Maxi-Patch 3.6 (OSX + WinXP): OpenGL Hardware Acceleration

[dlpinkstah]

Maxi-Patch 3.6 for OSX and WinXP is now available for free download to all members of Ms Pinky's Fan Club.



The main new feature is the addition of OpenGL Hardware Accelerated video mix modes and 3-D plane rotation FX for the video output.



In Maxi-Patch version 3.6, there are new video output mix options that will harness the power of your graphics accelerator card and take some load off the CPU. This should result in higher video output framerates. These new mix modes are enabled by selecting any one of the options in the Video Mixer "mode" menu that have the "-GL" suffix. Since the OpenGL mix modes use the graphics card to do the video mix number crunching, the image data for your video mix when using these modes is not brought back onto the CPU of your computer and hence can not be recorded using Maxi-Patch's built-in video output recording function. If you want to record your video output mix, you will have to either use another video recording device, or use one of the non-OpenGL mix modes in Maxi-Patch.



To access more settings pertaining to the OpenGL video mixing, press the "more settings" button in the video mix control region (upper, center) of the main window of Maxi-Patch. This will bring up a view that has some controls to allow you to set the background color (including the opacity) of the OpenGL drawing context, and to enable various fun rotation effects that are all performed by your OpenGL graphics accelerator and therefore won't affect your framerate at all. MIDI mappings for video mix controls are also done here.



When using the new OpenGL mix modes, keep in mind that your output video mix is actually being drawn onto a plane in three dimensions. You can change the viewing angle of the plane containing a projection of your video output mix by simply dragging with the mouse on the output video window. Spherical axes colored red, green, and blue will appear and as you drag you'll see the plane rotating. Alternately you can change the numbers in the boxes labelled "OpenGL rotate (X,Y,Z)". If you check the box labelled "autorotate" you will notice that after you release the mouse when dragging on the video output window, it continues to rotate automatically along the vector of your mouse drag. Hitting the button labelled "reset" snaps the projection plane back to the front and center.



MAC: Command-drag on the output video mix window to move the projected plane up, down, sideways. Option-drag to move the image towards/away from your viewpoint. WIN: control-drag and alt-drag will accomplish the same things.



Also added in 3.6: You can now map Vinyl Control On/Off and file reverse in the audio file players to a MIDI note.



REQUIREMENT: Of course, to take advantage of the new OpenGL features your system must have a graphics card and appropriate drivers to support OpenGL version 1.5 or later. Most Mac systems will automatically satisfy this requirement. However, on the PC side, you must double-check that your graphics card and its drivers support OpenGL version 1.5 or later. Contact your graphics card manufacturer to get the latest drivers.



Happy New Years!