FYI, I have it from a reliable source that

"The only way to ship native plugins for ARM-based Macs is for developers to use the new FxPlug 4 SDK."

I currently don't have an ARM based Mac to try but I figured I'd start a thread here on the forum to ask whether or not FxPlugs generated by Vuo meet this criteria (and if not if it is at least in the queue of tasks to be done...) Thanks for any info on it.

Comments

It’s unfortunate that the

funwithstuff's picture
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It’s unfortunate that the rules have changed relatively soon after the FxPlug3 support was added, but there are many other developers in the same boat, and not many complex plug-ins are ready for M1 chips right now. Probably best to reach out to other devs to find out what the situation is.

The main limitation as I see

useful design's picture
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The main limitation as I see it is that if you build FX plug-ins in Vuo (and this applied to equally to QC) is that if you just port it directly you are limited in the UI interface tou can have. It takes extra code, in Xcode to build some of the sophisticated UIs which some video effects plug-in deploy. But if you’re ok with hard wired input ports then I think why not? Hard part is doing something genuinely original/new to the platform, there’s a bunch of low cost transition plugins already for example.

Hard wired input ports aren't

funwithstuff's picture
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Hard wired input ports aren't such a big deal, many plug-in are built entirely in Motion and Vuo lets you step beyond that nicely. But yes, you're limited in what you can do with a custom UI.

All this is moot without FxPlug 4 support though; you can't release new plug-ins that don't work on new Macs.

I have several effects that

kingluma's picture
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I have several effects that have sold a reasonable number of licenses (through FxFactory which acts as a kind of publisher)... this kind of thing ;

Those effects were built with Apple Motion and in some cases Quartz Composer based fxplugs used within Motion. (the onscreen UI shown in the videos is achieved by using the "rigging" and "linking" features in Apple Motion - and it would be possible to do the same for features built using vuo generated fxplugs). I've built some things using vuo but nothing I've offered for sale as of yet. I hope and expect that I will be making use of vuo in commercial products in the foreseeable future though - and in that case FxFactory will not publish them and I'll need to do more of the leg work of selling them myself (either way I have to make the promo videos myself : ) but FxFactory has a significant following and handles the purchase and delivery process etc. so it will require a lot more from me to sell outside of FxFactory)

Congratulations on launching

kingluma's picture
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Congratulations on launching the product - it looks useful. I get the FxFactory marketing emails so I had actually seen the video already.

Years ago I did a lot of work on something I intended to release for Final Cut Pro through FxFactory. This product I had created relied on a free Kineme QC patch that was under an MIT license which explicitly allowed for it to be used that way (redistributed as part of a paid product and even modified etc.) but Gabe shut it down. I think he didn't want to have an FxFactory product that made use of any code that wasn't his (or Apple's) because he thought it would be difficult to maintain in the future etc. - of course any FxFactory effects that make use of Quartz Composer at all are becoming difficult to maintain at this point... Anyway, I could be wrong but I expect that he might have the same attitude toward something that relied on Vuo.

I like and respect the FxFactory guys (I worked with Gabe at another company before he started FxFactory and I live an easy subway ride away from their office so I've visited them from time to time) but I'll never forget the feeling of having a project that I had put in a lot of time working on be vetoed that way : ) That project also depended on FxFactory code (to make use of QC comps) so I wasn't able to go forward with it - although now I could do it replacing the QC comps with Vuo comps etc.

Thanks! I hope people like it

funwithstuff's picture
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Thanks! I hope people like it. Re FxFactory, I suspect that perhaps since QC has been deprecated for so long (and buggy before then) it wasn't the safest idea to build products using it. I'll definitely ask about Vuo support when FxPlug4 becomes an option, because I have some ideas. FxFactory do have their own effects platform, though, so it might be possible to do something using that.

I'll definitely ask about Vuo

kingluma's picture
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I'll definitely ask about Vuo support when FxPlug4 becomes an option, because I have some ideas

cool - let us know how that goes - from what I've seen FxCore isn't really a direct QC replacement (as far as how it's used by someone like me in the context of FxFactory) - nor was it meant to be AFAIK - so I'd be happy if they were willing to publish products including Vuo based FxPlugs - I mean, I fully expect it would work just fine from a technical standpoint - but then again so did my Kineme/QC project so... : )

Have been waiting for this

lechbialek's picture
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Have been waiting for this update, many thanks!

I do have a question, what is the function of the FxPlug wrapper app and what is good place to store them? (I have read the Vuo manual on the subject but there isn't much explanation there)

I haven’t done anything

funwithstuff's picture
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I haven’t done anything special to cause it, just opened the Motion project and left it open (not playing) while working in other apps. At some point I came back to Motion and saw that. I can send my project if that might help?

lechbialek,

jmcc's picture
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lechbialek,

As to the wrapper app, maybe Apple is expecting that macOS users should think about everything in terms of apps and not plugins; perhaps the macOS requirement is part of Apple's ongoing efforts to make macOS more like iOS. The iOS and macOS App Stores only allow selling app bundles (not plugin bundles), so you have to package the plugin bundle inside an app bundle in order for the App Store to accept it. But that's just our take on it. We haven't seen any definitive reason from Apple.

funwithstuff,

jmcc's picture
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funwithstuff,

Thanks, that's helpful to know. We've continued to try to reproduce the "plug-in is not responding" problem, but we haven't been able to break it yet. If you could send us your Motion project that exhibits the problem, and the Vuo compositions it uses, that might enable us to reproduce it and investigate further.

If you're comfortable doing so, you could also help us identify the problem by capturing the system log messages around the time the problem occurs. Next time you see the "plug-in is not responding" dialog, press Control-Option-Command-Shift-Period — the screen will flash, then a few minutes later Finder will pop up a window containing a sysdiagnose file. Please send that file to us privately using https://vuo.org/contact (or Dropbox or another file-sharing service if you prefer).

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