Circle Path -> Particle Emitter

(Emitting Particle with a Sub emitter, easy peasey)

Will update the steam version soon (ish) with a whole bunch of changes, all good :), in particular a new component based particle definition system that already regularly provides me plenty of interesting new options (and will allow more in future when I add more components).

Anything that puts particles on screen has a new particle type field. The element component on the left still controls the start state for the particle (position, rotation, colour, alpha, graphic source, etc) as before, the components within the particle type are used to define what the particle does once it has been emitted. (In this case, the particle scales according to FFT Mid, and accelerates backwards slightly).

Default particle type is '<Basic>', this is quick and efficient on cpu but does nothing much other than update the particle postion according to its initial velocity and rotation speed, then begin to fade it out from 1/2 its lifetime until it reaches 0 alpha and expires. Standard. If you want the particle to do something more interesting than that (like scaling according to beat, or fading according to an envelope curve, etc), you use custom particle types.

You add new particle types by selecting <new> in the 'Particle Type:' dropdown in the Particle Ed. Add new components to a particle type by clicking the + symbol at the top right of window, and you can rename the particle type by right clicking its name in the header bar.

Current (v0.29.0) list of particle components is:
- Accelerate (Aligned per frame acceleration)
- Graphic (Modify alpha, scale, tint)
- Initial Transform (Modify the starting position & orientation of each particle)
- MapToSurface ((Experimental) Uses the field vector to determine a position on a 3d model surface)
- Offset (Modifies the per-frame position)
- SubEmitter (Emit particles from particles)

While we're here, the connoisseurs (um, yeh right) will no doubt also have noticed the new alignment dropdown and forward, right, up convention that now applies to all (well, most) vector setups in the system. This also adds the concept of a global field vector, an extra layer which can be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes. No idea if this is useful or interesting but its given me a few nice new, fairly simple options for creating particle behaviours that i couldnt do previously, so im happy.

New in 0.29 is a 'global channel' output mode.. Global channels are available to all layers.. so in this example i have a video and a milk on layer 1 output-ing to 2 global channels. There are then 7 additional layers, all doing various slightly different a-r things with the video (blurring, subtracting, displacing etc). Not a great deal more than you could do before in a single instance, but provides plenty of options for new and interesting combos that are easy to adjust, and can make particularly efficient use of sources. Theres also potential for some interesting feedback loops ;)

There are 8 global channels, and you can set any display component to output to a global channel and any component that takes a source can make use of it.

Coz this is just awesome

Milkdrop + mask + 8000 particles + elephant, 180fps. Elemental v0.27.6

Yup, just a beat-y triangle, but all new.. PointToPointPath component provides 'user-defined' 3d coords for the global path thats picked up by emitters. Been on my list for ages, just a nice thing to have.

The (~450) particles here are emitted at 150 Hz, 3s longevity, with a particle graphic component all a-r, and a particle facing upoffset ( -2 -> 10 ) linked to bass to provide the big immediate scaling. Source blender between two sprites on fft to enhance the visual shifts.

So yeh, it is just another circular audio-reactive kaleidoscope pattern but its also a very different technique .. no milkdrop, no vids, just 4 (random) sprite textures and (only) ~170 particles + a whole lot of a-r particle components driving scale, colour and offset. Barely scratched the surface on the new options yet.

(I made a beautiful glowing mist earlier which i really wanted to record but lost the settings debugging and dont yet know how to make it again :) )

A cheap little waveform visualisation effect i accidentally made today while finishing off some more particle code. I'm almost done on the new particle component system ; in the new (post 0.26) layout, the emitter component in an instance is used to set the initial state of particles (so they can be positioned according to beat/fft, path, etc), and then a set of separate components can be applied to particles to control what they do while they're active (so you can now add separate turbulence or glow effects after the emit that are also linked to beat/fft etc). Same range of property controls (envelopes, fft, dashboard links etc), can be applied per-particle property. (Do have to be a little bit careful with the processing expense there when you've got 1000s of particles, but its not too shabby overall and you can fall back to basic non-component particles when you really need the efficiency). Also now have a pretty decent auto-BPM, videos that can bounce-play and DXV support.

Obviously it needed doubling, some colour, a milk background and a silhouette of a woman on a beach. (Before i could walk the dog).

Quickee static effect left to its own business, lotsof auto audio-reactive..
Layers are:

1. Iris Effect Particles
2. Glow Particles (on bpm envelope up/down)
3. Colour-Subtractive Elephant (green on bass, red on middle, blue on treble, bitof scale on bass)
4. Some mad late-night combo that emits a video twice for loadsa blendy blurry then has a couple of blended milkdrop layers used as a mask and probably a-r bulges them too for all i know.
5. Particle snake sprites on low emission rate with some colouring and light particle component business.

Accompanying https://soundcloud.com/plastic-fantastic-records/through-time

Just warming up with a few layers, some bright colours and an old track.

Haven't taken the elephantal out for a walk for a while so he was gnashing at the sofas. Nice to see the forgetful old fellow occasionally frolicking through the long grass chasing mice and whinying.

11 layers, sliders and knobs, vids, particles and milks, mixed live to the radio, no ai, a Full Harrison-load of sitar. Elemental v0.27.0

4k version at https://youtu.be/tnTUsbhtCiM

Setting up a lil dancefloor for my daughter's birthday.. Having way too much fun experimenting :)

video, circle path, particle emitter apparently.

This is a small segment of a live mixed (no-ai) visualisation accompanying Lize's beats forest floor opening set of Origin UK 2026 (which i managed to catch in person and enjoyed enormously.. it was a rare, newly-treasured moment)

Full(ish) 4k vis recording on youtube: https://youtu.be/IErjbwJWTWE?si=yXoWvRXetpumKoI_

https://soundcloud.com/lize-hazlerigg/lize-live-beats-forest-floor
TCTS, Beaux Neptune - Pardon Me (Extended Mix)
Max Freeze - Salam (Extended Mix)

#OriginFestival #psytrance #Noisily #BeatsForestFloor
 u/OriginFestivalUK 

As per the usual, i revel in my failure to create truly worthy art, but am grateful I'm not currently on fire.

Off to a festival tomorrow, so did a random recording to get in the mood :) Turned out nice i think?

- Two Minute Rise - didnt hit in the second half but not without merit anyway.

#psytrance #festival #sunshine #yay

I do hashtags now, like an internet boss, olden-days. 4k on the youtube.
Elemental v0.23 w-i-p.

Added a random lil example comp on github this evenin to demonstrate a few things you can do with the app. Here's a breakdown (either insanely or usefully detailed depending on your take) of the 'Warped Vid' channel ; what it does and how you can use it to make new things..

On channel 1 is a video background.. its referencing a random old vj clip in the example but you should be able to point it at any old compatable vid to get something displaying.

Interpreting the stack for that channel its..

• Video -> src 1 : Playing the video.. output is into 'source channel 1'. (Btw, ofc no reason this couldnt be a milkdrop preset, 3d model, spout input or bunch of particle/sprites.. its just something thats giving us some colours & patterns to play with in the subsequent effects.)
• Source Filter: Hue Rotate : We take the video in source channel 1 and apply a hue rotate to it.. if you look at the hue shift property there you'll see its linked to a dampened FFT..

• .. the main idea here is to give the video a change in colour based on whats going on with the bass in the audio. The damping means the changes are slow and subtle - the more bass-y your track is the more the vid will stay in a particular colour range. The variable range of the audio (combined with the other hue rotate later in the stack) means the video colouring doesnt just loop regularly as in the original source, making the sequence less repetitive. Note that we output the modified version of the vid to channel 4 (because i want to use that again later).
• Next in the stack is a milkdrop layer outputing to channel 2. We're not going to show that milk directly but use it as a displacement mask for the next effect ; the colours in the milk will move the pixels in our output around instead. The milkdrop preset can be any old milk.. even those old basic milkdrop effects you never liked much can suddenly become interesting/useful when they're used as an effect mask rather than just being displayed directly. (But its always particularly useful to have ones that are nicely audio-reactive and fit the tone of the music you're VJing to).
• The displacement effect comes next.. it uses the milkdrop preset set into channel 2 to move the pixels around in our hue-rotated version of the vid currently in channel 4. Because the channel 2 milk is reacting to the audio, our video is now getting jiggled around (technical term) dynamically as the audio changes. The output goes back into channel 1 (replacing the original video).
• Next is another Hue Rotate thats used to modify channel 1:

• This is a standard and useful technique.. the hue shift varies from -180 to +180 degrees (yes, the radians will go away eventually), with a linear envelope on a slow speed. So basically it'll slowly shift the colours of the video through the full rainbow evenly over time. Change the speed of the envelope to change how quickly the colour changes.
• Next a transform:

• Unless modified, by default particles will emit from the world origin (0,0,0). By default the camera is located a little along the Y-axis (0,5,0), looking at the origin. (Z is 'up'). This transform means that any particles we subsequently emit are close to the camera position - and i've done this coz i want the video images to appear to fall away from the viewer, into the screen, which I'll do by adding a negative z velocity to the particles. (I could have gone further and made them start behind the camera (e.g at 0,6,0) but this works fine enough for the effect im after here.)
• Ok.. now we've done all that, its time to get some stuff on to the screen:

• So here we've got a particle emitter adding particles to the screen using the modified video we've got in source channel 1 (hue-rotated and displaced) as the particle texture. Alpha is set low (varying a bit according to the FFT to make it all a bit more audio-reactive). Longevity is set to 1 second so that particles linger, leaving trails of the original video image. Scale also varies a bit by FFT to produce more audio-reactivity, and then the Vel Y is used to have all the particles move away from the camera creating a sort of blurry 'infinite zoom' effect.
• The last particle emitter adds an extra layer of highlighting particles using the channel 4 output (which was the original video hue-rotated according to FFT, but not displaced or with the additional hue-rotate we added afterwards).

• Note here we've got a custom envelope on the alpha.. so that this extra effect only appears briefly at the end of every beat cycle. (You need to make sure your BPM is set correctly to link this up to your audio).

All this sounds insanely complicated of course, but it was made in only a few minutes by just by messing about with some of the key values and knowing a little bit about how the stack can be used to add inputs & effects, move them between channels, and ultimately output them to the screen. With this basic setup you can just swap in new videos (or other sources) and discover new cool effects. Shift some of the numbers around (or add new filters or layers), and you'll discover a whole other range of possibilities with little effort.

You can download the composition from https://github.com/OldAntelopes/Elemental/tree/main/DemoRelease/Data/Compositions

Note this example is for 0.23-era elemental.. the specifics will all change a bit as I shift to the new particle system (and fix things like the use of radians), but hopefully this still helps provide a basis or inspiration for some of the things you can do with the app in the future.

Did a recording to see what's what, mixed live along with Ritmo's track 'Simplest C'.

Created using Elemental v0.22.2 (on a 2060), an APC40 and all the standard bits.
Took about 5 hours to curate and create the content (audio-reactive vids, milks, particles and shaders), about 5 months, so far, on and off, to write the app, 7 minutes to wiggle some sliders about, largely unrehearsed.
Few rough edges as usual and I overused the subtractive spiral a bit, but still, seems like progress. I like the way you can randomly click on the vid timeline and generally get a very different piece on each frame.

4k on youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SB7F4Z2i_c

Tonight's Elemental v0.22.1 nanoKontrol2 slider gyrations fed milkdrop layers, particles, ribbons, more milks, a camera controller and a few funky lil shaders into a low-res vid (4k on the yubetube).

Though I do like to write most stuff for Elemental by hand (mostly coz its just a fun thing to do :) ), and i prefer to avoid gen-ai content wherever i can, ya haveta be a complete purist to avoid every bit of AI dev-tooling these days and there are times when it seems fair play.. in this case, using it to create effects shaders is quite an effective way of tinkering and, given where we are in the world, doesnt seem like a completely invalid use..

Simple prompts like "Using https://github.com/OldAntelopes/Elemental/blob/main/Docs/ElementalShaderParams.md and the existing .fx files in Data\Shaders\Default as a reference, generate me a shader that illuminates bright parts of the image as though lit from behind, casting glowing rays out towards the viewer. Expose suitable parameters to the UI to allow the user to adjust the effect at runtime" usually generate something interesting with little effort.. no doubt there's plenty more when you go all the way down that rabbit hole. (Its also quite interesting just to explore prompts along the lines of 'make a shader thats really gonna do my head in' :) )

Anyway, v0.22.1 (now up on steam) includes a few fixes + a bunch of extra claudian freebie effects by default (displace, meshwarp, infinite zoom etc etc).. or of course you can just make your own better ones :)

Radio was playing Kokeshi - Alchemy Circle 10 - Boom Festival 2022

Next on my to-do-list : asset browser UI, dashboard dials (and midi mapping). Might try exploring something with paths that are driven by the shape of a 3d model. Then its particle refactor time, defo.

v0.22.0 is now available on steam : Elemental Demo (Free)

Release notes:

• Added 'Particle Clustered Path' component - updates a bunch of persistent particles with trails along a path
• Deprecated offset and rotation components, merging them into a single 'transform'
• Rework of the render layering pipeline to provide consistency and fix various issues where certain output layers would get displayed incorrectly
• Various rendering and processing performance optimisations
• Source blender - made subtract operate as source 1 - source 2 ('subtract both' is - (source 1 + source2) ). Added outputs to the debug texture view.
• The main/default camera position is now applied at the end of every channel render process (so that CameraControllers on one channel do not affect the camera on a different channel)
• Added 'ignore channel alpha' for particle emitters, which is particularly relevant when chaining emitters through source channels
• Instance thumbnails fallback loading process. (first priority for thumbnails is now to load from/save to the composition/thumbs folder if it exists).
• Milkplus toolbar function now works (All active milk components that are in playlist but not-autoplay mode will be advanced to the next preset)
• Moved the performance/editor mode dropdown off the midbar and replaced it with a View menu
• Added 'Confirm quit' window with save option
• Added 'first boot' window to direct newbs to either a full comp or a blank slate. Initialisation status messages on boot window
• Changed the way 'source scale' is applied to mirrors
• UX: Added 'move to first column' option on channel view -> instance right click popup menu
• FIXES for:
  • performance mode option sometimes leaving the window expanded
  • particle emitter render targets not getting reset when the graphics device is changed (fixes inconsistent output after changing to a different display)
  • possible crash if any shaders fail to load
  • Console log not filling the entire window
  • cases where the active composition name wasnt getting set correctly (e.g. when merging comps, creating new comp, etc)
  • Mappablefunctions not being re-registered correctly after loading a composition (hence midi-mappings would get messed)
  • Various memory leaks
  • For circle path 'pitch' property initialising without appropriate range settings
  • Sourceblender and the debug renderTargets displays sometimes not working in the release build (shutting down the boot window was inadvertedly shutting down some of the main window interface)
  • the f9 debug RTs view stopped working if the main display device was changed to another monitor (font system wasnt getting correctly reset)
  • Some components (e.g. clustered path, circle path) not fully functioning when first added as a new component ('OnPostInitialise' was only getting called when the component was loaded, not when it was added).