Using different Jitter patches during a Live Set: transitions & best practices

spin lud's icon

Hi guys, I am beginner studying Jitter for visuals integration in my Live sets.

I would like to ask some guidelines and best practices for combining different patches/visuals. Some key points I would like to learn about:

  • How to transition smoothly between one patch to another during the set.

  • Is it possible to blend the output of different patches on the same screen?

  • Any recommendations on how to organize patches and optimize cpu/gpu to avoid crashes or other issues during live performance?

TFL's icon

It depends a lot on the kind of visuals you generates, how you want to operate and mix them...

My approach would be have one patch with one jit.world, then have all of my visuals rendered in separate [jit.gl.node].

But if you start working on your VJ setup from various patches all with their own [jit.world], I remind this old video from Federico / Amazing Max Stuff which shows a cool technique to achieve that.

Once you get the output texture of all of your patches/scenes/visuals inside of the same rendering context (the one that will be on screen), it's very easy to fade between each other.

Make sure to disable the rendering context of all unused patchers/scenes/visuals in order to save resources.

When it comes to CPU/GPU optimization for visuals, there is a lot good tutorials in Federicos youtube channel. But the most important thing to remind is: avoid sending textures to jit.matrix or similar objects (basically never connect jit.gl object outputs to non gl jit. object inputs), and make sure to send jitter matrices to gl objects (sometimes necessary for example to generate geometries) only when required.

Btw, Machinarium is an awesome game. Good old memories

spin lud's icon

Ehi there, thank you for these great advices!

I have also asked the same question in Amazing Max Stuff discord and basically received the same answer, it is better to have all the visuals in the same patch and rendering context (maybe using sub patchers for keep things organized?) and then just activate/decativate the parts you need or blending them using Vizzie mix-composite devices or similar.

PS: I still listen to Machinarium soundtrack while working XD