This is what proper crossfading and compositing looks like. Alpha support: chroma masks, alpha in effects (very lovely), various alpha previewing tools, and support for RGBA PNG, BPM, QuickTime PNG, and QuickTime Animation codecs.An optional all-black interface, in case the white was blinding your eyes (which, believe me, can be an issue in a darkened club).ArKaos are aggressively attacking a lot of the main things I wanted address: That’s why I’m really pleased by the direction taken by GrandVJ 1.1. But just getting basic alpha support or setting up a simple crossfader for clips proved to be challenging. Now, nothing against minimal – not every set has to be an audiovisual mash-up a la Resolume 3 or some elaborate modular setup of effects as you can build in VDMX. That said, the initial release of GrandVJ just felt a little too minimal. Thanks to a rebuilt, ffmpeg-based video backend, it can really rock its way through high-framerate playback without a second thought, which goes nicely with all the jamming you might like to do on a MIDI keyboard with clips. Now, I’ve wanted to root for GrandVJ’s new release since the beginning, partly because of its MIDI keyboard-savvy design but especially because the new release is fast - blazingly fast.
GrandVJ is a completely new program, though it does maintain ArKaos’ signature feature – a music keyboard along the bottom of the screen. Just as VDMX and Resolume have been treated to ground-up rewrites, so, too, has a name in VJ apps that has endured since the early days of computer VJing: ArKaos.