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| Behind the scenes and screens of |
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| with LiveStage from totallyHip software, and any other tools which might be relevant. |
Introduction
backstage is growing slowly. I've added several scripts, utilities
and reference documents. This first page will include little embedded
multimedia content, so that you have a chance to download the
latest
system components before viewing, but of course you already
have that don't you?
This site is intended to show little experiments, ideas, hacks, nerd porn and other geeky things related to wired sprite authoring.
Made a wrong turn? Click here to go up to my Comp page!
Brennan, your backstage site looks really crap. What about
a rotating chrome 3d logo or something?
I'm on this 'anti-æsthetic' trip at the moment, hence the
cheesy 'Mosaic' style of this site. This is all completely deliberate
because it's just easier that way, and I don't have to get lost
in stylistic explorations of contemporary web glamour, it also
semiotically suits the 'backstage' idea.
LiveStage?
Only the coolest multimedia authoring tool to appear for ages.
It adds interactivity to QuickTime movies! I'll also be
looking at other wired technologies as and when they appear.
QuickTime used to be just for desktop digital video. Now it's for a whole bunch of other stuff too, like games, toys, educational things, rich media automata, demonstrations, simulations, total world domination, all sorts, really. Not to mince words, QuickTime pisses on its competitors (Real and WiMP), and (very important) relies on standards-based technology. If you want a more thorough introduction to this stuff, you might read my article Beyond Desktop Video on Director-Online.
What do I need to see this stuff?
You'll need to have the latest version of QuickTime
installed.
Be sure to make a full install, then you can click
Qscript Lingo equivalents
A large reference table containing most of the Qscript symbols,
with mappings onto equivalent, or nearly equivalent Lingo. If
you are familiar with Director and just starting out with LiveStage,
this might be useful, although it is now very out of date!
Qscript Crash Reference.
A quick guide to the grammar of the Qscript language. Includes
many tips and gotchas explained poorly or un(der)documented elsewhere.
Idle Vs. Event Trigger Modifiers.
Event Trigger Modifiers are a very powerful synchronisation tool
offered by LiveStage, but are quite difficult to understand. Find
out how to apply them in this document.
Applescripting LSP
This document also appears at LSDN
in html format.
EPS to Path Tween. Path tweens are a useful feature for making linear animations, but the LSP path editor is (ahem) imprecise and awkward to use. This script allows you to create a path in Illustrator or Freehand and then import it as a LiveStage Path tween. Thanks must go to Darrel Plant for making the original (Lingo) version and letting me have the source code which I freely cannibalized here.
LSP Previews. Previews and poster movies are not used as much as they might be. LiveStage has incomplete support for this QuickTime feature which allows people to see a little preview of a movie without loading the entire thing, typically in a file chooser dialog box. The poster frame is also used by Macromedia Director to create a QuickTime movie's cast member icon. This script enables LiveStage users to set the preview selection. Obsolete in LSP versions 4 and higher.
Applescript QuickTime Exporter for scripting the 'Export' functionality of QuickTime Player. You have to use 'most recent settings', in other words, perform one export MANUALLY so that QuickTime Player remembers your compression (etc.) settings. This should save some time. No docs yet, apart from commented source code. Just try it out. Note: This was recently updated after some useful user feedback, so if you tried an earlier version which didn't work, this one should.
Oblique Strategies. My first experiment with script-editable text tracks, QuickTime lists and XML was to take Brian Eno's creativity tool and make a QuickTime version. Source code included. This file is also available at LSDN.
VRDisplay. Another text track experiment. Just simple. Displays the pan, tilt and field of view of a QTVR panorama in a little text track at runtime. You can just paste this into your own panoramas for running feedback. A useful authoring tool for VR folks.
Generate Styled
Text tracks editable in LiveStage from Tex-Edit Plus, Appleworks
or Style
LiveStage Pro doesn't permit external text tracks to be edited,
and it might be easier to edit your text in a text editor. I've
chosen three scriptable styled text editors, Tex-Edit Plus,
Appleworks and Style. Drop it in the scripts menu
of one of those apps, or into the scripts menu of LiveStage Pro,,
edit your text, call the script, and LiveStage will have your
text (with style and color information) as a text track.
This has been prepared with the useful assistance of Stephan Huy and Anders Jiras. This is a new version of the script, which has been greatly optimised for speed, in fact, it takes only a little longer than it takes LiveStage to export the movie afterwards!
As usual, full source is included. Alas, justification is not supported because LiveStage has a bug there.
Styled Text Track generator. A nice Applescript for generating heterogeneously styled text tracks using Tom Bender's excellent styled text editor Tex-Edit Plus. Updated for version 4!
Open Qscript
html reference. Just something I put together to solve a particular
problem I was having with the Qscript html reference. If I had
my 'heavyweight' web browser open (Netscape Communicator) while
I was working in LiveStage, I'd want to open the reference in
that application, but if it wasn't already open, I wouldn't want
to waste time loading it into RAM, and would rather use a lightweight
html browser such as iCab or
the Apple help system which starts up quickly. This applescript
is designed for LiveStage's 'script' menu.
The first time you run it, it will ask you to locate the Qscript
reference document, your heavyweight browser, and your lightweight
browser. Thereafter it will open the Qscript reference in the
appropriate application, depending what is running. The script
requires the excellent Akua sweets scripting addition, which is
available free of charge from here.
LibraryUtility
An Applescript which automates the process of making a 'Library'
for your LiveStage project documents. Unglamorous but useful.
LiveStage Pro 3 introduced this functionality as standard, so
it is only useful for those with an earlier version.
QuickTime Slider control
Do you think the standard QuickTime slider control stinks? Maybe
you like the functionality but the look and feel just don't fit
in with the rest of your interface, well here's a customizable
one:
You can mix and match the different controls as you like, change the graphics or whatever. No scripting is required but LiveStage source projects are included if you want to change the functionality. Ideal for standalone multimedia presentations. Download free wired QuickTime playback controls for your own movies. (Old binhexed stuffit archive removed because it no longer unpacks on OSX for some reason).
Lingo to QuickTime communication
(Shockwave 7 or later is required. Download it here
first.The QuickTime Xtra will download automatically the first
time you view this page,which will take a little while, so hang
in there).
Remote control in the browser
and elsewhere
An experiment with QuickTime's great 'inter-movie messaging' feature.
Wired messages are routed through the plug-in instead of relying
on flaky 'standards' like LiveConnect or Javascript.
Another remote control experiment
Another experiment with remote control. This time, one movie exposes
a variable to the other so that data can be exchanged between
browser movies.
Experimental stuff etc. Use at your own risk!m3u test. A little example showing the control of m3u files from a seperate wired movie. Messaging support. Will this ever get finished? I am trying to catalog the support for wired actions in various applications. It's now moved a bit further, but there are plenty of applications missing. VRMapnodes - on the way to being a nice little LSP behavior. You're on your own though. seleQTor - A very nice little applescript for 'saving' selections in QuickTime player. (Not the contents, but the position of the handles). Very useful if you're using QT player a lot for editing. There are still a couple of issues to iron out, but it's working rather well. Time-based hypertext example - The QuickTime plug-in has full access to the QuickTime importer, which means you can put a specially marked up text file on a web server - for example with a cgi, asp or php script - and have the QuickTime plug-in interpret it on the fly as a time-based hypertext document, linking to other similar files. Check out this simple example, fully documented and with a downloadable archive of all relevant files. seleQTor - A very nice little applescript for 'saving' selections in QuickTime player. (Not the contents, but the position of the handles). Very useful if you're using QT player a lot for editing. There are still a couple of minor issues to iron out, but it's working rather well. QTLists - demonstrates how to pass data to a QuickTime movie from Javascript using XML. As far as I can tell, this works on all browsers that can run QuickTime. QuickTime preflighter component type and subtype list. If you are delivering QT content by network which requires anything but the minimal install, this may be important. Generate 'tell target' AppleScript skeletons for QuickTime Player - in QuickTime Player A 'tool movie' for anyone messing about with QuickTime and AppleScript. |
The LiveStage / wired sprite community is small, but growing
rapidly. The QuickTime technology has already had such a lasting
impact on the entire multimedia authoring industry that getting
into 'wired movies' is a natural thing for a large number of very
different people.
We're all coming from different angles and meeting in the middle,
using a tool which is light enough for quick interactive sketches,
and serious enough for impressive professional multimedia content.
Here's the beginning of our online community...
The guys who make it all possible: Apple and totallyHip
If you're interested in LiveStage, or wired sprites, join the LiveStage Talk mailing list!
The first third-party resource and home of 'Shakespeare' and 'Prescenium': LiveSite
Chiming away with quiet elegance: SmallHands Inc
Home of 'Pageot' - a Must Have freeware utility: QTBridge
Virtually briq
graphic / interactive / product Coloured
Cute, you know, for kids? Zapitoo
...and if you're upset that I missed you out, get in touch!
I am a multimedia designer with no affiliation or business
relation to any of the companies listed above except (in some
cases) in the capacity of software licensee. This information
is as accurate and as up to date as I have opportunity to make
it. If you can be civil about it, you may email
me.