Want to set the mood at your next jam? Learning VJ tools and experimenting with live visuals? Going deeper with shader coding? These free black-and-white animations will get you started.
Monochrome – ISF VJ plugins (OSX/Win)
ShaderToy, which I also wrote about yesterday, is a free community site for exchanging shader code. That GLSL code requires some wrapper around it to use in visual tools. Enter the cross-platform ISF (Interactive Shader Format), which makes portability a bit easier in VJ apps like VDMX and MadMapper.
This selection began its life as some of the nicer examples on Shadertoy, then got ported for easier use.
There’s even a converter so you can try the same thing:
https://magicmusicvisuals.com/utils/shadertoy_to_isf.php
There’s just one catch – the Shadertoy code isn’t cleared for commercial use. And Creative Commons’ definition of “commercial” is so broad, almost any use where you’re earning money probably qualifies. Still, that leaves unpaid (cough) VJ gigs as well as gatherings and jam sessions and experimentation.
Or better yet, once you’ve exercised these tools a bit, you can have a look at the actual code in ISF format or on Shadertoy in GLSL (the GPU standard), and help learn how to write your own original creations. You probably don’t want to show up at the paid gig with effects everyone else is using, anyway.
In the meantime – let’s party in black and white.
In case you missed it, the Shadertoy Cybertruck I wrote about yesterday got posted in minutes, thanks to David from Vidvox: