of files people can download. I begin from scratch making very simple patches at the beginning, where the students have their own laptops running and do their own “examples” by following me. I also share the folder for the workshop with the students using dropbox.
It is also my experience that even though most people are good enough to install vvvv and get it running, including the addonpack, there is always some problems getting it running, mainly evolving around macs, vista and graphic drivers.
usually out of twenty, around 3 have provblems.
advice that should go out with the workshop invite is:
install lates graphics drivers.
for people using parallels, install a recent version (I think it is version 5 that works but someone please confirm this)
and in vista run at least once as administrator.
Other than this give the download page as instructions.
when there are people with a problem, I give a quick glimpse at it and give instructions if I can otherwise I ask them to look at the side persons machine untill a break where more time can be addressed to the problem.
I hope this info is at least somewhat usefull
-sunep
