[Announcement] Beatmeter Generator 0.3.0

[zerooo]

I managed to create a beatmeter with this great tool

I have uploaded 5 x 4mins of different beat to mega, maybe some people can get use of it?

BPM 120
Format: 1920x140px, Apple Prores 4444 (because it supports transparency)
https://mega.nz/folder/XNlAwJyQ#Q0hZvnFhaJbsXvVGw7UL3w

[3xTripleXXX]

Hey, so a little bug report. :)

If the file in the "Open recent" list no longer exists (like, for example, I moved the folder it was in), then BG just hangs rather than give a sensible error message. It took me several times of killing the process before I remembered that I'd moved the folder and realized what was going on.

Not a biggie, but figured I'd note it, in case you decide to do another release at some point.

[masperturbator]

I was able to generate the .png files with the beat meter, but I'm having trouble finding a program to import/convert to video. I've tried several and they all convert the beatmeter video to full size height. So then I can't overlay it on my primary video.

In Beatmeter Generator set the Width and Framerate to match your video editor, and the Height to match the size your beatmeter should be. Height is literal to the meter, and Width is literal to the video frame.



The PNG files that BMG renders are 1 frame per second per the Framerate entered into its settings. The result is standard for video sequencers. Davinci Resolve is the best free video editor. Blender in video sequencer configuration is runner up. Both understand what a PNG frame sequence is without more from you than learning how to import them. In Resolve's case that is drag and drop of the folder onto a timeline.

In Premiere Pro, it also places the beatmeter in the middle of the screen

That is the Position variable in Beatmeter Generator settings. The variable is 0 to 1 decimal, where 0 is left edge and 1 is right edge. I set mine to 0.3 to place the beat hit offset to the left of center.

What is exactly the benefit of the base track?

I'm assuming that's the track with the BPM track, so you can snap the beats to it so you don't have to carefully align everything.

Got the idea, thanks! So that's also what the small S Button is for. Thanks for the hint Will try tomorrow!

I use BMG's BPM pattern tool on its own track, and add a beat pattern on a time signature track to note the interval. "4/4", because most music is in 4/4 time. 1 (hard) 2 (soft) 3 (soft) 4 (soft), 1 (hard) 2 (soft) 3 (soft) 4 (soft), ...



That's also how I align songs. I place the songs against each other in video sequencer where they sound correct, then I find their BPM, then I move them to align the final beat of one to the first beat of another.



The process goes back and forth between sequencer and BMG until the music is set.

Not sure, but I think the idea is, to directly import the images into your video program.
All programs (I use final cut) are able to import image sequences. Then just set the duration for every image to 1 (ONE) frame.

Yes, thanks, I did see the instructions on the GitLab page, which said to import at 1:1.

But I was using PowerDirector, which cant do this.

So, I was trying some open source programs to just process the beat meter output images into a video, which I then would import into PowerDirector. I had success doing this with Shotcut, Avidemux, Openshot - but all the video output files from these are full screen, with the beat meter in the center vertically, and black everywhere else. So I couldn't overlay the beatmeter on my video.

If by "open source" you mean "open source", Blender is the choice. If by "open source" you mean "free", Davinci Resolve is the choice. Nothing free compares to the two. Resolve competes competently with Sony and Adobe. Adobe is probably the choice if you're paying, unless you're already studied in Sony Vegas or Resolve.

[3xTripleXXX]

In Premiere Pro, it also places the beatmeter in the middle of the screen

That is the Position variable in Beatmeter Generator settings. The variable is 0 to 1 decimal, where 0 is left edge and 1 is right edge. I set mine to 0.3 to place the beat hit offset to the left of center.

I meant vertically on the screen. :) The Position is fine and I use that, but when imported into Premiere Pro, it is placed in the middle vertically, which makes sense, since that's the Premiere default for a video that doesn't fill the whole dimension (like in this case, where the beatmeter video's height is much smaller than the base video's). Then you do have to position it vertically if you don't want the beatmeter positioned across the middle of your video. :)

[masperturbator]

In Premiere Pro, it also places the beatmeter in the middle of the screen

That is the Position variable in Beatmeter Generator settings. The variable is 0 to 1 decimal, where 0 is left edge and 1 is right edge. I set mine to 0.3 to place the beat hit offset to the left of center.

I meant vertically on the screen. :) The Position is fine and I use that, but when imported into Premiere Pro, it is placed in the middle vertically, which makes sense, since that's the Premiere default for a video that doesn't fill the whole dimension (like in this case, where the beatmeter video's height is much smaller than the base video's). Then you do have to position it vertically if you don't want the beatmeter positioned across the middle of your video. :)

Aha. Same here. It's about -400 pixels offset from vertical center.

PS: -400, because in Resolve I use "Tilt" in "Input Sizing" in "Color Correction" because that moves the video image, not the video frame. It's the difference between having transparency in the empty space created, versus having black space.

[kerkersklave]

Did anyone ever achieved to make this tool working on a Mac? Would love to try it out, but it always gets stuck on the opening screen and then doesn't react anymore Tried to start it via Terminal as well, but that doesn't make any difference, still gets stuck. If anyone has a workaround to make this tool usable on Mac, I would appreciate it very much!

I don't konw whether someone ever did that. My problem is, that there is really nothing in there that should it stop from runnig on a Mac. It runs on Windows and Linux. There has to be something really odd happenig on OSX and without a Mac I just cannot debug the issue. I would need someone with basic coding skills that would be willing to setup the basic developmenet environment on OSX and debug it.

[masperturbator]

kerkersklave, will you be working on this again?

If yes I have one feature request. A third beatmeter type that renders from HTML.

Adding HTML Content to JavaFX Applications
JavaFX 2.0+ WebView /WebEngine render web page to an image

You will know better than I where BMG needs variables filled in by the beatmeter authors. It's just that I arrived at this idea as the best possible solution after looking a few times at your code for how it uses SVG.

In this the beatmeter author would provide a single beat as a complete animation, so that the given animation will loop. From that, BMG layers it as it already does, but in the WebView DOM. Maybe BMG expects that the first frame is the resting non-animating frame to loop indefinitely between beats.

It will solve the beat distance problem, where BMG can't allow some fast beat paces during rendering, because the WebView will handle the image overlap in DOM.

The animation would be arbitrary from BMG's perspective. Whatever motion the author could fit into the BPM.

[bobhill]

After several months, I've re-engaged on the video project. I have the BGM operating and I have the images imported into ShotCut.

I could use a little assistance with the BG settings: what are Beat Scale and Beat Duration?

[masperturbator]

I could use a little assistance with the BG settings: what are Beat Scale and Beat Duration?

Beat Scale is a ratio. When you set Beatmeter Height, you're defining the pixel height of the meter animation in motion. Beat Scale is a ratio of that pixel height, applied also to width, so that "1" fills it entirely, and less than "1" fills it partly.

It's used in the flying meter to allow those beats to change size when they hit the beat marker position.

From \src\main\scala\io\gitlab\sklavedaniel\beatmetergenerator\beatmeters\Beatmeter.scala:

Code: Select all

    val bounds = node.getBounds
    val ratio = bounds.getWidth / bounds.getHeight
    val width = ratio * height
    val scale = height / bounds.getHeight

From \src\main\scala\io\gitlab\sklavedaniel\beatmetergenerator\beatmeters\FlyingBeatmeter.scala:

Code: Select all

	Line 56:   override val height = (conf.height * conf.beatScale).ceil.toInt + conf.margin + conf.messageFont._2
	Line 58:   val beatmeterY = conf.messageFont._2 + conf.margin + conf.height * conf.beatScale / 2.0
	Line 120:   val beatmeterBackground = getImage(beatmeterBackgroundURI, (conf.height * conf.beatScale).toFloat, imageCSS)
	Line 126:   def delta(i: Int) = (conf.beatScale - 1.0) * Math.sin(Math.PI * i / beatmeterBeatAnimFrames.toDouble)
	Line 135:   val beatmeterMarker = new SVGDrawable(beatmeterMarkerURI, conf.height * conf.beatScale, imageCSSMarker, AlignCenter, AlignMiddle)

Beat Scale is important when BMG throws the error message that "Beat Distance is smaller than," and it spits out a list of frame times that is happening at.



The times are ( reported time / 60 ) for when the beat is occurring. It means that the graphic can't be rendered because the SVG vectors will overlap, and the code doesn't solve for those overlaps. Reducing Beat Scale is one possible solution.

Beat Duration is a similar thing. It is a ratio of Framerate.

From \src\main\scala\io\gitlab\sklavedaniel\beatmetergenerator\beatmeters\FlyingBeatmeter.scala:

Code: Select all

Line 124:   val beatmeterBeatAnimFrames = (conf.beatDuration * frames).ceil.toInt

Before I looked at code, I took it as the ratio of framerate to spend rendering the beat marker hit, but now I'm wanting to test it to be sure.

[bobhill]

Beat Scale is a ratio. When you set Beatmeter Height, you're defining the pixel height of the meter animation in motion. Beat Scale is a ratio of that pixel height, applied also to width, so that "1" fills it entirely, and less than "1" fills it partly.

It's used in the flying meter to allow those beats to change size when they hit the beat marker position.

Beat Duration is a similar thing. It is a ratio of Framerate.

Before I looked at code, I took it as the ratio of framerate to spend rendering the beat marker hit, but now I'm wanting to test it to be sure.

Thank you for your reply! This is a great tool and there's a learning curve involved. I've actually started reading the prior version posts to try to learn more. I really appreciate your assistance!

On the Beat Scale, my default value is 1.5, which means the dot size is 1.5x my Beatmeter Height? I set the Beatmeter Height to 50 and was trying to figure out why the output images are 140px tall. I assumed it was a combination of the text and the Beat Message Margin. It sounds like I would prefer a Beat Scale of around 0.8.

*** EDIT *** Ok, I see that this must be the ratio of the dot to the marker size. It needs to be greater than one to allow the "hit" animation. I've reset it to 1.5

For Beat Duration, I'm still confused. Are you saying it affect how quickly the dot expands when it hits the Marker?

*** EDIT *** This does seem to affect the animation time. If it's set too high and the BPM is high, the prior dot's animation is not completed. I think it was 0.3 by default.

Also, there seems to be a way to change the beat sound without a custom wav, but I can't figure that out either.

[masperturbator]

Also, there seems to be a way to change the beat sound without a custom wav, but I can't figure that out either.

Right click inside the track title, then left click Custom Sound. That will either give you a file select, or revert to default beat sound. It must be done for every track individually.

The sound file should be a WAV. It should be as short in duration as is possible. Test it against a fast as possible beat sequence, then open that audio export in Audacity, to see what I've meant when writing earlier that the beat sample will mix poorly if it overlaps.

I made mine from a synthesized drum sample cut down to 0.1 seconds.

For Beat Duration, I'm still confused. Are you saying it affect how quickly the dot expands when it hits the Marker?

*** EDIT *** This does seem to affect the animation time. If it's set too high and the BPM is high, the prior dot's animation is not completed. I think it was 0.3 by default.

If it animates too long, it will cover the next beat's arrival and hit animation start. I use "0.2" Beat Duration.

[bobhill]

Right click inside the track title, then left click Custom Sound. That will either give you a file select, or revert to default beat sound. It must be done for every track individually.

The sound file should be a WAV. It should be as short in duration as is possible. Test it against a fast as possible beat sequence, then open that audio export in Audacity, to see what I've meant when writing earlier that the beat sample will mix poorly if it overlaps.

Thanks - I'll give that a try. The default beat sounds like a MIDI value. I'm surprised that it's not configurable. Again, I appreciate your help! I was able to get a working beat on to a video, now I need to tweak settings to see how I can adjust the visual output.

[masperturbator]

The default beat sounds like a MIDI value. I'm surprised that it's not configurable.

It's a WAV file compiled into the JAR as an asset, same as the icons, title image, etc.

Again, I appreciate your help! I was able to get a working beat on to a video, now I need to tweak settings to see how I can adjust the visual output.

Because it's exporting PNG, I use my own PNG layers for beat marker and such. Have fun!

[doremi]

Has anyone fixed or gotten the it to work on a Mac?

Last news about it is still viewtopic.php?p=302114#p302114

[Iridescence]

Hi, I would just like to request a new feature for the next update as I have seen others suggest.. I am new to this program and thrilled to be learning it finally.. I just wish there was an option to have presets saved for your beatmeter settings. so that they don't have to be reconfigured every time

not like its a huge setback but would be a nice touch!