Funding VDMX Development

1

Hi everyone

I was wondering how VDMX funds itself. The licence I own is over 10 years old, and VDMX is probably the only software I own where I am not paying for a licence upgrade either over a year or a monthly fee or when there are big new versions. I had a show on Saturday evening, and despite 3 full days of troubleshooting, and testing over and over with Vuo files, I had bizarre issues just before showtime, where VDMX was crashing where it appeared the problem was caused by some custom nodes that I had used on repeat for 3 days straight without issues. This was after removing a bunch of Vuo nodes that seemed to be causing issues I think - I say I think because, after doing this, there were still crashes and wierd behaviours happening with some files. The nodes that appeared to be problematic were:

•	Shader nodes
•	Make Image Layer nodes
•	3D Square nodes

Another very strange and first time thing, is that a few Vuo comps turned blue and red, but they are all white without any colour nodes. I looked in the activity monitor and saw something running called “VDMX legacy colour picker” and can only assume that somehow this had to do with it.

I’m generally feeling concerned about the future of VDMX, it is not stable with Vuo and the problems are hard to recreate, and when I think I have finally gotten to the bottom of any issues, some new random problems will happen. I don’t even know if it is specific nodes anymore and I’m not sure the best way to report bugs, I would love to receive replies from the support team and have the founders be more active in this forum. Or at least acknowledgment that these issues are being seen by the dev team, as it feels like it’s just users talking to each other on this forum.

Are the VDMX developers working on other projects? I understand that other work needs to be taken on to support themselves and the development of VDMX.

I would really love to pay for it, a monthly or a yearly license, or pay for big upgrades, to get more consistent support and communication from the team. I’m feeling very frustrated with the Vuo issues, and wondering if anyone else had thoughts around this, around the general direction of VDMX and it’s future. I just don’t see how this important piece of software can continue development without any funding?

To be clear I love VDMX and would like to continue using it, but not feeling super confident and would be more than happy to support some new type of model to help fund the development. Would love thoughts from the wider community, thank you.

4 Likes
2

Hi Joelle,

VDMX is funded by users like you and under the umbrella of VIDVOX (who also makes ISF for Motion, and a number of other apps and plugins).

I work for VIDVOX handling a lot of support tickets and stay active on the forums. When an issue is out of my knowledge or abilities, I forward it over to David who spends a lot of time trying to recreate the situation based on the bug reports submitted directly from the VDMX app. When things get submitted through Apple, it’s hard to recreate a users setup and then there’s no user info attached to it so we can circle back and troubleshoot further.

I started with VDMX somewhere around 2009 and back then Quartz Composer was the bridge for building custom patches. When Apple phased out QC the VDMX team was looking for a way to fill that gap and Vuo integration is the route they went with. The trick here, is that Vuo is developed by another group, not necessarily Apple directly and many times users who have issues with VDMX and Vuo are essentially trying to trouble shoot between two different communities (The forums here, and Vuo’s community, who are not necessarily VDMX users). QC was managed by Apple and well integrated into the OS, so it was easier to recreate a users setup and troubleshoot.

When crashes and bugs come in, we try to recreate it on our end to find the bugs within VDMX and fix them, but if it’s Vuo or another installed application that is crashing VDMX, it broadens the scope of what may be causing the issue. For example, over the last 6 months we’ve seen an outdated version of an Elgato plugin that causes VDMX to crash, after users updated the plugin the issue went away. In this case the issues wasn’t with VDMX it was with Elgato.

To try and recreate your issue, please share your VDMX project and the Vuo compositions you are using. I saw your email to David on the 13th, but it did not include any of this for me to look at myself.

Our primary focus right now is to get an Apple Silicone native version of VDMX out for all the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max users. (The Pro and Max were announced today and arrive next week).

If possible. Please share your VDMX project and Vuo setup with this community and with the Vuo community and see if anyone else can help recreate the issues you are having. Without knowing the specifics of your project and Vuo setup I won’t be able to help troubleshoot directly.

Thank you!

1 Like
3

Thanks, I appreciate your presence on the forums, didn’t realise you worked for VIDVOX. I will try to screen capture the issues and send my VDMX project + problematic files along with.

What is best here, if people are reporting bugs with Vuo and VDMX should it be done here AND on the Vuo forums? If so I can direct people to do that.

Frustratingly, it’s that I spend 3+ days deep in debugging trying to create a stable set up and then have random issues happen. Vuo is an incredible tool and works so well with VDMX, there is nothing else like these two together, and while the user base for Vuo is not what QC used to be yet, I do believe there is huge potential.

4

I’m still unclear how I as a user with a 10+ year old licence that cost $400 at the time I think, helps fund VDMX? Honestly I would rather pay for a license renewal each year / big upgrade or something if it meant there could be better communication, and more engagement from the founders like there used to be, so that I can be assured that VDMX will continue on into the future.

4 Likes
5

I agree, although I’m glad I don’t have to pay for updates I would gladly pay to help for advancement.
We should maybe host a fundraising or new user intro party/workshop series?
Zerospace Labs is almost open in the new brooklyn location. I could facilitate free use for fundraising if interested.

3 Likes
6

Funny story, two or three years ago I reached out to VDMX directly and basically said the same thing, “Hey everyone else charges me for upgrade fees, but you haven’t, thanks! can I just give you money for being so awesome over the years?”

Some things are in the works. The transition to Apple Silicone has gone slower than expected, but cool things are coming soon! :grinning:

5 Likes
7

A valid question and something I’ve wondered about over the years. I’ve always thought that when VDMX 5 finally drops the beta (b) from the version number there might be an upgrade fee or when VDMX 6 (or whatever appears :)

4 Likes
8

I like hearing that cool things are coming soon. I’m finally getting a solid grasp on VDMX and I’d like to keep using it for a few more years.

3 Likes
9

Hey @ellingson loving your Instagram feed. I’m having retro TV envy and enjoyed the bell jar mapping / peppers ghost trick… keep them coming :slight_smile:

10

Hey, thank you so much! I can’t seem to stop, so I’ll be sure to make some more. Thanks again.

1 Like
11

Same here, I would be willing to pay yearly for this. VDMX is the software that really got me into live visuals and introduced me to the idea of creating interactive media. I’m more than happy to support such great software.

2 Likes
12

It just feels wrong to not be paying for it when I pay (often quite a bit) for others! Take my money! :grin:

2 Likes