The major technical consideration to make is if you want to pre-render a media files (such as a movie or still images), or if you plan to use a live rendered option such as ISF, Vuo or Quartz Composer.One of the most obvious and easiest ways to add another layer of protection to your computer is protecting your account with a password. Within this topic there are two initial decisions to decide on. The first major design consideration to make is if you will be counting down from 10 or if you'd prefer to display a clock that approaches midnight. In the second part of this tutorial we'll discuss the design considerations that go into making a clock followed by taking a quick look at how the pre-rendered countdown movie was made in Motion and how the three different ISF based example compositions are written in GLSL. Regardless of whether you are using a clock that runs automated or manually, unless you are using a live feed as your timer, you may have some creative control over what the display looks like. Designing A Countdownĭownload the sample ISF clock generators from this tutorial. Do note that in some venues you may need to get special permission to use live televised feeds as part of your set. An example of an external event you may want to keep in sync with is a televised countdown from a local broadcaster. Very often these broadcasts are playing in homes and other public venues around the world and it can sometimes be nice to just cut to this instead of creating your own countdown. For this you can get a digital HDTV receiver and an HDMI capture device (such as a Blackmagic Mini Recorder) to access the live feed like any other camera connected to your computer. In other cases you may need to automate the timing to be in sync with the time of a computer or another event. Another route to working with automated clocks is to use an interactive live rendering composition created in ISF, Vuo or Quartz Composer that is displayed on screen. Similarly you may find it useful to create a movie file that starts with an exact 10 second countdown animation that a person can read along with. In some cases the easiest and most flexible approach is to create 10 different still images and manually trigger them one by one. Manually Advanced Clocks vs Automated Clocksĭepending on your needs you there are two different directions you can go in for running the timer behind the countdown.Īs an example, at many events there is a person who is leading the crown in a countdown and you may be required to keep in sync with them.
In this tutorial we'll start with a discussion about how to answer each of these questions and then look at a few different ideas to get you started with the available approaches.
It also helps to have an idea in advance of what your options are for running a visual countdown. Often it can mean coordinating with other performers or workers at the venue. Depending on what is required of you during the show there are a few different approaches you may want to take when setting up your projects.
That is handling the countdown to midnight. One of the biggest nights for live visual performers is New Years Eve and in particular there is responsibility in particular that can be unexpectedly tricky to get right.