Today we’re going to create a super cool pattern based video synthesizer, using one of Max MSP’s native toolsets called Vizzie. Vizzie makes video creation and manipulation really simple and I think you’ll see what I mean by the end of this tutorial.

So lets start by opening a new patcher file and looking at the left hand side of our screen. In the toolbar you’ll see a little V inside a circle. This is Vizzie, go ahead and click it and a menu will open.

All the components available in the Vizzie package are listed in this menu. For our purposes what we need to do is make sure all is selected and anytime we want to create a new component we’re going to search for it by using the filter field. To get a visual up and running quickly, using the Vizzie filter, lets create:

1 OSCIL8R

1 PATTERNIZR

1 VIEWR

Next to connect it all:

Connect the output of your OSCIL8R to the 7th and 8th inputs of your PATTERNIZR

Connect the output of your PATTERNIZR to the input of your VIEWR

You should see something like this:

Your pattern should be oscillating and moving, pretty neat, but where’s the colour? Create a 2TONER and a KALEIDR and lets add it to our synth.

Connect the output of your PATTERNIZR to the input of your 2TONER

Pick two colours you like for your 2TONER

Connect the output of your 2TONER to the input of your KALEIDR

Connect the output of your KALEIDR to the input of your VIEWR

Lock your patcher, CMD+E, and set your KALEIDR mode to scale, then unlock

If nothing blew up you should have something similar to the image below.

Now Vizzie is rather processor intensive on my machine so I won’t take this too much further, but just to push this puppy past 11 lets select everything accept our VIEWR, then copy and paste it.

Create a XFADR and connect the outputs of both KALEIDRs to the inputs of the XFADR

Create a BRCOSR and connect the output of the XFADR to the input of the BRCOSR

Connect the output of your BRCOSR to the input of your VIEWR

Lock your patch, CMD+E, and tweak the second set of modules to something you think is cool, unlock your patch

You should have something like this:

The last thing you will likely want to do is record your video. To do that what we are going to do is:

Create a RECORDR

Connect the output of the XFADR to the input of the RECORDR

Lock your patch, CMD+E, set the RECORDR codec to h264

Click the Choose a directory button on the RECORDR and choose where to save your movie

Click record and tweak your patch, when you’re done, click record again to stop

Once your done you’ll have your own video synth clip.

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For more video synth tutorials check out Create a Video Synthesizer with VSynth & Max MSP.