How to create a vvvv workshop

vvvv beta question
1

Hi all, im a vvvv user since 2007… im from Rosario, Argentina, its the 2nd biguest city of Arg, ( 1st is Buenos Aires ), last month i met a vvvv user from Buenos Aires and it was weird for me, because i only know 1 vvvv user here in Rosario, and only one from Buenos Aires (manuel, and i miss his workshop!), he told me that they made a few vvvv workshops there a few months ago… and i though, well i guess that what we need here in Rosario, i know a lot of artist that can use this a tool for video, or for live installations, i have a few friend who work as teachers on art universities and i´m part of the 404festival team so i can do a big promotion…

so my question is, what do i need to start a workshop ?

what are the subjects that they will need to know on the first class beside the “hello world” tutorial and the how to of the user interface ?

im 80% sure that i can get a big place for 40 people, a sound system, and a proyector for free, but if i can´t get that place , is it ok to charge a fee to paid the rental costs ?

Andres.

2

the core of every vvvv workshop is probably: the gui and how graphical programming works / transformation hierachy / spreads spreads spreads.

and then there is all the texture, shader and 3D stuff. you need to listen to your ppl what’s needed. you wont be able to cover everything. don’t stuff too much info into the course.

usually i try not to talk too much but switch between talking and little tasks , letting them apply the new information. this gives you space and time for short one to one tutorials.

3

we do workshops for up to 15 people, and there are always two of us- one “lecturing” and a freerunner going around and helping anyone that might be stuck or lost.
of course everybody should have her own laptop, just lecturing is a waste of time.

we usually have a small fee (like ten bucks) to cover for the room, electricity, some snacks and coffee. we found people are a lot more attentive if they have to pay at least a small fee.

the whole workshop usually takes 4h plus breaks, our aim is that everyone has a small (audioreactive) patch after the workshop to ensure a feeling of success. the basic structure is

  • introduction, who is who and brings what kind of background and knowledge
  • vvvv, what is possible (usually just the vvvv vimeo channel, hehe)
  • installation: have one or more sticks ready, also it is a good idea to state .net and dx as a prerequisite for the workshop
  • basic interface: create nodes, basic io box usage, add links, some ways to change a value
  • ex9 renderer. with text.
  • mouse, translate

from there the order changes a little everytime, depending on previous programming skills of the people. most of the time we stay in 2D space
focus is put on

  • transform hierarchy (difference between translate->rotate and rotate->translate)
  • normalisation of values (0…1), and coordinate system of the renderer
  • spreads (linearspread, later fft)
  • lfo and some basic animation nodes
  • use of a texture

depending on the advance of the group or even certain individuals the free runner can show a camera, a video texture from the laptop cam, even have a peak into a shader. i consider this more of a quick glance behind the curtain of what else is possible. it is not part of the “curriculum”, though.

hope this helps. i find the second person is the most important ingredient of a tight and useful workshop, because this is the best way to gather feedback if the workshop is too quick or too slow. with this you can cater to special interests without cluttering the minds of everyone.

4

This is a great thread!

I’m putting together a workshop here in Manchester at the moment.
It’s accompanies by tutorial patches + printed documentation + the illustrated guide i assisted editing from bo.

My notes so far are very similar to velcrome’s, apart from more focus on projection mapping.

Also I very much advocate the roaming teacher idea. You will always lose some students because they’re too slow or too fast. It’s invaluable to have this quiet beavering person running about making sure that fast people have something to look at, and slow people can catch up. We kind of had this at Node 10 as well and it worked very well. (Projecting on the Things workshop)

I’m currently putting my tutorial files up at
https://github.com/elliotwoods/VVVV.Tutorials.Fundamentals-Mapping
Each patch has inbuilt notes which are rendered to html by:
https://github.com/elliotwoods/VVVV.Tools.MakeDocumentation
an example of this is
https://github.com/elliotwoods/VVVV.Tools.MakeDocumentation/blob/master/testimage.png
not ready for public use yet, but you can have a fiddle!

The idea is that each tutorial patch is a v4p + a html file with detailed notes. You can add notes into the patch when you make a comment with font ‘Arial Black’, and use the title format {# - Title} for the first line of the comment (can’t use square brackets here in the forum! But imagine those {'s are square brackets). Also you can preview the documentation live in VVVV as you make changes to the patch (in a Renderer (HTML)).

Currently the markup of the documentation is some bastardised html/xml/css syntax. Would like to make this more normalised (perhaps with the VVVV website), but also get the extra symbols (like mouse actions).

5

great, tnks a lot for the detailed description, the main reason why i would like to make this is because everytime that a friend come to my house and see what im doing on vvvv they get impress ( with verry basic stuff ) and all the time they trow me very nice ideas for installations, or concepts of things that can be done with that specific resource ( arduino, kinect, midi, videoin, colortracker, ect) , and most of the time im focused on something very diferent… like mixing vvvv with other softwares, dmx experimentation, or just trying to learn pixelshader… and i say to them

" yeah that’s a grate idea, why don’t you do it ? "
" i cant’t, i don’t know how "

and i try to show them that’s the learning curve could be a little bit hard at the beginning but its not sooo hard to learn. I think that if do this with a group it will give them more confidence, they will be all doing their first steps

i guess that i took the decision of the workshop a few days ago when a friend told me " but you are an artist, o a programmer", and I’m neither of them, i just know how to use a tool, and i would love to show others a little bit of what can be done with this toolkit to help them to achieve they original ideas.

6

sadly true

  • +1 for the extra person, he/she need not to be a vvvv expert just know the basic

  • get yourself a 4-8 Gb pendrive with DX9, vvvv, addons, vlc, net frameworks, and etc. or consider bringing a router and serving from your computer

  • if it is a beginner workshop ask them to bring a webcam, they need some fun after 1 hour of spreads and boolean operations

  • as said before you won t cover the whole matter in 1 day or 2, not even in one month, so ask the participants about what they want to achieve, it ll also give you a starting point

  • (learned the hard way) don t waste too much time on basics, especially if it is a one day off workshop, find a good balance between basics and getting something done

  • F1 is workshops in itself, USE IT !

7

hi all ¡¡, nice post, hola andres que tal ¡¡

yes making a workshop can be tricky specially with vvvv because there is so much and no linear way to learn at some point you have to jump to some other feature or mecanism and go back and forth.

In my case most workshops are 3-5 concentrated days sometimes 1,2 and 4 days .

From 4 to 6 hours a day. Sometimes 8 hours which is too much for both sides .

Prefarable from 6 to 10 students . usually 15 . but my record is 180 pupils during 3 days 3 hours a day during a special video and narrative program at University .

It can be about diferent themes depending , age , resources , knowledge and time .
After some other introduction about the theme persons etc …

I usually start with a vvvv introduction. what , how , when , who , how much ,then videos and documentacion from various project not too long but enough to cath the motivation.

upss i think i,m writing too much i,ll shorten this could get very long .

then installation what is needed the site how it works . usually every pupil have a computer with the vvvv installation and directx etc ready sometimes only files and then install altogheter and some other they bring their laptops .

Open vvvv how to create nodes links F1 and after that we all start patching i guide then in all of them in some hours they are making their owns due to human nature . so more or less an hour after start everybody is flirting with nodes .

I made my own workshop template for my first workshop back in 2007 in Albacete part of the land of Don quixote ;D. Every workshop i try to update it or add something else to improve but it have not changed much . i use it as reference for myself during workshop and for pupils after it .

Yes is nice to have a small fee . People are more responsable in terms of attention and do not let other people out of the workshop in waiting list, also some cash is good for rentals etc .ask universities art and techonology to support you so you get paid for your time and effort and pupils get better premises and resourses and students will get credits after workshop.In Bilbao vvvv is a official subject in University after many years of workshops with my friends Patxis and will be in more Unis i think as vvvv rocks.

Andres i did some short workshops in beautiful Argentina in Neuquen http://tratadodeintegracion.cc/2011/02/14/workshop-iniciacion-interactivos-vvvv-y-arduino/ and Buenos aires http://www.panoramica.cc/ed_2011.php with the great and nice manuel .

last week i did this one http://www.uselabsevilla.es/node/143 i need to update my user and vvvviki with all of them , hard to survive , learn , family , friends ,have fun … and update hehe as most of us here .more to come.

haha spread the vvvvord ¡¡
bests to all ;D

8

hei all,

+1 for all your suggestions plus please:

  • announce your workshops with a blog post (entry type set to ‘date’)
  • show participants how they can flood us with screenshots/site-headers (ctrl+3)
  • don’t forget to mention the annoying licensing issue
9

lot of usefull infos already here! My 2 cents: make clear on the ws infos that windows needs to be native, not emulated and a 3 buttons mouse is required. Partecipants with macs and windows emulated are common and the mac trackpad is a nightmare for the first experience with vvvv.

10

hi , @joreg

–yes i should have announce then ,sometimes i think not big enough , other times already full , no time but hell not a excuse my apologies , will improve that .

i could not find the part of the wiki where you could find the list of workshops and cities to compbine with my list :
City Country Year

-Albacete Spain 2007

-Bilbao Spain 2008
-Bilbao Spain 2008
-Bilbao Spain 2008
-Sevilla Spain 2008
-Limerick Ireland 2008

-Madrid spain 2009
-Bilbao Spain 2009

-Bilbao Spain 2010
-Murcia Spain 2010
-Malaga Spain 2010
-Malaga Spain 2010

-Granada Spain 2011
-Neuquén Argentina 2011
-Buenos Aires Argentina 2011
-Sevilla Spain 2011
-Sevilla Spain 2011
-Granada Spain 2011

–yes they are informed of Alt 1,2,3,enter and Ctrl 2,3 but usually shy to do it ;D .

–about licensing it is in the very first section start with a vvvv introduction. what , how , when , who , how much … btw i have to update and get new licenses very soon .Also translated some weeks ago in case of doubt.

@sapo the emaulator with mac is a common thing even if you tell they install and say vvvv opens it is true in some cases but you can only do calculations no dx9 renderer . So bootcamp .
Also mention to open ports and have computers in local network , sometimes they are blocked by their security policies of universities etc and no way to change it before a week in advance of papers .
@vjc4 let me know if i can help with further info here or pm skype .

cheers

11

@colorsound: there is this rather outdated list of workshops
but rather than anouncing past workshops there it would really be great to have blog-entries for upcomming stuff.

12

ok , understood will do for next. cheers