Creating Raves or Animations


What is a Rave?

A rave is a saved animation that can be attached to a song track or music file. Vusic is always recording what is being drawn on screen. If you load a new brush or gradient, that is recorded also. At any time you can save the animation to your hard drive.


Saving Raves

To save a rave, select "Save & Attach Rave..." from the rave popup menu and give it a name. From then on, every time that song is played, the previously saved animation will also play. The box labeled "Rave" will display the name of the saved rave and indicate that a rave is attached. The best time to save a rave is near the end of the song. The rave text box will flash during the last 6 seconds of the song. If you save a rave early into the song, then only the animation that has played to that point will be saved. When that rave is played back, the rave will play to the end of the rave and then the program will start recording again. Whatever settings are in effect at the end of the recorded rave will remain for the rest of the song. The recording status light will illuminate when the rave has ended and recording has resumed.


Multiple Raves

You can create multiple raves for a song. Each saved rave is stored on your hard drive. You can select any rave from the bottom of the rave popup menu to make it the current rave. Only raves created for that specific song track or music file will appear in the popup menu. If you don't want a rave to play at all during the song, then detach the currently attached rave. This does not delete the rave. It just prevents it from playing.

Vusic CD: You can save different sequences of animations for a CD. To do this, create various CD lists for a single CD, select one of the CD lists, and then attach the desired raves to each song track. You can attach a different set of raves for each CD list.



Changing the Name of a Rave

To change the name of the current rave, select "Rename Rave..." from the rave popup menu. This does not change or overwrite the animation. It only changes the name of the rave on your hard drive.


Detaching Raves

To detach a rave, select "Detach Rave..." from the rave popup menu. The rave is not deleted. It still remains on your hard drive and can be reattached at any time.


Playback of Raves

When a rave is played, it first loads the new settings for the song. This is similar to loading a style. The rave will replay the animation as it was first recorded. The movement parameters are recorded, not the exact brush positions. As a result, the animation will never be identical each time it is played.

The beat counter and threshold meter sliders are disabled or dimmed when a rave is playing. The sliders are dimmed when a rave is playing or when rewind is pressed during a song. The reason for this is that in both cases, the animation is playing from memory and is no longer responding to the beat meter or slider positions. The sliders undim when the song reaches the point in time when the rave was saved or rewind was pressed. At this point, recording has resumed and the animation is responding to the meter and sliders again. The recording status light is on when recording is active. During the playback of a rave, the recording status light is off and the threshold meter sliders are dimmed.

When a rave is done, playing a new song that does not have an attached rave will restore the previous settings.


Creating Raves*

There are a number of approaches to creating a rave. You can use the beat counter and threshold meter sliders to let the program generate random changes to the screen. Adjusting the sensitivity slider will make the sliders more or less sensitive to the beat meter.

Another approach is to disable automatic triggering by clicking the manual button and manually changing the settings. You can cue settings and release them at the desired time. You can also pause the song at a song change and make all your individual edits while the song is paused. When you resume the song, the edits will be recorded at the place the song was paused.

You can save a series of styles in advance and then load them at various times during the song. This works best when a song change requires a number of edits at one time. To save a style, select "Save Current..." from the style popup menu. Pressing the semi-colon key on the keyboard will save the current settings with the vertical sliders turned off. You can create all the different effects that you want for a particular song and save them as styles. You can then load them during the song at the appropriate song changes. It is best to create these styles first before you start creating your rave.

The first step in creating a rave is to decide on the initial settings. Load the components that will be used in the rave into the available positions. Adjust the various sliders and test the settings with the music. Adjust the frequency slider and the sensitivity slider until you feel that Vusic is capturing the beats to your liking. Our recommendation is to turn off all the beat counter sliders except for the color slider. Once you are happy with all the settings, then play the entire song and save the animation when it nears the end of the song. The next step will be to insert additional edits into this base animation.


Editing Raves*

During playback of a recorded rave, any additional changes made by the user are recorded and inserted into the current animation. You can then re-save the rave to include these additional changes by pressing the equals sign key on the keyboard. This allows you to add additional layers of edits on top of the current animation. Now that you have a base animation, you can add your first layer of edits. You may want to insert additional beats into the rave by pressing the "I" key. You then may want to add fill changes or load styles into the animation at various times within the song. Remember to save your progress by pressing the equals sign key on the keyboard. You can continue to add other layers of edits, including loads from your hard drive, until you have a robust animation.

If you make a mistake, then don't re-save the animation. To restore the animation, click the stop button and then click the play button to reload the rave from your hard drive into memory. Pressing the rewind button does not erase any recorded settings. If you want to insure that you do not lose any valuable work, then save the various stages of your animation in progress to different names.

To replace an occurrence of a recorded setting with a new setting hold down the ALT key when selecting the new setting. On a Macintosh, hold down the Command key. This will replace the current setting with the selected setting. The program will look back in time to the point when the original setting was selected when it performs the swap. You can execute the replacement anytime while the current setting is active, but not before. To replace a loaded component, hold down the ALT or Command key while selecting a new component from the popup menu.

You can change the initial settings for a rave. That is, you can change those settings that define the start of the rave, such as, which components are loaded, which components are selected, or any slider or button setting. To change an initial setting, make sure you have started playing the rave at least once. This loads the rave into memory. Click the stop button, not the pause button. Then change any setting by loading a new component, making a new selection, or adjusting a slider. Finally, press the equals sign key on the keyboard to save your changes.

When loading a movement into an existing rave, any parameters for the new movement are randomized. In addition, any parameter changes that follow are deleted for that movement position. If you want fixed parameters for a movement, make sure that you set them prior to making the newly loaded movement the current movement.


Keyboard Shortcuts

I (Insert) will manually insert a beat.*
= (equals sign) will save the current rave to your hard drive. The rave must have already been saved once.*
; (semi-colon) will open the style popup menu to allow you to save the current style (with beat counters set to off).*

*Some features mentioned in these sections apply to the version of Vusic made available on 9/26/01.



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