Vector Knob Maker

philter5 · 27 Jan 2011

hey pall really great stuff , thx a lot . 😍

treacherousumbrella · 27 Jan 2011

That's really nice work, thanks for sharing 🙂

TeslaTronik · 27 Jan 2011

This is Fantastic, thanks.

Mo · 27 Jan 2011

Very nice project.

Many thanks!

needaname · 27 Jan 2011

Thanks man! Always wanted something like this!

trogluddite · 27 Jan 2011

Great - using the 'Locks' so that you can remove the designer when you're done is a cool idea.

Only one little suggestion... Make the knob designer Purgable (on the R-click menu). Then you can just keep it there when making your schematic, but it will be automatically deleted when you do VST/exe export.

pall · 28 Jan 2011

Thanks for the compliments boys. It's nice to hear this. 😀 Here is the next version with some improvements.

pall · 29 Jan 2011

In the previous schematic is a serious bug, which I corrected. Sorry for this inconvenience. 😊 Thanks!

drumma · 29 Jan 2011

great stuff!! 😍

thanks!!

nix · 30 Jan 2011

Is the definitive knob still available somewhere?-> The definitive Knob Thanks man, I can help with this when I get my 'puter back up

pall · 30 Jan 2011

@Nix, I had an interesting lecture, which took me in 2005. Many talented guys looking solutions - here in connection with the knobs - in a frenetic mod. I liked the unkargherth's reaction, to an jorge's announcement.

Wow !!!!. Let me Repeat: Wow !!!!

question: When ? when? when?

(Only joke: take your time....)

Many of them is not here... 🙁 As I understand it, at that time there was no Preset Manager? I saw that they were discussing a external "Designer Module" What was it? Perhaps what is now Properties Panel? So, among other things, the ultimate goal was to not load too much the Definitive Knob. In what part now pulls the balance...? (bitmap vs. vector)

Cheers 🙂

nix · 30 Jan 2011

Here are some shapes you can add if you like 🙂->

I have built this knob using primitives. Hope you are taken by SM further

pall · 1 Feb 2011

Thanks Nix! Interesting schematic. Everything is vector. Thinking - the static part really must be vector or can be bitmaps?

nix · 1 Feb 2011

The static part can be .png, if you like. It's a pity no-one has the definitive knob now. I guess it's easier to change the colour on a vector than a .png. There is a way to do it though, hmm, trogluddite has shown me. You're very welcome 🙂

trogluddite · 1 Feb 2011

You can find some stuff for changing bitmap colours Here - credit due to Mo too. Remember though, that bitmaps don't always resize very nicely in SM - they can save a bit of GUI CPU once you know exactly what you want, but vectors willl always be more flexible.

nix · 3 Feb 2011

Thanks Trog:) There was something like black can't be changed iirc

Nu Audio Science · 10 Feb 2011

I worked on definitive knob with Unk I may have it around on a drive somewhere

NAS

pall · 11 Feb 2011

I finished a new version. Instead of lines I used points (filled ellipse), because the lines are a strong alias. I hope you will like it. 🙂 On the left side, Sweep1 respond to the mouse drag.

nix · 12 Feb 2011

Thanks pall 😀 It's neat. That would be cool if you found the definitive knob NAS. I'll see if I can devise some more shapes(triangle for pointer?),pall. Like you say mine example aliases terribly though.

pall · 12 Feb 2011

In the previous schematic, colors were not kept in clipboard ( for the Define Custom Colors). Fix this and some minor changes. For the pointer, I will try to obtain other shapes.

tektoog · 12 Feb 2011

This is a very useful tool, thx! As it is right now, using the random seems very interesting to quickly create new knobs, but the results are not usable for me...A color scale to determine the range of random or another system to predefine tones would be nice to add...

pall · 13 Feb 2011

@Tectoog Thanks! Good idea with predefine tones.

pall · 7 Mar 2011

Here's a new version. 🙂

nix · 25 Mar 2011

Hey pall, Hope you are well. Here is a triangle pointer>

Looks like this->

Still seeking the def. knob if anyone has it. Cheers! edit-PS, does anyone know how to use the smooth prim on the vectors? Can the aliasing in my knob be fixed?

Mo · 25 Mar 2011

nix wrote: does anyone know how to use the smooth prim on the vectors?

The smooth primitive only lets you disable smoothing and it seems there's no anti-alias function for the clip primitive.

nix · 25 Mar 2011

Thanks Mo, best! oh well, maybe I make another feature request.

rl · 25 Mar 2011

Hi nix,

Here's a little trick: overlay a small rectangle line. Looks much better

another idea: Background: - above a dark grey rectangle - below a light grey fill on top: - paint a thick enough arc that clips the background and contains the line markers

nix · 25 Mar 2011

hey thanks rl! That's a good solution.

If you would like to mock up your idea, I could see what you mean more easily, sorry.

Cheers!

pall · 26 Mar 2011

Hello nix! Hello guys! I'm fine, thanks. 😀 Now in spring, there are many things to do in the garden. Thanks for this interesting schematic. I see that the triangle is made with lines. I will try to adapt it to the Vektor Knob. It seems like, another way to get a triangle no exist. If we had more facilities for graphics...

Cheers

nix · 26 Mar 2011

I wish for more graphics functions 2. I can think of one way to make a solid triangle. Make of 2 cut and rotated rectangles. Maybe I try today. Cheers man, best edit- It's difficult. I have drawn the triangle, but I can't get it to rotate yet. Maybe should cheat with a .png, and use rl's line trick to antialias on scale

nix · 27 Mar 2011

Is this what you meant rl? 8D

Mo · 27 Mar 2011

Here with a line to fix the aliasing, like rl suggest.

BTW it can be optimized to use only one redraw primitive for reduce the cpu consumption..

nix · 27 Mar 2011

Thank you Mo! I will tidy the schematic.

sunsynth · 27 Mar 2011

Yeah nick - keep on doing!

That looks very useful now 🙂

Only the 'arrow' drifts away in v2.03...

pall · 27 Mar 2011

I have seen it is a problem with the redraw, and I have rebuilt the part with the rectangle. I think it's good... To view I added two Filled Ellipse, which must be removed. Cheers! 😀

pall · 28 Mar 2011

I rebuilt a little the your schematic. What else can we do to him? Cheers!

infuzion · 28 Mar 2011

pall wrote: I rebuilt a little the your schematic. What else can we do to him?

Very nice! I'd say an easy way to resize the knob quickly, either by a pref or just stretching, would be a great addition.

pall · 30 Mar 2011

Thanks infuzion! For resize by stretching, I think must be rebuilt the schematic. First, there are more windows, which to be made to a single. Second, are three hemispheres with their clips with different values. It is a bit tricky. 😉 @ nix what do you think? Cheers!

nix · 31 Mar 2011

Hey, Thanks for the encouragement folk 8D. Yeps pall, I have a look at making it resizable today, thanks for doing the housekeeping on it. Also what I try do maybe is add indents, like little circles around the edge perhaps. I see how it looks. What else we can do?

nix · 31 Mar 2011

Cheers pall among! Think it looks OK 😉 Just work on resizing soon

infuzion · 1 Apr 2011

Turns smoothly! I wonder how much CPU all those layers take? IMHO, I think there is a certain point where just using a PNG strip knob would be more efficient.

sunsynth · 1 Apr 2011

Awesome - really Nick 🙂

Now a little moving shadow beneath it and the resize implemented => perfect 😍

Cheers, Walter

Dell · 1 Apr 2011

Hi.

Is there any way to insert an image and have it rotate like a knob using Vector knob maker?

rl · 1 Apr 2011

Cool 8-)

SCNR, but it's still April 1st, so here's the Hello Kitty mod:

nix · 1 Apr 2011

Very happy you like it Sun! Will try for resizing soon, hmm and see about dropping a shadow.

Hey Dell 🙂, Sure you can rotate .pngs with the 'rotate' primitive I imagine. If you get stuck, I can try help.

@rl hehe!

Dell · 2 Apr 2011

nix wrote: Very happy you like it Sun! Will try for resizing soon, hmm and see about dropping a shadow.

Hey Dell 🙂, Sure you can rotate .pngs with the 'rotate' primitive I imagine. If you get stuck, I can try help.

@rl hehe!

Cheers nix!

I'm going to give it go and see if I can create a knob. 🙂

Dell · 4 Apr 2011

Oh dear.

It appears version 1.125 creates the mouse icon to disappear hovering around the sliders with the only alternative to shut synthmaker down. 😝

This dilemma is occuring on Windows XP & Windows 7. I haven't had this issue with version 1.

Cheers!

pall · 4 Apr 2011

Hi, I try to do the triangleknob with a single layer and it to be resizable by stretching. With the 'main' and 'hemi' went well, but with the eccentrics does not get along. Sorry. Anyone can solve this? @Dell, you gave me an idea. 🙂 Thanks!

stw · 4 Apr 2011

I made a scaleable version and added a property panel. I left the predefined colorsets out for that version. Though there's still room for improvements it works well. However there's one issue i can't get around right now. If the module is not selected the rotate center is gone and everything connected to that view is out of range. I tried a lot but couldn't solve that. Maybe someone has an idea how to get rid of that. Right now i'd assume that as a bug. But my SM graphic skills are low and i probably made a stupid mistake.

EDIT: V1.1 Bitmap cache added; r1 Bitmap redraw on resize

trogluddite · 4 Apr 2011

Hi stw - I have seen something similar to your 'lost centres' problems before. May well be worth reporting to admin though, as it makes no sense that the behaviour is different between selected and unselected (I don't remember mine doing that)

Anyway, I had something similar with an experiment I did a while back (can't seem to find the .osm, sorry) - and it had to do with having MGUI's with 'forced' x,y inputs that were linked to a 'mothership' MGUI (like the arrow and hemi-top parts of your schematic. In the end, I did it by losing the 'daughter' MGUI's and properly calculating areas and centres for the smaller parts - bit of a pain because you then can't see the parts on their own little module panels, but it made my main panel work right in the end.

I'm a bit busy trying to get to the bottom of some SM2.03 issues at the moment, but I'll try to have a closer look at your schematic later if I get time.

pall · 4 Apr 2011

Great work stw. Thanks! 😀

stw · 4 Apr 2011

trogluddite wrote: In the end, I did it by losing the 'daughter' MGUI's and properly calculating areas and centres for the smaller parts - bit of a pain because you then can't see the parts on their own little module panels, but it made my main panel work right in the end.

Hi trog, thanks for your reply. The daughter MGUI was what i suspected too. But here we have a rotated module without own MGUI (the dot module). which is out of range too.

trogluddite wrote: I'm a bit busy trying to get to the bottom of some SM2.03 issues at the moment, but I'll try to have a closer look at your schematic later if I get time.

Important things first!! 😉 I think this knob toy can wait. I'll try to look at it later too...

stw · 5 Apr 2011

I upped a new version. I added a bitmap cache which does two things. 1. It's a workaround for the rotate center loss (which i absolutely consider as a bug right now) 2. It reduces CPU use on the draws because lot of (even trigonometric) calculations are bypassed. The back ellipse is not filled anymore.

stw · 5 Apr 2011

Hi folks, here's the next update. Shadow added and some minor changes. I put that seperate here because i think that little helper could be extended much more. So if people prefer earlyer versions they can access both.

pall · 5 Apr 2011

Hi stw! I think it became too complicated and loaded this schematic for the vector knob. I made comparison with an animated knob that has a lower CPU. Or I am wrong? But anyway I admire how quickly you solve complicated problems. Cheers! 🙂

stw · 6 Apr 2011

Update 1.4

with additional graphics, fixed pointer offset, original knob probs, and other changes.

sunsynth · 7 Apr 2011

No - that's not a vector knob - that's THE Vector knob!!! 😀

really awesome stw... u left nick no work 2 do 😉

this best shows what SM is capable to show with vectors!

Well done!

I use a mix of Vector and Bitmap in all of my projects and they together harmonize perfectly 🙂

Cheers, Walter

nix · 7 Apr 2011

That's really awesome, what a cool project this has turned out to be! It's all vectors? What! I check the schematic soon. Yeah we could add in little png elements too if we like.

stw · 7 Apr 2011

Thanks for your appreciation guys. Yes it's pretty cool what can be done within SM. And yes Nick it's all vectors until it's converted into a bitmap at the end of the chain. So it's fully scaleable when creating the knob but only two bitmap layers are displayed when the knob is in use. That brings two advantages: - It needs way less CPU because there're only two or three layers to be redrawn and lots of calculations are left out. - The bitmap smoothes the edges which could occur with vectors (like the clipped hemi). So workarounds like the smoothing line could be left out. However there's MUCH room for improvements and i have some more ideas. The next update is on the way which will include a preset manager. So knob creations can be stored and exchanged. Stay tuned... 🙂

infuzion · 7 Apr 2011

This knob creator is awesome stw! Thanks so much 😇 Is the "point ring" supposed to rotate?

stw · 7 Apr 2011

infuzion wrote: This knob creator is awesome stw! Thanks so much 😇 Is the "point ring" supposed to rotate?

Thanks infuzion, yes the point ring is supposed to rotate. History of that element is to represent the "grip edges" of real knobs. You can see that in the pictures of earlier versions in this thread. But one of my ideas for future updates is to let the user select if an elemnt rotates or not.

stw · 7 Apr 2011

Hi folks, here comes the next major update. Since this toy turns out to become much more of unique knob creation tool i decided to rename it to SM KnobMaker 😉 . Mabe it can be tweaked more and more to an inside SM KnobMaker competitor... 😈 Most important change is the added Preset Manager. So knob creations can be stored and exchanged. I made some knobs for demonstration. Some graphic ads like an Arc and new pointers are included as well... I hope you like it.

Cheers

Edit: Last schematic can now be found HERE

pall · 7 Apr 2011

Of course I like it! 😍 This is a great and beautiful thing. Congratulations!!!

trogluddite · 7 Apr 2011

Brilliant work! 😀 Some very cool presets there that really show off the variety that's possible - truly a useful alternative to KnobMan etc.

stw · 8 Apr 2011

SM Knob Maker can be found HERE from now on.