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AVS
Tutorial
by Jheriko
Okay, I've decided to gradually write a huge tutorial. Don't expect different bits on different pages, it isn't going to happen, expect one big page with some links going down to relevant sections at the top. This is going to be messy whilst I'm writing it so expect it to end in a suitably random way for a while. Get ready for some code, maths and optimisation tips.
1. The Basics. We have to start somewhere so I am going to assume that you know absolutely nothing at all about AVS I'm going to show you how to use it and how to make some very basic presets. Firstly explore every single menu option, I am sick of people coming to the winamp forums and saying 'how do I stop the preset from changing automatically'. This is a general computer tip I guess. Look through every menu on the menu bar and click every option to see what it does and look at all of the sub options, this way you can learn for yourself (as you can probably tell I am not going to answer stupid questions in this tutorial, I expect every single human being on this planet to have some basic level of intelligence). Right, onto preset making, first off I'll explain quickly how a preset works. AVS will render everything under the Main heading in the order that it is displayed, you can add things to that list by pressing the '+' button and choosing something. I'm not going to tell you what '-' and 'x2' do. If you click on main you will notice that on the right a check box with 'Clear every frame' written next to it appears, this tells AVS whether or not you want to clear the preset to a black screen at the start of every frame or whether you want to render on top of what is already there. Now, make sure that clear every frame is checked and we'll make a preset. Press '+', go to render and choose 'Moving Particle', you now have a little blob on the screen that moves to the music, play with the settings on the right until you know what everything does. Now turn off clear every frame, your particle now leaves a trail behind it and if you leave it for long enough you get a big solid patch in the middle of your screen. Now we are going to explore the usefulness of not clearing every frame by using a 'trans' effect. Add a Trans/Fadeout to the preset, now the particle leaves a fading trail behind it. Now play with the fadeout slider and go back to the moving particle and play with its settings too, you may now see what additive blend does if you change the color of your particle. You can add more render effects to draw things and more trans effects to do all kinds of fades and movements. Now you have to do some learning on your own, experiment with all of the different render and trans effects and see what they do with clear every frame on or off. You can create some nice looking effects using these methods without doing any code (look at the superscope, movement and dynamic movement). Feel free to play with the code as well but if you are reading this then part of the tutorial you probably won't be able to do much with it unless you are lucky. Keep experimenting and come back here when you think you are ready for the next step.
2. Effect Lists. Effect Lists are very useful, they can be used for several things in several ways but the key to using them properly is understanding what they do. They aren't just there to make your presets look tidy, and don't use them just for grouping things together, its a waste of framerate. If you have been playing with the various effects available then you have probably noticed that the more complex things get the lower your framerate gets, so if you want to make nice effects you are going to want to be efficient with your fps. |
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