I'm using #blender for the first time in about 4 years (and used to just use it to cut out complex UV maps for video projection mapping), and wow, with the #eevee realtime rendering engine is a game changer. and the UI has become so much easier to navigate in this time. it's like if #touchdesigner and a #houdini reunited and became merged as one.
If #Ableton is wise, they will make #cycling74 a foundation and make Max free software now that it runs on Linux. not being free is holding it back dramatically, Max is on its way out as being the dominant media art tool in education because its commercial nature is inaccessible, but more importantly holding back its users, who should be able to put Max on any hardware they please, without the klunkiness surrounding the C code generated by the ~gen jit compiler (which doesn't have much in terms of tooling wrt porting to novel architectures... stuff a community given the confidence of software freedom would certainly produce). Not to mention that the C compilation is really just a poor workaround for Max not being free.
If they did make it free, Max usage would explode and proliferate, it could even become a serious application prototyping framework — for quickly creating user-facing programs with novel features, its unparalleled. In addition to their company producing Ableton they'd have a software foundation, and with almost 30 years of programs written in Max that still run, its a shame to keep all of that stuff from the world. If they don't, Max is simply on the way out besides Max for Live. It can't keep up with the performance demands and portability that free software systems offer by dint of allowing users to improve the software, and the vast majority of people I know who used Max professionally between 2008 - 2012 (when it was one of a few systems allowing realtime development of graphics and signal processing) have long since moved on; why write a tape echo in ~gen and have it be a portability nightmare when you can do the same in a hundred lines of #faust and have it run almost anywhere, including #wasm? if you pay for the support, why not go to #touchdesigner, which is much more open and tries to be the first to support every peripheral possible, while cycling74 defers to the community to support such things, all while being in a landlord relationship with us? its a shame, because it really has developed the idea of visual programming more substatially than anything else, and its something the world should be free to develop, and also have free access to explore the body of Max patches out there by so many incredible artists.
I'm working on visual material for a record label for the first time since 2019, and it requires post-production effects and compositing work, so I decided to see if #natron would be capable so that I can do everything with #guix, and so far its been simply amazing, not what I expected at all. If you were ever a #pd, #maxmsp, #vvvv, or #touchdesigner programmer who also had to do post production effects work, you'll feel right at home. I'm yet to see how it will handle the workload once the video material is added, but right now just as a #vfx tool that focuses on a programming-oriented workflow while offering all the keyframing facilities of #aftereffects, its already a much preferable workflow than the latter.
I feel like the deeper reason that #Adobe has been so bullish on #AI is that already in 1999 Netochka Nezvanova had demonstrated that everything in time-based digital visual media could be reduced to a system of objects called NATO.0+55+3d, and everything after that is just understanding how those objects compose, so in order to stay relevant Adobe is creating products that figure out the composition for you, so that you never have to learn it and thus stay dependent on them indefinitely.
OC Touchdesigner ++ Mismatcher ++ CRT