Use Vuo compositions in Final Cut Pro X and Motion.

Component: 

Notes from Team Vuo

Vuo Pro: 

Yes — requires a Vuo Pro license

Complexity: 

●●●○ — A few months of work

Potential: 

●●● — Opens Vuo to a new audience

Implemented in Vuo version: 

Comments

Remember everyone: Deploying

alexmitchellmus's picture
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Remember everyone: Deploying as FxPlug will allow keyframing of compositions published ports. This will be huge! Think of any effect and get it controllable in Apple Motion- or FCPX! Colour filters- shaders- 3D Models! Never worry about purchasing an effect ever again- just DIY with VUO! Please show your support with your votes for this AMAZING request!

Also remember guys that

alexmitchellmus's picture
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Also remember guys that Motion is only $64.99! So paired with Vuo you can get a fully controllable Vuo composition with all the bells and whistles for a very small outlay!! Beat that After Effects!! (Until Vuo supports that to! Which will also be super cool!)

@smokris so we may need to

alexmitchellmus's picture
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Steve so we may need to wait and see how antialiasing is handled by Motion & FCPX? There is only a setting for shape antialiasing and 'high quality textures', whatever that is?! I am guessing all FxPlugs render as textures when inside a host? So hopefully that is covered. But then again if we instigate antialiasing in the "scene to image" node then theoretically that has that covered? I have wondered if antialiasing is set within the composition & in render movie settings if we are doubling up on antialiasing? Or is movie render antialiasing only done on the final texture? (So theoretically if the final texture IS antialiased then yes?)

@alexmitchellmus, Vuo 1.2's new

smokris's picture
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alexmitchellmus, Vuo 1.2's new Multisampling port on the Render to Image nodes is independent from the File > Export > Movie antialiasing setting.

Multisampling refers to OpenGL MSAA. Edges of objects are evaluated multiple times per output pixel, but interior pixels are only evaluated once. So textures/shaders can still exhibit aliasing even when MSAA is enabled.

File > Export > Movie is full-screen antialiasing (FSAA). Each image is rendered at a multiple of the output resolution, then scaled down. So this setting also antialiases the interiors of objects.

Team Vuo: what sort of

alexmitchellmus's picture
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Team Vuo: what sort of license do you envision for built plugins? Can we sell them online for example? Will the plugins be encrypted? Are there any plans to have an App Store style repository? (Personally I can see positives and negatives to app stores)

@alexmitchellmus, Team Vuo doesn't

smokris's picture
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alexmitchellmus, Team Vuo doesn't impose restrictions on what you do with the stuff you make in Vuo — we permit you to give them away or sell them. Vuo uses some 3rd-party open source software, and you should ensure your distribution is in compliance with their licenses. When Vuo exports an app, it includes an About box that lists all the licenses, and, where necessary (e.g., LGPL), it dynamically links to the 3rd-party code. We believe this covers the compliance requirements. You can also browse the license texts in the exported app bundle (right-click, Show Package Contents, Contents > Frameworks > Vuo.framework > Versions > 1.2.0 > Documentation > Licenses).

The situation for exported FxPlugs would be the same as for exported apps — we're planning to similarly comply by bundling the licenses and dynamically linking where necessary.

In the exported FxPlug (just like exported apps), your composition would be compiled into machine language — the composition source code is not included. A sly hacker would be able to extract an unordered list of the names of nodes you used, but it would take substantial, difficult work to figure out more than that (which cables are connected where, what the constant values are, …). This feature request does not cover encryption (feel free to file a feature request for that if you like).

We'd like to eventually host an app store for the Vuo community, but given our limited resources, it'll be a while before we can get to that. In the meantime, there are other places you can easily sell stuff you make with Vuo (e.g., Gumroad, Bandcamp, Sellfy), and we could consider linking to your stuff (like we do in the node gallery).

Vuo team: if an App Store is

alexmitchellmus's picture
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Vuo team: if an App Store is on the cards how can you guys make this work positively - to fund itself and also further Vuo development? I am guessing other online portals charge a small fee for sale- that would be good to look into for any possible Vuo App Store. The last thing I would want is an extra service offered by team Vuo that takes away development resources from Vuo without giving back.

Unless of course it is judged to be a value adding service!?

Ok @jstrecker, that sounds

alexmitchellmus's picture
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Ok Jaymie, that sounds like more work for you guys but also sounds better for end users. There are lots of complex things that Motion can do (as you would know) like making rigging sets etc, and publishing specific variables. Lots of FCPX effects are actually just Motion effects anyway! :-)

I haven't looked at Motion in

useful design's picture
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I haven't looked at Motion in a long time, but does it allow for more interaction with effects than just the basic inputs of numbers, index, string, image and so on? Will modal dialogues be possible to load files or do complex interactions to setup something with a preview window or the like with Vuo FX plugins ?

Also one thing that really limited QC was the inability to programmatically control published inputs. One can't show/hide inputs depending on relevance to other settings, one can't change named index list items depending on state (enumerated lists), one can't change the min/max/step-size settings on sliders depending on other settings programmatically. Will Vuo also be bound by such limitations or are there ways around. Sorry, I would love to simply fire Vuo up and just see for myself but I'm still largely unfamiliar with the basic node set and nuances and it's a bit harder to push towards a goal as a novice in Vuo than QC in my humble opinion, even with a wealth of QC experience, just because the flow paradigm is less simple (but obviously more powerful with it).

There are a couple of ways

jstrecker's picture
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There are a couple of ways that plugins exported from Vuo may be able to pop up additional UI elements like a preview window. The first I'm not totally sure about since I haven't tested, but it may be possible to just add a piece in your Vuo composition that displays a window as usual. The second possibility would be for Vuo to support the FxPlug onscreen controls API. I would say put onscreen controls on a separate feature request if you want it, since it goes beyond the basic ability to export Vuo image filter/generator compositions as FxPlug plugins.

Your suggestion about programmatically showing/hiding published inputs could be built on top of the proposed UI for storing and editing published input port values. Again, separate feature request. Please create if you're interested.

P.S. — If it's been a while since you last tried Vuo or looked at the tutorials and manual, I'd encourage you to take a look at what's changed. We still have a number of event-related usability improvements slated for Vuo 1.3, but in the meantime I hope that the great tutorials by Vuo community members, the improved documentation, and the added example compositions can help demystify events for you. If you have specific questions about events, please ask!

Is there any further update

kingluma's picture
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Is there any further update on the status of this feature (FxPlug plugin generation) beyond "Chosen to be implemented" ? I have a lot of experience creating visual effects plugins for video editors and compositors (most recently using Quartz Composer and Motion to create effects for Final Cut Pro) and I would be eager to give feedback on the Vuo implementation as soon as a usable build was available. I'm also eager to replace Quartz Composer with Vuo wherever possible so I expect I'll be making use of this feature. Thanks.

Ah @kingluma I know you as

useful design's picture
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Ah kingluma I know you as Boris Effects… much respect to you! I also recall you organised someone within Apple management to address a bunch of unfixed and showstopping bugs in one of the more recent releases, thanks heaps for that, was embarrassing that they disowned QC for so long.

Feature status

When we (Team Vuo) plan each release, we try to implement as many of the community's top-voted feature requests as we have time for. Vote your favorite features to the top! (How do Vuo feature requests work?)

  • Submitted to vuo.org
  • Reviewed by Team Vuo
  • Community voted
  • Scheduled for implementation
  • Released in Vuo 2.0.0-beta1

Who voted?

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