Scinth

See also: ScinthDef VGen ScinNode ScinGroup

Description

A Scinth is the client-side representation of a synth node on the Scintillator server. A Scinth is a single video-producing using, analagous to a Synth on the audio server. What it does is defined by a ScinthDef, which specifices which VGens are used and how they are conncted together.

Class Methods

Scinth.new(defName, args, target, addAction: ‘addToTail’)

Create and return a new Scinth object, and immedately start the corresponding Scinth node on the server.

Arguments

defName

A Symbol specifying the name of the ScinthDef to use in creating the Scinth.

args

An optional Array specifying initial values for the ScinthDef’s controls. These are pairs of control name or index and value.

target

A ScinNode to add the new Scinth relative to. If nil, the default group on the default ScinServer will be used.

addAction

one of the following Symbols:

\addToHead

add at the head of the group specified by target, which must be a ScinGroup

\addToTail

(the default) add at the tail of the group specified by target, which must be a ScinGroup

\addAfter

add immediately after target in its server’s node order

\addBefore

add immediately before target in its server’s node order

\addReplace

replace target and take its place in its server’s node order

Returns:

A new Scinth object.

Instance Methods

.run(flag: true)

Pauses or resumes a running Scinth. Paused Scinths produce no video output.

Pausing a running Scinth is one area where the analagous behavior in audio makes for some ambiguity in a video synth. One could imagine two different behaviors for a paused video synth. The first is to continue to produce a still frame while paused, so continuing to render output but just not advancing the Scinth time, so animations would freeze. The other behavior is to stop producing video output entirely. This is what the current synth implementation does, as it seemed like the better fit for the analogy, e.g. audio synths do not reproduce their last frame of audio data when paused. When framebuffer support is added, it could be possible to render a Scinth output to a desired point, save the output in a framebuffer, pause the Scinth, and use the framebuffer as a frozen output. This would be similar to a “freeze” concept in audio, and it might make sense to make a VGen that does exactly that, to ease use. Feedback welcome if this seems like the counterintuitive approach to you.

Arguments

flag

A boolean. If true, resumes the Scinth if it was paused. If false, pauses the Scinth if it was running.

Returns:

The Scinth object itself, to enable method chaining.

.free

Stops the Scinth if running and frees all server-side associated resources.

.set(… args)

Sets control values on the Scinth.

Arguments

… args

A sequence of pairs of control identifiers and values. The first item in the pair is either a Symbol naming a control or an integer control index. The second item in the pair is either a float or integer control value.

Returns:

The Scinth object itself, to enable method chaining.

Examples

(
~t = ScinthDef.new(\t, { |g, b|
    VRGBOut.pr(VSinOsc.pr(VX.pr(VNormPos.pr)), g, b);
}).add;
)

// Make a new Scinth and run it on the server.
(
~k = Scinth.new(\t, [\g, 0.5, \b, 0.3]);
)

// Change the colors of k.
(
~k.set(\g, 0.2);
)

// Pause k (will produce a black screen)
(
~k.run(false);
)

// Resume k (image is back again)
(
~k.run(true);
)

// Done with k, remove it from the server.
(
~k.free;
)