Resolume at work: Miki Grahame VJing. Photo by yoz.

Those of you not on the mailing list for Resolume missed a double bombshell coming this weekend at Paris’ Vision’r VJ festival.

Big story #1: open visual plug-in standard gets hardware savvy. the official release of FreeFrameGL 1.5 will happen, hosted by Resolume’s Edwin and Bart and VJamm‘s Russel. FreeFrame is already a big deal; it’s an open plug-in format for visual effects, a bit like VST for visuals, except open-source instead of chained to, ahem, Steinberg. (Music folks know why that’s annoying.) With OpenGL support in FF 1.5, FreeFrame plug-ins get hardware-accelerated visuals.

Big story #2: a new Resolume will be revealed soon. This weekend we finally get to see what’s in the future for Resolume, the cult favorite VJ app on Windows. It’s a preview, but it’s good news, and it’s a year and a half in the making according to Resolume’s makers.

I was trying to explain to someone why Resolume is still important. "But it looks toy-like, like the rest of them," they said. "But there’s all this stuff hidden, this quick access to basic techniques," I said. I do believe that. Of course, I may be even happier with what Resolume 3 brings.

Hey, happiness is mixing visuals with a Mac in one hand and a PC in the other…

We hope to have more details on Resolume 3 and FreeFrameGL 1.5 for you soon.

Anyone in Paris at Vision’r? Take photos, take video, write some quick thoughts — we’d love to hear from you!