I have now finalised the Timecode protocol for the GENER8 modules. If you are developing your own module(s) and wish to access this data, here’s a brief explanation of how it works.

I have tried to ‘future-proof’ the Timecode, giving it a full spectrum of possible data types. And although I have made changes to it with this last release of GENER8 (0.52), I promise not to meddle with it further (at least not too much).

The Timecode data is output from the GENER8 Launchpad module, and is available through the sharedDict library as:
sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’]

 

The Timecode is of data type Dictionary, and contains the following values:

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘BPM’] – The number of beats per minute.

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘BAR_BEATS’] – The number of beats in a bar.

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘BEATS’] – The number of elapsed beats. This value is in the form of a list with values for Bar, Beat, Percent of Beat. (ie, sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘BEATS’][0] = Bars, sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘BEATS’][1] = Beats, sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘BEATS’][2] = Cents,)

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘SEC’] – Elapsed time in Seconds (This could be used to calculate SMPTE values if required).

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘START’] – Boolean value to indicate if Clock is running. 0 = Off

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘LOOP_ON’] – The Timecode can also work in a looped form, this is a Boolean value to indicate if the loop is in effect.

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘LOOP_START’] – An offset value for the loop in beats. Do not use values of 0, a start value of 1 indicates there is no offset.

sharedDict[‘TIMECODE’][‘LOOP_LENGTH’] – Length of the loop in beats.

Note: Timecode values will be output when clock is controlled via external Midi clock.

With the inclusion of GENER8 in your projects, the standard form of Layer Contextual modules becomes a little less relevant, as we start to change video at the GENER8 Clip level.

I have written GENER8 with this in mind, and it is a fairly simple process to produce an update of your own Layer Contextual modules which include a sensitivity to the GENER8 Clip changes produced by The GENER8 Launchpad module.

All that is required is a small script which to be included in the Periodical Script, which listens out for changes, and a few Functions in the Init script to collect information about settings, and update changes.

I am currently in the process of finalising the protocols to this, and will be making the finished scripts available as soon as I get a fully tested Alpha version available.

If you would like to update a module to be compatible with GENER8, or create a new one from scratch, let me know about it and we can have a chat – I may be able to help you with some of the planning.