Hello, and why I chose Isadora
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Hello all,
new user here! I tried the demo and read through many posts in this forum before I finally bought Isadora. Others will probably do the same, so I wanted to share what I tried and why I chose Isadora.
I make electronic music (mostly with Ableton Live and NI Reaktor) and was looking for a software to complement my music with visuals, better yet: to create interactive AV pieces, rather than just put video next to audio.
I tried various Max4Live video tools. Most of them were hard on the CPU and didn't really offer what I wanted (I'm not into Max programming). I found ebosuite to be the most interesting M4L package because it is highly integrated into Live's workflow.
Then I tried Arkaos and Resolume. Both seem to work great, but they are tailored to be used for certain things and workflows which felt somehow limiting to me. I like modular approaches better, programs that let me build my own tools and machines.
The next step was VDMX (Mac-only). A very flexible and powerful software with some semi-modular approach, but I found it somewhat confusing and overly complicated, especially regarding the snapshots. And snapshots were important to me.
I then looked into TouchDesigner. A full modular approach and surely a great piece of software. But no snapshot system whatsoever, I would have needed to build my own... That was one level too deep and to time-consuming for what I wanted.
Finally I discovered Isadora. As a Reaktor user, I found it quite obvious how everything was intended to work, and since then everything in Izzy kept working as expected or even better. The two programs are quite similar, and I'm very happy in that regard. What really sold me, however, were Izzy's scenes: being able to have different patches in different scenes and to switch, crossfade or even combine those scenes is great. Having snapshots in each scene makes it even greater.
So far I've been succesfully building a patch for a project I'm working on. It uses two movies (or GLSL shaders or stills), puts them through an assortment of effects and combines the using one of various blend modes (GLSL shaders as well). Not a very innovative patch, but with effects and modulations etc. that are exactly tailored to my projects needs. It works great and is very satisfying. After some weeks of building it, I'm now really using the patch and almost can't stop experimenting and creating content. That's exactly where I wanted to be. Izzy is controlled via OSC from Live, which also works great.
I started using Izzy on a Macbook Pro 13" from 2013 but switched to using it on a Razer Blade 14 with GTX 1060. Which was like going from a frame rate of around 15 to a steady rate of 30 frames and around 130 frames after loosing the handbrake in the prefs... Nevertheless, using Izzy on the Mac feels somehow more comfortable to me. I sync my Live and Izzy projects via Google Drive and can open them on one machine or the other. Best of both worlds, so to say. :-)
I know that there is much more to explore and to build in Izzy and I almost can't wait to get to it. :-) I'm especially interested in what I will be able to do with Kinect, motion tracking and the like... Isadora is a wonderful software, thanks a lot for it. And thank you all for this friendly and helpful forum!
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@ughoenig said:
I know that there is much more to explore and to build in Izzy and I almost can't wait to get to it. :-) I'm especially interested in what I will be able to do with Kinect, motion tracking and the like... Isadora is a wonderful software, thanks a lot for it. And thank you all for this friendly and helpful forum!
Here's part one of our tutorials for Kinect once you're ready to dive into that :)
The Leap Motion controller is also a great way to interactively control your visuals, and there's even a native Isadora actor for it.Glad to hear that you're enjoying yourself!
Best wishes,
Woland
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I came from a similar background. Reaktor, Ableton Live, VDMX. The node based learning made sense to me and then I found Isadora. I realised it did everything I wanted and lots lots more.
Welcome to the forum and I look forward to seeing what you get up to with our beautiful software.
