Visikord User’s GuideInstallation, Setup, and Running

v1.9.4rev. 01

This User’s Guide applies to Visikord Trial, Visikord core, and Visikord Business variants of thesoftware

For the User’s Guide for earlier versions of Visikord, please visit visikord.com/support

Copyright Visikord Interactive 2008-2013. All rights reserved.

Table of ContentsPart I: Installation and Setup

1. Install Visikord with Kinect Drivers1.1 Do not plug the Kinect into the PC yet!

1.1.1 Kinect4Windows Users: Download special drivers1.2 Windows 8 users: Do these steps to enable Kinect drivers to install1.3 Run the downloaded installer .exe1.4 Allow the installer to run driver sub-installers1.5 Open the newly installed Visikord Program Group1.6 Run Visikord and Enter your license name and key1.7 Let the software connect to Kinect1.8 Welcome to the main menu1.9 Start testing and playing with the software

1.9.1 On newer laptops, enable easy access to the function keys to make life easier

2. Place Kinect Appropriately2.1 When testing at home/office2.2 When using Visikord at home/office or in the field2.3 Sunlight and glass barriers

3. Updating Visikord to a Newer VersionPart II: Running Visikord

1. Adjusting Kinect Angle and Running the “Game” from the Main Menu2. Setting up Graphics Quality and Speed for Best Experience

2.1 Troubleshooting display issues with multiple monitors2.2 Troubleshooting sensor restart issues on slow computers

3. Controlling Visikord as a Dancer, in front of Kinect3.1 User modes and Dancer modes3.1 Core Visikord Dancer operations / Performance (F2) mode

3.1.1 Dance/Space dancer mode3.1.2 Play/Elements dancer mode

3.2 “Business” version Visikord Dancer operations / Party (F3) mode3.2.1 Middle dancer centering3.2.2 Media3.2.3 Lightning3.2.4 Photobooth3.2.5 Power Charge

4. Controlling Visikord as the User, from the keyboard4.1 Using the Settings (F5) Control Panel

4.1.1 Activating a separate VJ console4.1.1.1 Temporarily separate VJ Console with Ctrl + F5

4.1.2 Default Settings Table4.1.3 Editing the settings in the Visikord User Configuration file4.1.4 Default Settings

4.2 Controlling the behavior on the dance floor4.2.0 Hotkeys for centering and bars in Party (F3) Mode: Shift + 1 to turn centering on/off, “.” to force vertical bars, “/” to disable them4.2.1 Number of dancers4.2.2 Controlling Centering4.2.3 Controlling the Dancer mode (Business version only)4.2.4 Setting up boundaries on the dance floor4.2.5 Configuring the vertical bars

4.3 Controlling the appearance of dancers and synthesized graphics4.3.1 Making dancers slimmer4.3.2 Quieting the visuals

4.3.2.1 Video-echoing the dancers in the visuals4.3.3 Changing dancer’s “skins”

4.3.3.1 Enabling/disabling dancer trail4.3.4 Enabling and controlling Real Skin4.3.5 Making dancers invisible4.3.6 Turning on automatic effects changing4.3.7 Choosing whether Background people will show and how4.3.8 Controlling appearance of triggers and hand powers4.3.9 Activating Simple Background for quietness or hardware-based chroma keying

4.4 Controlling Media in Party (F3) Mode (Business version)4.4.1 Turning media on or off4.4.2 Supplying your own media pictures / Removing pictures you don’t want4.4.3 Supplying your own media movies4.4.4 Controlling which media shows and how; testing4.4.5 Controlling how media is blended visually: increase resistance for less flashy effects4.4.6 Pure VJ Mode -- playing only media movies (with power-less dancers embedded in them)4.4.7 Live Video In mode

4.4.7.1 Live Video In format4.4.7.2 Visikord Live Video In with Virtual DJ or other VJ-ing software

4.4.8 Custom Dancer Skins4.4.8.1 Custom skin sequence

4.5 Sound4.5.1 Sound Groups4.5.2 Other sound settings4.5.2 MIDI support

4.6 Logos and Messages4.6.1 Changing the Visikord Brand logo in the upper right corner (Business version only)4.6.2 Changing the large floating logo4.6.3 Changing the floating text messages4.6.4 Changing the words for the “Words” (“A”) Element4.6.5 Controlling Instructional messages in Party (F3) Mode

4.7 Photo Booth (Business version only)4.7.1 Automatic Printing Photo Booth photos with Hotfolder Print

4.8 Graphics Backgrounds4.9 Power Charge Settings (Party/F3 mode only): Making visuals less noisy

4.9.1 Other ways to make visuals less flashy5. Capturing Visikord Video Output

Appendix A: Default Settings TableAppendix B: Troubleshooting Kinect connecting issues

Checking whether Kinect drivers have been installed properlyUninstalling all drivers to allow for a clean installReinstalling after uninstall

Appendix C: Updating your Visikord installation0. Updates are completely safe and they leave your previous installs as they are!1. Full download vs. Patch1. Download the newest full install, or the patch, from the link you received in the email2a. Installing a Patch2b. Installing a full update

2b.1 Importing settings from the old version (optional)3. Run Visikord as usual4. Check the User’s Guide and the change log for what’s new5. If you received a new registration key

Part I: Installation and Setup

1. Install Visikord with Kinect Drivers

When you purchase a registered version of Visikord, you receive your own download link for theproduct. You also receive a license name and license key. You will enter them upon the first activation as specified below to register your product.

The Trial version of Visikord does not use a license name/key, and the download is publicly available from the site.

The key thing about installing Visikord is installing the drivers for the Kinect sensor correctly; these steps are slightly different for Windows 7 and for Windows 8.

Installing Kinect is not quite a plug-and-play technology yet so it depends on doing the right steps in the right order. However once you have done them you won’t have to worry about drivers anymore. So for the first install, whether Trial or full, and whether you have Kinect or not, please read the steps below carefully.

(You can rest assured that you cannot break anything, that if you do something wrong you can always uninstall everything and start again, and that so far Visikord has been successfully installed on every Windows 7 and Windows 8 machine where the installation was attempted.)

1.1 Do not plug the Kinect into the PC yet!

This is important since Kinect drivers should be installed first. All the drivers are included in the Visikord installation you have downloaded, and no other software is needed for everything to work. As you will see, towards the end of the installation, the installer software will say when thetime is right to plug the device in.

1.1.1 Kinect4Windows Users: Download special drivers

In the unlikely case you own the more expensive Kinect4Windows sensor instead of the more common Kinect for XBox360 sensor:

Visikord default installation includes the drivers for Kinect for XBox 360 as this sensor isfar more common (and also the drivers for Asus Xtion, which is very similar, only

smaller). If you want to use Kinect4Windows sensor instead, please download its drivers from here:https://s3.amazonaws.com/visikord.us/drivers/Visikord-Kinect4Windows-Drivers.zipThe .zip file contains the special installation instructions for that device.

1.2 Windows 8 users: Do these steps to enable Kinect drivers to install

Windows 8 works great with Visikord and Kinect, however one additional sequence of steps is necessary to install the drivers. This sequence needs to be done only once ever, and we recommend you do it even if you don’t have a Kinect and are installing Trial only. Otherwise you’ll need to uninstall everything later, apply these steps, and reinstall again.

The sequence of steps 1-7 below must be done before you run the Visikord installer. If you already installed Visikord before reading this document, or you followed it but still can’t get the Kinect to work, please see the “Troubleshooting Kinect Connecting” section.

1. Press Windows key + R to open the “Run” prompt

2. In the Run prompt, type shutdown.exe /r /o /f /t 00

(make sure to press space before each /, and type zerozero at the end)

The screen will turn blue, with progress circle showing “Restarting…” and “Please wait…” for a few seconds; wait until that process completes.

3. When the blue Shutdown menu appears, select Troubleshoot

4. In the Troubleshoot menu, select Advanced Options

5. In the Advanced Options menu, select Windows Startup Settings

6. When the Startup Setting screen appears, click on Restart

7. Allow the Windows to restart. Upon boot, you will see a Startup Settings screen; press number key 7 to Disable Driver Signature Enforcement

After this step, your Windows is ready to allow Kinect drivers installation.

1.3 Run the downloaded installer .exe

Visikord install comes as a Trial, Core, or Full (Business) version. The Core/Business version download is available in the purchase confirmation email. Please note that your download is stored on our online merchant’s site for a limited time, if you need to reinstall at any time later and you can’t find where you saved the file on your disk and the link says “expired”, send a message to support@visikord.com and we will send you a new link.

Immediately upon start you should see the License Agreement dialog, followed by the component selection below. If you don't see any dialog, verify that your antivirus software (such as Norton Antivirus) isn't preventing the installer.exe from running.

If this is the first time you are installing the software, please leave all the component boxes checked.

Click Next, select the install location (default is recommended), then follow the instructions on the screen. (Note Windows XP and Vista users: you will have to follow instructions on the installation dialogs very carefully.)

● Windows 8 users will see a warning right away that they need to do a step that enables driver installation first if they haven’t done it yet. If this is the first time you’re installing Visikord, this is a good time to stop the installation and follow the steps in the document:

● You will also be reminded not to plug the Kinect in yet. (Actually in many cases it won’t hurt even if you did plug it in but it’s definitely better to have it plugged in after the drivers are installed, which the installer will tell you.)

When you click OK, driver sub-installers will activate.

1.4 Allow the installer to run driver sub-installers

● You will see four sets of dialogs very much like this one:

Those are 3rd-party (OpenNI and PrimeSense) drivers that are used for Kinect on Windows. Please click OK/Allow/Install for all of them.

○ If you installing the same or a different version of Visikord, you will be asked to select “Repair”, “Remove” or “Cancel.” It is best to select “Repair”, unless you know you everything has worked well with Kinect previously, then you can selectCancel to save some time.

○ The fist dialog is for the “OpenNI” component, second is for the “NITE” component, and the third is for the Asus Xtion sensor component. (Recommendedto allow the driver also, won’t take any resources if you don’t have that sensor.)

● The fourth driver screen is the most sensitive one: it’s the driver for the Kinect sensor itself:

● When you click on Next, you should see this dialog:

Windows 8 users -- if you don’t see this dialog and instead the fourth driver install proceeds without it like the other three, you probably didn’t do the steps for Windows 8 correctly. In that case you won’t be able to connect to Kinect later on, but this is no cause for alarm -- you can let the install finish and if it all works, great, if not, you will need to uninstall the drivers, apply the step, and reinstall again, as described in the Troubleshooting section below.

Otherwise, if you have enabled driver installs on Windows 8, or are running Windows 7,

please click on “install this driver anyway”, and know that the hardest part is over!

● When the driver installation completes, you will be taken back to the the main Visikord installation.

Please make sure that Kinect power supply is plugged in to the wall and then plug theKinect USB connector in your PC.

Then press OK -- ignore the question whether Windows said “Your device is ready to use”, on many versions of Windows adding a new device now goes quietly, you only see a message if something goes wrong.

1.5 Open the newly installed Visikord Program Group

When the installation completes, it will say “Completing the setup Wizard.” Please leave the “Open Visikord” box checked and click “Finish.” You will see the Visikord program group. This program group is a starting point for the software and to access documentation, run diagnostic tools, etc.

Windows 7 users: The way to get to these icons at any time is via Start Menu button -> Programs -> Visikord.

Windows 8 does not have a start menu, so you can just press the Windows key to get the blue starting screen, then just type “Visikord”, a search box will appear and the icon:

If you want just the Visikord or one of the related icons click on it, otherwise to get the program group like the above, right-click on the Visikord icon (or press the Properties key on the keyboard) and you will see a menu at the bottom with an icon of a folder titled

“Open file location”. Clicking on it will open the program folder like for Windows 7 users:

1.6 Run Visikord and Enter your license name and key

Click on the colorful icon to run the Visikord program.

If you are running a registered version of Visikord for the first time, a message will appear informing you that a registration key is required:

When you click on “OK”, a new dialog appears that asks you to enter your license name and license key for the software. Please copy and paste your License Name and Key fromyour order confirmation email into the appropriate box in the window:

- License Name:<Your license name>

- License Key<Your license key>

.

1.7 Let the software connect to Kinect

For about 10-15 seconds you will see the “Connecting to sensor…” logo. If everything is OK and it finds your Kinect, it will proceed straight to the main menu, and you can skip to the next point. Windows 7 installations typically go without a glitch, and Windows 8 installation sometimes fail at first, usually because the prerequisite steps for Windows 8 were not performed correctly.

If Visikord fails to connect to Kinect, you will see this message:

At this point you will need to do some troubleshooting to find out which of the install steps was missed.

● First, please press Cancel. (If you are don’t have a Kinect attached, press OK and you will be able to watch demos based on the pre-recorded Kinect data streams.)

● Then, run the Kinect diagnostics software called “NIViewer”. On Windows 7, you will find it in the Visikord program group (Start -> Programs -> Visikord -> Sensor Test -> NIViewer)

On Windows 8, you can also find it in the Visikord program group as we described above, or you can simply press the Windows key and type “NIViewer” (without quotes).

○ When Kinect is successfully connected, you will see an image like this:

○ However, when there is a problem, you will see this message:

Press any key as it says to close the window.

● Verify the Kinect is plugged into power -- the green light on the cable near its USB connector should be lit.

● One simple thing to try first is to unplug the Kinect and plug it back in then rn NIViewer. If that doesn’t help, connect to another USB port: unplug the Kinect, plug it into another USB port on the computer, wait for about 30 seconds (Windows applies the driver to eachnew port the device is plugged in) and run NIViewer again. Try all the USB plugs.

● The next thing to try is to reboot the PC: unplug the Kinect, reboot, replug the Kinect, and run NIViewer.

● If that doesn’t help, if you are running certain versions of Windows 7, you may see “fail to connect” due to incompatible Kinect drivers being included in Windows. Follow the simple instructions at http://visikord.com/support/drivers/Solution-for-Kinect-Device-Not-Connected-on-Win7.pdf to fix the problem.

● If you are running Windows 8, please look at the “Troubleshooting Kinect Connecting” Appendix in this document. In almost all cases what fixes the problem is uninstalling all the drivers, running the “enabling driver installation on Windows 8” prerequisite step in the document again, and reinstalling Visikord.

● Windows 7 users can also find instructions in the above document how to fully uninstall the drivers.

● If you are unable to get past this problem, please contact Visikord customer support.

1.8 Welcome to the main menu

Congratulations! The Kinect is successfully connected to your computer and Visikord is able to see the moving objects and people in front of the sensor.

Note: If you are pressing keys (Esc, F2, F3) and there is no effect, but you see the mouse arrow on the screen, it means the Visikord app has no “focus” -- what Windows calls a state in which the application can receive keystrokes. To give Visikord focus, simply clickon it when the mouse arrow is on top. The arrow will disappear, which means Visikord now has focus and is receiving the keystrokes.

1.9 Start testing and playing with the software

The first thing to do is to adjust angle and position of Kinect for the best view; this is the subject of the section below. Meanwhile you can play some good music, either from your computer or from an MP3 player, and when the Kinect is positioned to your liking, explore the rest of this document and the software itself and enjoy!

Tip: for some extra fun press Shift + Z from the main menu so your hits to the bars (when visible) will produce some powerful percussion sounds.

1.9.1 On newer laptops, enable easy access to the function keys to make life easier

A new trend among some laptop manufacturers is to make Windows Function keys F1-F12 secondary so that you need to press Fn key with the function key (e.g. F3) to get the regular F3 function, otherwise if you just press F3 you’ll reduce screen brightness or do something like that. Visikord main functions are accessed via the function keys, so to avoid always having to hold the Fn key as well you need to turn off the Fn key by default. The procedure is straightforward but unfortunately different among laptops. You can google for “how to turn fn function off” (no quotes). On some laptops it is as simple as pressing “Function Lock Key” (typically next to F12). For some laptops like the Toshiba’s, you can type (in Win8 start menu) Toshiba, select System Settings -> Keyboard -> “Standard F1-F12 Mode”. On others you may need to go to BIOS to turn off the default Fn key behavior -- please google for the information or check the laptop manual for the instructions.

2. Place Kinect Appropriately

2.1 When testing at home/office

For initial testing, it is best to use only your laptop (or main computer screen), to make sure everything is connected and works well, before another screen is introduced. Place the Kinect next to your screen and at an angle, looking up towards you, as in the examples here:

Press the F2 key (Core version) or the F3 key (Business version) and play a bit in front of the camera, touching triggers and making effects with your image. If everything works correctly, youcan connect the real screen as described in the section below, for which we will also use appropriate settings to make sure the picture is fast and smooth.

2.2 When using Visikord at home/office or in the field

Close Visikord if it’s running already (Alt-F4), and connect your PC to a TV (HDMI connection is recommended) or projector.

Make sure Windows sees your TV/projector correctly. Press Windows + P key and select “Extend” from this dialog:

Run Visikord again. Its main screen should appear on the external monitor or projector, while your main laptop screen should remain as is (with Windows start menu, taskbar, other apps, etc.) -- this happens in most cases.

If the Visikord screen appears on your laptop screen while everything else (taskbar etc.) ison the monitor/projector, you have the external screen defined as your “primary screen” in Windows “Screen resolution” setting (which you get with a right-click on the empty desktop). You can set Visikord to place itself on the primary screen (which will be your external screen when connected) via the Settings, or you can make your laptop screen primary -- which we’d recommend you do temporarily, before we get to the Settings.

On rare computer + screen combinations, Visikord disappears from the external screen

shortly after start, with or without a message warning. We will see later how to remedy that in the Troubleshooting Display section; for now, close Visikord, press Windows key + P and select “Duplicate”, then run again.

Once the picture is there and working, we move on to adjust the Kinect placement.

If you are using Visikord with a regular-sized TV or monitor, you can place the Kinect or Xtion sensor on top of the TV or at the bottom of the TV. As a rule, if the TV is placed high, the sensor works best when placed at the bottom. If the TV is placed at the standard room viewing height, itis best to put the sensor on top.

Example sensor placement: top, since TV is low

Example sensor placement: bottom, since TV is high

For best results, place the sensor so it is at around the heart level and tilted slightly up so the dancer looks slightly down at it, as in this image:

This is so that the dancer can raise arms and touch the active trigger points no matter how far he or she is from the sensor -- and also because the dancer will appear more powerful on the screen.

If you are using a projection screen or a really big screen, you can either place the sensor on a stand or a bar table between the dancers and the screen so they see themselves directly on the bigscreen, as here:

or place a small screen in front of the dancer and replicate it to the big screen:

To secure Kinect on top of TV or in a wall, use a Kinect TV Mount or a Kinect Wall Mount.

Those are relatively inexpensive and do a great job. The links are available on the site.The Xtion does not have TV mounts yet, however it is considerably lighter than Kinect, so you can use a piece of tape. Our recommendation is two pieces of “Dual Lock” tape that is adhesive on one side and has Velcro-like hooks on the other, for easy installation and removal.

2.3 Sunlight and glass barriers

Kinect works in daytime and nighttime, in well-lit places and in complete darkness, but direct sunlight will cause poor image detection. This is because Kinect uses infrared (IR) light to detect images, and natural light has lots of IR. When you use Kinect during the day, make sure the Kinect camera isn’t looking at the open sky (even if it’s cloudy) -- reflect IR is OK but direct IR will corrupt the image. If you want to put the Kinect in the window, for example, it’s OK if its entire view is covered by buildings etc. but not if it can see any portion of the sky.

Indoors at daytime (without looking into open windows) and at night Kinect will work perfectly.

If you place Kinect behind a glass, make sure that the camera is right next to the glass (even if the TV is a little behind), so that the dirt on the glass is not picked up:

Part II: Running VisikordIt is important to keep in mind that Visikord is not connected to music directly; instead it is connected to the dancer, who is connected to the music. So you can use Visikord with any music source -- the DJ’s mixer, your PC’s Media Player, even people singing. The music drives the person, and the person drives the graphics effects, which is how they appear in sync.

As of version 1.9.1 however, Visikord dancers can play sounds by hitting the vertical bars. More about that in the sound section, for now let’s just say that the default sounds are mostly percussion sounds that go well with electro and hiphop music, and the user can define their own.

As with any audio/video equipment, the Visikord user and operator may need to adjust the device-- the hardware and the software -- to provide the best experience. While Visikord will work out of the box and in nearly all conditions, a bit of effort to adjust the camera position and the software settings can be the difference between your end-user’s experience being simply good and being very intense and personal.

We make a difference between the terms user and dancer in the text below as follows: the dancer is the person in front of the screen. He or she can change things on the screen but only bytouching active triggers with their image’s hands. The user is you -- the operator of the system by the computer keyboard who has full control over what Visikord does. When you step away from the keyboard and in front of the camera however, either to test the system or to have fun, you are a dancer as well.

1. Running the “Game” from the Main Menu

The first couple of times you start Visikord, the three-page help screen with instructions how to use it will show first. Use arrow keys to flip through the pages and the Esc key to go to the main menu. As we’ve seen before, the purpose of the first help page is also to help you adjust the Kinect height and angle by comparing how Kinect sees you with the sample image. You can bring back the help screens anytime by pressing F1.

The Visikord Main menu also serves as a monitor for what the Kinect sees. For the first few seconds you may see only the deep red “depth image,” but as the movement occurs, the system recognizes people and highlights them.

To start the “game”:● if you have the Core version, press the F2 key (“Performance”), a mode best for one or

two skilled people.● If you have the Business version, press the F3 key (“Party”) for people new to Visikord.

The F2 (“Performance”) is also available in your version but you will almost always wantthe Party mode.

We will explain the difference between the Performance (F2) mode and Party (F3) mode shortly, but for now we only look at the graphics to check the system speed and adjust it if necessary.

2. Setting up Graphics Quality and Speed for Best Experience

1. Visikord is a CPU-intensive application, so make sure it is plugged in the wall power and you have the battery/Power Settings on Maximum Performance. Power Settings are available from the battery/charging icon when you click on it. If “Maximum Performance” is not available immediately, you will find it under “More power options” in the menu; in the menu that opens select “Show additional plans” and you will see the Maximum Performance preset or an option to create it.

It is crucial the the computer runs at full speed so you get maximum frames per second.

Also make sure power-saving for turning the display off and going to sleep is disabled -- you want the laptop to run at full performance mode

2. Kinect body tracking is sensitive to moving the sensor around. If you change the sensor angle significantly or move the sensor from one place to another, it may get confusedso you may see parts of people missing or see random parts of the room. To restart/refresh Kinect/Xtion body tracking at any time, restart the driver by pressing Ctrl-R.

3. It is essential to make sure the graphics are smooth, which means to lower the running resolution if you have a slower laptop (an old one, or one without dedicated graphics card.) The display should be rendered between 50 and 60 frames per second most of the time to make the movement enjoyable for the dancers. Please read below carefully:

○ Once you start Visikord in F2 or F3 mode, move a bit in front of the screen. Touchthe red or the blue triggers on the screen or press the Space bar to change backgrounds.

○ Press F12 to see the current frame rate if it is not shown already. There are two numbers: FPS for the display and FPS for Kinect/Xtion. With NVidia/ATI graphics cards, and even Intel HD4000, display FPS will be close to 60 most of the time with default settings.

○ On weaker computers, the display FPS depends on the resolution and the backgrounds. Change the backgrounds a few times (by touching triggers or via Space bar) and observe the FPS. If it drops under 50 too often, then:

■ Press F5 to bring up the Settings menu and use up/down arrow keys to highlight the “Full Screen Resolution” option, then left/right arrow key to select a new, lower resolution, then Enter to make a change.

■ Keep lowering until you get one where the FPS is 60. You can go as low as 640x480 as you will notice the picture still looks good even in such low-res.

■ Note that some laptops have dual video cards, the slow Intel integrated one and the fast NVidia one; while you can control in advanced Windows settings which one runs when, typically with only the laptop screen, the slow card runs, but when another screen is connected, it is powered by the fast video card.

○ When you connect the external TV or projector, you have the options to Duplicate, Extend, or Projector Only (controlled in Windows via Windows-Key+P, this must be done before you start Visikord). It is best to run the screen in the Extend option (and not Duplicate) with Visikord’s main screen on the external projector and the Visikord settings/control panel on the laptop’s main screen -- it is fastest and most convenient.

■ If you have more than one external monitor, you can control which one you want to send Visikord to via Settings (F5)->System->Visikord Monitor ID option.

4. If you are using an external TV:○ Set the TV’s “Game Mode” to ON to eliminate any filter delays by the TV. Most

new TVs have a visible lag due to various filters for sports programming and such. If there is no Game Mode on your TV, look at its setup to turn off the filters.The lag introduced by the TV can be over 150ms sometimes which would make the dancer feel like moving through syrup. (Ideally you want the delay to be 0 -- you want Visikord to be an interactive mirror.)

5. If you are running Visikord in a well-lit room, you can press the "R" key to turn Real Skin on. In good light, Real Skin looks excellent. In low light, the details of the face and clothing will appear grainy, so in that case it is better to turn it off. Remember that Kinect(and Visikord) work well even in complete dark.

This is an example from a dark nightclub, with Real Skin turned off:

while the examples below are from a well-lit place, with Real Skin turned on:

6. If your laptop came with Norton/Symantec antivirus and it’s an entry level one: Norton/Symantec antivirus software tends to consume a lot of CPU resources, slow downthe overall system significantly, and pop up distracting messages. We recommend uninstalling it and installing the free Microsoft Internet Security Essentials suite instead (on Windows XP/Vista/7; on Windows 8 an equivalent, Microsoft Defender, comes preinstalled).

7. Some hardware may be performance-sensitive when coming from hibernation or sleep. Ifyou put the laptop to hibernation or sleep while Visikord is running, on return there can be a drop in performance.

In general if you see a sudden drop in performance after awaking laptop from hibernation or sleep, reboot the computer.

2.1 Troubleshooting display issues with multiple monitors

If Visikord is not showing up on your screen(s) as it should, do the following:

1. Close Visikord if it’s running.

2. Disconnect the second screen -- either by removing cables or by pressing Windows key +P and selecting “Disconnect Projector”

3. Run Visikord, make sure can see yourself in the screen, press F12 to turn on frames per second information and verify that you see “display FPS” above 40 (ideally close to 60) and “sensor FPS” at close to 30, touch different triggers a bit to verify the FPS keeps up with different graphics, then close Visikord.

4. Reconnect the external monitor/projector cables, press Windows key + P and select “Duplicate.”

5. Repeat (3)

6. Press Windows key + P and select “Extend."

7. Run Visikord and note what is wrong:

a. If the Visikord screen is on your laptop screen instead of the monitor screen, and you prefer not to make the laptop screen the primary screen, then do the following:

i. Press F5 to open Visikord Settings panel.ii. Press the up/down arrow keys to scroll all the way down to the “System”

section (you can get there faster if you press the End key and move up a few items) and highlight the “Visikord Monitor ID” line. It should say “1”,meaning by default run on the secondary screen (which is in your Windows configuration the laptop screen).

iii. Press the left/right arrow keys to change this value to 0, meaning “always show on what Windows calls the primary screen”

iv. press Enter to make the change. The window will close and appear on your external monitor.

v. For your reference: you can change this setting with a text editor, as described in the section “Editing the settings in the User Configuration File” below. The default text value for this setting is:

[System]Visikord monitor ID=1

and you can change it to 0.

b. If Visikord exists immediately after start, with or without a warning message (a message may say “you don’t have enough video memory), it means it cannot run on your external monitor in the “full screen” mode. Full screen mode is what video games use for exclusive control of the screen for better performance. You will have to instruct Visikord not to use the full screen for this case.

i. Close Visikordii. Disconnect the external monitor (via Windows key + P, then select

“Disconnect projector”)iii. Run Visikord -- it will show on your laptop screen -- and press the F5 key

to access the settings panel. Press the up/down arrow keys to scroll all the way down to the “System” section (you can get there faster if you press the End key and move up a few items) and highlight the “Use Real Full Screen (FAST)” line. It should say “YES” by default.

iv. Press the left/right arrow keys to change this value to “NO”v. Press Enter. The screen will close and reopen, and you may see slight

difference, depending on your laptop screen resolution. In “Real Full Screen”, Visikord runs at whichever resolution you tell it to; when that option is turned off, it runs at whichever resolution is currently at your desktop. If that resolution is high and your graphics card weak, Visikord display FPS will have trouble keeping up. We will fix that in the step after next.

vi. Close Visikord. Note that running on the laptop screen only is your “safe mode.”

vii. Connect the external monitor again.viii. Extend the Windows desktop to it by pressing Windows-key + P

and choosing “Extend.”ix. Move the mouse to the external monitor’s desktop area, right-click and

select “Screen resolution.”x. Select the external monitor and lower the resolution for it as much as you

can, typically it’s either 800x600 or 1024x768. Note: you may not have to do this step if your laptop has an NVidia or ATI (AMD integrated) graphics card, but it’s safe to start low.

xi. Run Visikord. It should show on the external monitor fully and work properly. Repeat step (3) from the beginning of the section to verify you get good performance. If the FPS is consistently high (60 for display, 30 for sensor), you can close Visikord, and repeat step (x) with a higher resolution. With good graphics card you can push this as high as you want,with weaker ones you’ll have to stay low. But you’ll notice that on the big screen the graphics look good regardless of the resolution.

xii. For your reference: you can change this setting with a text editor, as described in the section “Editing the settings in the User Configuration File” below. The default text value for this setting is:

[General]realFullScreen=1

and you can change it to 0.

2.2 Troubleshooting sensor restart issues on slow computers

Visikord has a safeguard for restarting the Kinect sensor driver should the sensor frames per second value ever drop below 15 (should be close to 30 all of the time). This is manifested as temporary loss of Kinect picture, with a big rotating text saying “Searching...”. With a slow computer, however, this restart can happen not necessarily because of the connection issues but because the computer has an older CPU that does not have enough power to process everything in time.

Your first line of defense is to lower the resolution (top of the Settings menu) to 640x480, press Enter, press F12 to see the FPS statistics and play with the software for a while to see if there are any restarts and sensor FPS drops. While this resolution seems low, due to the nature of visuals the picture will still look good. If you get smooth ~30FPS for sensor after playing with the software for a bit, you can try moving to 800x600 to see if you can still keep the same performance.

To suppress the symptom itself, run Visikord, press F5 for the Settings panel, then scroll with thearrow keys all the way down to the System section and highlight the “Sensor restart low fps timeout.” By default it is set to 20 seconds, which means if the sensor FPS is too low (lower than15) for longer than 20 seconds, restart the sensor. You can turn that off by setting the value to 0 (0 means do not check), or to a higher value, like 60.

Press the F12 key to observe the FPS. If it is still lower than 25 or so, close Visikord, and use an advanced setting below to turn off certain calculations and free up some CPU (at the expense of accuracy). Please read the section “Editing the settings in the User Configuration File” below, and then apply the following setting to the configuration file:

[skeleton]enabled-v2=0

This change should make the sensor FPS number go slightly higher when you restart Visikord.

(In version v1.9.3 and higher, you can achieve the same effect by pressing Shift + N to turn skeleton tracking on or off temporarily. (To disable/enable it persistently, ie. across sessions, go to Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls -> NextGen body tracking.)

3. Controlling Visikord as a Dancer, in front of KinectAs a rule, you don’t need a manual to use Visikord. Everything control the screen that is reactive will give you some visual clues about itself. Some controls when activated bring up other controls, not unlike how a smartphone touch screen works. Through exploring and following the cues you can learn all about the control.

The dancer touches round triggers (red, blue, green when shown) to make a change in the scenery or a change in mode, and he hits the vertical bars, when they are present, to create visual (and sound) effects. So the round triggers are normally hit occasionally, and the vertical bars are hit quite often to the beat.

3.1 User modes and Dancer modes

Let us first explain the difference between the Performance (F2) mode available in all versions, and the Party (F3) mode available in the Business version. The Performance (F2) mode is the core Visikord concept for visualizing music; the Party (F3) mode has everything the Performance(F2) mode has, plus additional features for 1) autoadjusting behavior for mutiple people, 2) activating Photobooth, 3) showing lightning between dancers, and 4) blending user’s own imagesand movies with the dancer’s movements.

Again, as a rule, if your version has the F3 option available, you want to use it.

Performance (F2) and Party (F3) are user modes: you the user decide which to activate. Howeverthere are two dancer modes, here are the different names we use for those:

1. Mode without vertical bars; “Dance” mode; “Space” mode2. Mode with vertical bars: “Play” mode; “Elements” mode.

In the “Dance” mode, without vertical bars, the dancer moves in freestyle, with large glowing effects coming from the tips of his or her hands. The “Play” mode, with vertical bars, is more structured: here the dancer hits the bars on the beat to produce more intense visual effects and also percussion (or other) sounds.

Here is a quick comparison table:

Dancer modes: \ User modes: Performance (F2) / Core Party (F3) / Business

Dance (“Space”) Mode = WithoutBars

Freestyle dance Freestyle dance + Photobooth+ lightning effects + activating pictures and movies

Play (“Elements”) Mode = With Bars

Structured dance with hitting bars to the beat to make intense effects and play sounds

Structured dance (with effectsand sounds) + Photobooth + lightning + activating picturesand movies

We will first look at the common operations:

3.1 Core Visikord Dancer operations / Performance (F2) mode

The following two pages are taken from Visikord Help. The Blue trigger on the left only changesthe backgrounds, while the Red trigger on the right and changes “weapons.”

The Tutorial/Demo (F4) option from the main menu gives a detailed overview of all functions in the Performance user mode (in both dancer modes -- Dance and Play) through a recorded performance.

3.1.1 Dance/Space dancer mode

In this mode the dancers have glowing fires around their hands and can change backgrounds by touching the red or blue triggers. If there is only one dancer, he can get different shapes around his hands (called “hand powers”) and can also change them by touching the red trigger:

When both Red and Blue and touched at the same time, dancer’s “skin” changes.

Performance (F2) mode only: When the dancer touches the Blue trigger, a new, Green trigger temporarily appears. If it is touched and held (until the progress circle completes), the dancer mode is switched to the Play/Elements mode below. In the Party (F3) mode, this process happensautomatically when someone is in the middle, to avoid requiring the people in the crowd to experience the Play/Elements mode without being required to know how to activate it.

3.1.2 Play/Elements dancer mode

This is the core mode that gave Visikord its name as it has active vertical bars around the dancers(visual “chords” -- Visikord). Hitting the bars, which is best done on the beat, produces more controlled and direct visual effects, and also creates percussion (or other) sounds. The bars turn the software into a visual and audio drum machine:

The shapes and colors of the generated graphical Element depend on which bar paddle (one of three on each side) is hit. That is also true for sound: each paddle is associated with a different sample and there are many samples; typically top left and right are claps, middle left are soft kicks and middle right are snares, and the bottom two are synthetic drums and percussion sounds. The user can change which group of sounds play and how.

Touching the Blue round trigger changes backgrounds. Touching the Red button quickly (withoutholding) changes the set of the 6 instruments associated with the bars on the current page. Touching and holding the Red round trigger produces a menu of “weapons,” or “Elements” to choose from:

When the menu of Elements is active, touching the Blue and Red triggers moves to the previous/next page of Elements, and one is picked when the dancer hits the bar point next to the Element he wants.

Some Elements have different sounds associated with them (the Lightning, for example), and theuser can customize those sounds as well.

3.2 “Business” version Visikord Dancer operations / Party (F3) mode

Besides the additional features, that we cover shortly, it is important to know that while in the Performance (F2) mode the dancer decides if he wants vertical bars or not, the Party (F3) mode automatically switches to bars when one dancer is in the middle and relatively isolated from the others (no one in front or blocking him, and no one close behind).

This is designed to let many people experience the more powerful mode without having to learn how to get to it. However since this mode requires their more centered presence in the middle of the screen, if they leave their “post” in the middle, Visikord automatically switches to the mode without bars which requires less skill.

Standing in the middle for a brief moment until Visikord picks the dancer as the center, main dancer is the process we call, for the lack of better term, centering. Centering lasts for three

quarters of a second (configurable) to avoid accidental centering. Besides giving the center dancers all the powers, Visikord renders other dancers in a way that clearly shows they can only dance while their touching the triggers will have no effect.

So in the Performance (F2) mode, the dancer chooses the dancer (Bars/No bars) mode manually, and in Party (F3) mode, the dancer mode is chosen automatically. You, the user, still have full control over when and how these modes activate, which we will cover in a separate section if you need that level of control.

3.2.1 Middle dancer centering

This is what centering -- recognizing the user in the middle and giving them full powers -- looks like:

1. When no one is the middle, two dancers are shown in full colors and they can change backgrounds (and pictures/movies in the Party (F3) mode), but there are no bars:

The background people are shown as black shadows (configurable -- whether they are shown, how far ahead, and in what form -- we’ll talk about it later).

2. When one dancer stands in the middle and relatively alone, the centering arrows close in and after a little under a second if the dancer is still alone in the middle, the bars appears and she gets full powers:

3. While centered, the highlighted dancer alone can access the round triggers and bars. The second dancer is a semi-transparent ghost that has no effect on triggers:

The center position ends when the middle dancer walks out of the middle.

3.2.2 Media

The Media feature of the Party (F3) mode is a powerful graphical enhancement, that lets dancers enjoy more concrete images and watch how they melt under their hands, each time in a different way. The user can customize the Media using any of his own images and videos to define the visual experience and the theme for the occasion.

The media works the same in both the centered (one person active) and non-centered (two peopleactive) mode.

Media is turned on (or off) by touching and holding the Blue trigger until the circle completes:

Once Media is turned on (which the user can also force via the keyboard), images and videos from the Visikord (found under the Creative Commons license) and/or user’s own folders (no limits -- any picture or movie can be shown) appear on the screen, in random or alphabetical order, in a specified ratio (including pictures only or movies only), and the video input can even come from a live source; we will look at the user’s control of the Media later, for now this is about what the dancer can do, and see:

Extending and holding his hand will cause the background image or video to melt and eventuallydisappear into the generative background. Same holds when the dancer summons the lightning between hands -- or the two dancers create a lightning between themselves:

3.2.3 Lightning

Lightning among dancers is activated when either one dancer is in front and hold his hand in the same line, or when two dancers are aligned and the left dancer’s left hand and the right dancer’s right hand are in the same line:

They do not have to be touching for the lightning to appear, but either way appearance of a spark between them may be something they’ll enjoy.

3.2.4 Photobooth

If Real Skin is enabled, from time to time a camera icon will drop from above and hover for a few seconds. If any dancer decides to touch it, and hold it until the circle completes, their photo inside Visikord will be taken:

The user can configure when the camera icon appears (even if Real Skin is not enabled), where the photos go, and what the final message is. We’ll cover that in the User section.

3.2.5 Power Charge

Power Charge is a feature as of v1.9.4. Its purpose is to help the dancers pace themselves when triggering effects.

The concept is simple: each hit on triggers costs power, and the system recharges when triggers are not in use. The dancers will want to avoid draining the charge completely -- without power, all effects go dark, and it takes longer to recharge from zero than when it’s not fully discharged.

To control the Power Charge settings from the computer, please look at the section Power ChargeSettings.

4. Controlling Visikord as the User, from the keyboard

The user who operates Visikord on the computer (unlike the dancers who work in front of the screen) have a lot of options to control what happens inside the software, and much of that is real-time control. Again, you don’t need to make the changes here, but minor tweaks can improve the dancers’ experience or let you personalize it.

There are three ways to control Visikord as the user (operator), ordered by frequency of use.

1. By pressing shortcut keys -- for example, “R” turns real skin on/off, “I” turns dancer invisibility on/off

2. By pressing the F5 key to activate the Settings (control panel) and changing the settings from there. All the settings changed via Settings (F5) panel are written into the Visikord User Configuration file. (More about it in a second.)

3. By editing the Visikord User Configuration file when Visikord is not running.

The best way to learn about Visikord options is through the Settings (F5) control panel. It lists allthe keyboard shortcuts and gives information on some of the Visikord configuration file values. So let’s examine that first.

4.1 Using the Settings (F5) Control Panel

The Settings / control panel can be brought up at any time, either from the Main menu or while the game is on. Most changes affect Visikord instantly and you will want to see what the change looks like in real time.

If your computer is in a single-screen mode when it runs Visikord, the control panel will appear on top of the image:

Once the Settings (F5) panel is active, move the arrow keys up and down to highlight a line with the option. For each option, you will see if it has a shortcut key assigned, what the name of the option is, and what the current value is and what it does. Use the arrow keys left and right and the Enter key to change the highlighted option.

For instance, if you move arrows down to highlighted the “Auto Effects Mode”, arrow keys left and right and the Enter key will change if the option is enabled. Enter key is an on/off switch; if the option has a range of values (like the Sensitivity in the picture below), only the arrows will change it.

One important thing to keep in mind is that if you change the option value from the Settings (F5)panel, the change is permanent i.e. it will be written to the configuration file and remembered thenext time you run Visikord. However if you just press the shortcut key (whether the Settings (F5)panel is visible or not, the change will not be remembered and will only be valid during the current run. This is to prevent accidental permanent changes. In the picture above, if you change the value of the “Auto Effets Mode” option with the arrow keys via the Settings (F5) to “ON”, then not only in the current session but also when you run Visikord the next time, effects will change automatically. If you only pressed the “A” key however to turn the option on, effects will become automatic now but that won’t be remembered the next time you run Visikord.

There are some exceptions to remembering -- some values don’t make sense to be remembered, for example you can set the “Invisible Dancer” to ON via either the Settings (F5) panel or the “I”key, but that setting will not be permanent: next time you start Visikord the dancers will still be visible. Likewise, going from and to full screen via F11 is not remembered.

(The Settings (F5) panel is scheduled for some usability improvements soon, but hopefully you will find that it serves the purpose.)

4.1.1 Activating a separate VJ console

This everything-in-the-main-laptop-screen scenario above is fine when testing, however in an actual event you will want to have the computer set up in dual-screen mode. As we mentioned earlier, this is the “Extend screen” option when you press Windows Key + P (the other three being Disconnect Projector, Duplicate, and Projector Only). When a second screen is detected, whether an external monitor or TV or projection screen, Visikord automatically places itself there(you can control where exactly it goes).

By default the Settings (F5) menu panel will still be embedded in the main Visikord screen. You will however most likely want the Visikord Settings panel to appear on your primary screen (e.g. laptop screen) while the dancing screen is on your secondary monitor device. To do so,

1. press F5 to activate the settings panel and then select the option 2. scroll down a few items to highlight the option “VJ console enabled (external monitor)”

and press the right arrow key to change it from “NO” to “YES”. This means “if the main Visikord screen is on the external monitor, show the settings console on the primary monitor.” This item change requires a restart, so close Visikord (Alt + F4) and start it again.

Afterwards the Settings (F5) menu will appear in the “console” or “VJ” window on the main laptop/computer screen that only you (the user) see, while the image with the dancers will go to the extended screen or projector, as shown below:

The main display performance -- that you have tweaked to achive 60FPS -- should stay the same

after activating the separate VJ console, but on weak laptops it may drop (since now two screens are being rendered). Please press F12 and observe the FPS for some time. If it is lower than without separate VJ console, then lower the main screen resolution until you get high FPS.

4.1.1.1 Temporarily separate VJ Console with Ctrl + F5

On some graphics card + monitor combinations there may be a problem with this dual setup -- dance screen in full screen on the secondary monitor, console on the primary monitor -- in whichcase Visikord will exit before it starts. If it happens to you, please disconnect the second monitor temporarily, start Visikord again, and change the Settings (F5) -> VJ Console Enabled to “NO”. Then reconnect the second monitor and start Visikord again, and to bring the VJ Console on yourmain screen press Ctrl + F5. Visikord main screen will continue to function on the secondary screen, however if will run in the “fake” full screen mode which may drop the FPS if you have a weak graphics card. (This you can verify by pressing F12 and watching if the FPS number drops below 60 for any significant amount of time.) However when you make the Settings change you want to, if you press Ctrl + F5 again the VJ console will close on the main screen and the main Visikord screen will go back to running in “real” full screen mode which gives maximum performance.

To summarize:

● First enable separate VJ console on a second monitor from the Settings (F5) panel and restart Visikord, while the second monitor is attached.

● If all works fine, you’re done -- this is the behavior you want.● However, if after enabling separate VJ console Visikord won’t start with the second

monitor attached, disconnect the monitor, start Visikord, open Settings (F5) Panel, disableseparate VJ console, close Visikord, reattach the second monitor, and restart Visikord; now you’re back to where you were.

○ When you need the Settings (F5) panel in a separate console on your main laptop screen, press Ctrl + F5 to activate. The Visikord dance screen on the second monitor will temporarily switch to a slower mode.

○ Press F12 to see what the FPS rate is. If it frequently drops below 60, your graphics card is weak; in that case, as soon as you’re done with the Settings (F5) changes you had in mind, press Ctrl + F5 again -- the console will close and the Visikord main screen will switch back to full speed mode so dancers can enjoy their motion in fast, fluid rendering.

○ While Visikord dance screen is on the secondary monitor and there is no separate VJ console, please do not use Alt-Tab to switch from Visikord to other apps as Windows will minimize it. Instead, simply use the mouse to click the task on the taskbar that you want to have focus.

4.1.2 Default Settings Table

Below is the complete list of all the default Visikord settings ie. their “factory” values. It is also repeated in Appendix A.

You can learn about Visikord operation from this table (even though we will cover different operations in separate sections). For example, all Media related hot keys, activities, and settings are in the “Media” section. Same is true for Real Skin, Photobooth etc.

Note that some items in the table are actions, such as turning full screen on and off, that have no default value.

Shortcut Key Setting/Action Value (for persistent change, use cursor keys in this panel instead of keyboard shortcut keys)

F12 Show FPS (speed) OFF (when ON, shows camera input frame rate and display output frame rate) .

Full screen resolution New: 1280x720 (current: 1280x720, typical: 1280x720), <-,->, then Enter to switch .

R Real Skin Enabled OFF (Enter to change) Only using the depth sensor; turn on if bright .

Shift + 1 Allow Solo power YES Dancer who stands alone in the center gets all powers, 2nd dancer is transparent .

"," "." "/" Vertical bars AUTO Press '.' to force ON, '/' to force OFF, ',' for AUTO (default -- on when someone in center) .

A Auto Effects Mode OFF (if ON, effects will change automatically from time to time) .

2,3 Closer vertical bars YES (closer vertical bars when active; good for large screens/dancing areas; key: '3') .

Ctrl + R Restart camera driver manually Reset camera (do this if camera was moved around, or input became slow i.e. camera FPS dropped) .

<-,-> Sensitivity for arm span (height) of: 1.76m / 5ft 9in (Default: 1.76m. Smallervalues -> bigger effects when arms outstretched) .

F11 Toggle full screen Press F11 to switch to WINDOWED mode .

VJ console enabled (external monitor) NO Control panel always inside the main screen even with multimon (change requires restart) .

.

--- Sound --- .

Shift + Z Sound enabled NO Set to YES to play sounds by hitting the bars. Must be running in F2 or F3 mode first. .

Sound group #1 drums-and-synths.ini (.\extras\sounds\soundpack-01\drums-and-synths.ini) .

4,5 Set instrument (03) Spike Rings .

Sound current page 01/00 Current page (set) of 6 sounds; Red trigger advances page .

Ctrl + 1 to 6 Play/test sample Press Ctrl + 1 to 6 to play the sample as if hitting the bars. (Enter for Ctrl- on/off.) .

Sound volume 10

Show sample name NO Do not show name of .wav file when played.

--- Dance Floor (Coralling Dancers Into

Desired Area) ---

Shift + 1 Allow Solo power YES Dancer who stands alone in the center gets all powers, 2nd dancer is transparent

Centering time 0.75s Time (0 = disable) required for standing still in the middle to get full control

Centering middle clearance 30% Percentage of camera horiz. view in the middle to be clear of others for centering (def. 30%)

Front of Active zone 0.80 m / 2ft 7in (Min. distance from camera; everything closer is invisible! Best 0.80m-1.20m)

Back of Active zone 3.50 m / 11ft 5in (Max. distance from camera where dancers are still highlighted)

Beginning of dead zone 5.00 m / 16ft 4in (Distance from camerawhere not even shadows show)

Show secondary dancer YES Show second dancer as a translucent image when primary (solo power) dancer is active

--- Appearance ---

Shift + R Force full Real Skin N/A (enable real skin first to control thisfeature)

Q Quiet visuals (Party Mode/F3) ON (quiet when dancers idle)

B BackGround people visibility 1: CLOSE (show as silhouettes those background people mingling with activepeople)

Dancers Zoom (Party Mode/with bars) 0.75 (dancer zoom (default: 0.75) relative to the screen)

O Video Echo 1: SINGLE (video echoing when only one dancer is active)

Dancer slimming (%) 7% (amount by which the dancers are slimmer; must start playing to see)

I Invisible Dancer OFF (dancer is visible; hint: try it for a cool effect)

Background people form BLACK holes (Only showing when there's no solo power (center) dancer and his/her sidekick)

Simple background Forced NO Multitude of colors and effects is available. Set to NO temporarily for more quiet.

Simple background Radiance 0.50 (0.00 - none, 0.50 - good, 1.00 - very strong)

Simple background Color #000000 (HTML color -- RRGGBB, e.g. FF0000 red, 00FF00 green, 0000FFblue, 000000 black)

--- Auto Mode ---

A Auto Effects Mode OFF (if ON, effects will change automatically from time to time)

Red/Blue triggers enabled YES (set to NO if there is too much visual noise)

Max Time Solo 240 seconds (0 - don't cycle) Max time in solo/bars mode before auto switch back

Background effects cycle time 15 seconds (0 - don't cycle)

Skin cycle time 30 seconds (0 - don't cycle)

Weapon cycle time 90 seconds (0 - don't cycle)

Pics/Movies cycle time 30 seconds until next picture/movie pair(0 - don't cycle)

Media on/off toggle time 300 seconds between turning all media on/off (0 - don't cycle)

--- Media --- (Business Upgrade only)

Media mode OFF (when ON, shows custom media on dancer movements. Auto ON is on start.)

Shift + F Media active OFF (Media enabled but not active; dancer can hold Blue trigger turn it on)

Media Blend Resistance 0.17 (base 0.17: how strongly media image reists being chased away by user's hands; 0 - weakest)

Media Blend Speed 0.10 (base 0.10: how quickly media blends into background and back; 0 - slowest)

Pictures to movies ratio 7:1 (radio of showing; set to 0:1 for movies only, 10:0 for pics only (10:0 is after 10:1))

User's own images folder (not specified)

User's own images enabled YES

Came-with-install images enabled YES (folder: \.\extras\media\images)

User's own movies folder (not specified)

User's own movies enabled YES

Bitrate for user's own movies 4000 Bitrate for automatic conversion for custom movies (default: 4000)

Came-with-install movies enabled YES (folder: \.\extras\media\movies)

---- Media Appearance ----

Ctrl + Space Switch to next Media pair Switch to the next pair of Media imagesor movies (must be active to see).

Random order for media YES Plays images and movies and show skins randomly

Ctrl + F Show Media names NO Do not show names of Media images and movies when activating them (for testing)

Stretch media to screen NO Preserve media image's aspect by cutting off parts that can't be seen

Pan/zoom zoom (pics only) max zoom add = 0.30 Set to 0.00 to turnoff pan/zooming. Pics only.

Pan/zoom speed speed = 0.20 (recommended speed = 0.20, zoom = 0.30)

Media dancer blending type 0 - NO CHANGE (How dancer is changed when media is shown)

Adapt media image to context OFF (show media unchanged; try ON though to see what it's likes.)

Media on/off BLUE hold time 1.50s Time needed to hold the BLUE trigger to toggle Media on/off

Shift + V Pure VJ Mode OFF (when ON, plays movies in full screen with nothing else on)

Pure VJ Mode dancers ON (show dancers in pure VJ mode but without any powers)

---- Dancer Skins ----

User's own skins folder (not specified) Custom images for dancer skins. (Must restart on change.)

User's own skins enabled YES (Must restart on change.)

Came-with-install skins enabled YES Use default dancer skins supplied with Visikord (.\extras\images\skins). (Must restart 1st.)

---- Live Video Input ----

Live Video In enabled NO (Enable to see video sources available.)

Live Video In Source N/A (enable live video in first)

Live Video In Streaming N/A (enable live video in first)

Live Video In Config "width=640;height=480;deinterlace=no;connection=Composite;format=NTSC;verbose=yes"

Live Video In Preview N/A (enable live video in first)

--- On-Screen Active Controls ---

Shift + W Disable Red/Blue Triggers NO (set to YES for less fun but more artistic experience)

Shift + H Hand Powers enabled ON (makes glowing fire around hands when extended from the body)

Shift + G Glow (trail) for dancers ON (makes glowing trail around the dancer's body)

Fast Elements Activation (F2 mode only)

OFF (Elements are slowly accessed -- to prevent accidental switching)

S Skin Press to switch to next skin(s).

Trigger Charge (Party/F3 Mode) Enabled: triggers can only be hit when there is enough charge, to prevent abuse.

Trigger Charge Fill time 3.00s (def: 3.0s) time it takes the triggercharge to go from empty to fully charged

Trigger Charge Red/Blue Unit 1.00s (def: 1.00s) charge for hitting red/blue triggers

Trigger Charge Bar Unit 0.25s (def: 0.25s) charge for hitting the vertical bars

Trigger Charge speed after draining 0.25 (def: 0.25) how quickly recharges after FULLY drained: 1.0 - normal, 0.05- very slow

Trigger Charge Draw Sharp NO Soft glow, realistic -- fits nicer in the scene

Trigger Charge Indicator Thickness 3 (default: 3)

Distance of RED/BLUE triggers from top

0% of vertical camera view, from TOP

Distance of bars from bottom 68% of vertical camera view, from BOTTOM (applies to Party mode only)

Hold time for Green (bars) trigger 1.00s Hold time for the green switch to turn ON the mode with bars

Ctrl + W Invisible Triggers OFF (set to ON to make them still active but not drawn)

Flowing energy between two hands LIGHTNING (the kind of energy that flows between leftmost and rightmost hand in Party Mode)

Hand Powers selection 1: All shapes: Plasma, Rays, and Crystals

Hand Powers Arm Extend Min N/A before start playing

Hand Powers Arm Extend Max N/A before start playing

Skin Images Vertical Offset 0.00 (factor by which skin images are pushed up or down)

Skin Images Horizontal Drift 0.33 (factor by which skin images movehorizontally in reaction to dancer)

Shift + N NextGen body tracking ON (use ON for higher precision, OFF for skilled/fast dancers doing a performance)

--- Real Skin (RGB Vision) ---

Test RGB Camera View OFF

Reality Wave First Peak 1.20m (default: 1.20m)

Reality Wave Peak Distances 0.80m (default: 0.80m)

Reality Wave Thickness 285 mm (default: 115mm)

Reality Wave Fixed Border YES (default: YES)

Save Reality Wave settings Press Enter to remember Reality Wave settings for the next time.

--- Photo Booth ---

Photo Booth enabled NO: Real Skin is disabled -- enable real skin or don't requre real skin (below)

U Photo Booth manual activate Press 'U' key to activate PhotoBooth camera.

Photo Booth final message Text after photo taken (enter to change):"Find photo @ facebook.com/mypage"

Time between shots 180 sec (time for camera icon to reappear)

Time camera is visible 10 sec (time camera icon stays if not touched)

Photo Booth save folder C:\Users\davor\Pictures

Bring on full real skin YES: When taking picture, make all dancers wear their full real skin

Require Real Skin enabled YES: Only activate Photo Booth if real skin is enabled (i.e. real images/faces show in skins)

Message before countdown Text before photo shoot countdown (enter to change): "GET READY!"

Final photo show time 6 sec (time final photo is shown)

--- Logos and Messages (DJ/Show) ---

L Show large floating logo OFF (show logo only when no one is in the screen)

Set custom large logo (Business) Logo file: .\extras\images\logo\visikord-logo.png

Set custom brand logo (Business) Logo file: Visikord-topcorner-logo.png. Enter to set to new image (can be blank).

M Show Custom Message OFF

Ctrl + M Set next/prev Custom Message slot 1: Current message slot (Left Ctrl: prev,Right: next)

Set number of Custom Message slots 3: Number of message slots

Edit messages in text editor Press Enter to open message text, save & close editor when done

Right Shift + M Set Custom Message Message#1: (enter to change) "Come and dance!"

Left Shift + M Set Custom Message size Message#1 size: 3

Ctrl + Shift + M Set next/prev Animation type Message#1 animation type: 0 (Left Ctrl + Left Shift: prev, Right: next)

Set next/prev message trail color Message#1 color: 2. RED

Show Logo/Message when Idle MESSAGE (show message when idle i.e when there are no dancers)

Set Logo/Message Idle Time 30 sec (show message or logo after that time when there are no dancers)

Show Message After Idle Time 5 sec (show message for this time after a dancer comes along)

Set Custom Words (Enter to change) Words file for the 'A' element/weapon: .\Elements\builtin\RandomWords.txt

Set words order RANDOM -- order for words for the 'A'element/weapon as they show up

Set words color BLACK AND WHITE -- more legible

Set words position MIDDLE

Set words growth SIMPLE -- from big to bigger

--- Party Mode 'Kiosk' Settings ---

Kiosk Mode AutoStart Enabled Off (Visikord starts with regular menu)

Kiosk message 1 timeout 120 sec (time in sec of any trigger inactivity before showing instructions, 0- no show)

Kiosk message 2 timeout 240 sec (time in sec of DOUBLE-trigger inactivity before showing instructions, 0 - no show)

Kiosk message 1 to 2 timeout 40 sec (time in sec to wait for message 2 after showing message 1)

Kiosk message duration 30 sec (time message is visible, 0 - doesnot expire)

--- Recording/Playback ---

Start recording (Esc to stop) Slot: 1, Song: camerashutter.mp3

Start recording / New song Slot: 1, Song: [New Song]

Start playback (Esc to stop) Slot: 1, Song: camerashutter.mp3

Recording Slot 1, Song: camerashutter.mp3

Playback advance compensation 1 (num frames played in advance to compensate for camera latency)

F4/F9 Play demo (Esc to stop) Play short real-time demo recording with Kinect input

Ctrl + Enter Take screenshot Screenshots are saved in 'C:\Users\davor\Pictures' folder

--- MP3 Player ---

Z Previous song Play previous song in Media Player's playlist

X Replay song Play current song in Media Player's playlist from start

C Pause/resume song Pause/resume Media Player song

V Stop Stop playing Media Player songs

B Next song Play next song in Media Player's playlist

--- Backgrounds ---

Space, PgDn Next background

PgUp Previous background

Shift + T Show title of current background OFF

Shift + P Open backgrounds load dialog Press Enter or Shift + P. You can select a folder with smaller set of more intenseones.

0 Switch backgrounds in the active pair Switches between 'left' and 'right' activebackgrounds without loading new ones.

Backgrounds order RANDOM

--- System ---

VJ console enabled (external monitor) NO Control panel always inside the main screen even with multimon (change requires restart)

Use Real Full Screen (FAST) YES Faster. If you are having problems,press <- to change, then Enter to switch.

Full screen resolution New: 1280x720 (current: 1280x720, typical: 1280x720), <-,->, then Enter to switch

Ctrl + F5 VJ console SAFE mode (ext. monitor) N/A No multiple screens available

F12 Show FPS (speed) OFF (when ON, shows camera input frame rate and display output frame rate)

Ctrl + R Restart camera driver manually Reset camera (do this if camera was moved around, or input became slow i.e. camera FPS dropped)

Sensor restart low fps timeout 20 sec (0 = no auto restart) How long towait when sensor FPS drops before restarting sensor

Visikord monitor ID 1 (0 - main monitor, 1 - first external monitor, if available). <-,->, then Enter

to switch.

VJ console ID for 3+ monitors 1 (console will be on this monitor ID if > 2 monitors) <-,->, then Enter to switch.

Display updating fast vs. clean FAST with flicker - for weaker graphicscards; screen may flicker. Press Enter tochange.

Max. display frame rate 60 - Normal (recommended)

Windowed Border (on Esc) 0 - NORMAL (change requires resizing -- Esc from fullscreen or doubleclick from windowed)

Crash Test Press Enter to make Visikord crash. It should restart immediately.

Auto-repeat demo OFF (useful for testing when ON)

Reset to defaults Press Enter to change all SYSTEM settings to default values. Requires restart.

Force fullscreen on Play ON Force fullscreen when playing if windowed

Ctrl + P Pause Visikord Press Ctrl + P to freeze/unfreeze the screen

Use Extra High resolution OFF -- Set to ON for clearer media images. Powerful CPU/GPU required! Change requires restart.

Shift + C Console Log Show Console with system messages

4.1.3 Editing the settings in the Visikord User Configuration file

All the settings changed from the Settngs (F5) panel -- ie. settings that are now different from thedefault -- are written in a text file called Visikord User Configuration File. You can access this file from the Windows Programs Menu: Programs -> Visikord (version) -> License, uninstall, etc. -> Visikord User Config File.

This is a plain text file opened with Notepad and it looks like this:

; Any changes you make here will be preserved upon next installation; Any values in here take precedence over same names in Visikord_config.ini (system); All paths beginning with '.' are relative to the Visikord install folder

[sound]group1=.\extras\sounds\soundpack-01\drums-and-synths.inigroup2=.\extras\sounds\soundpack-01\drums-and-loops.ini; read the README file in c:\<program files>\Visikord\extras\sounds\soundpack-01\README.txt; for instructions how to add your own sounds

[elements]; file with a list of words shown in the "words" weapon ("A"), relative to the install folder; words file=.\Elements\builtin\RandomWords.txt

[skins]; uncomment below and change to point to a folder with your own .jpg files if to change the ; default "main" skins (lava etc.) that are more like textures and of which there are few; imageDir1stClass=.\extras\images\skins1stClass

The extension of the file is .ini which is a standard Windows. For example, if you do set the “Auto Effects” option ON from the menu, two lines will be added to the User Config file:

[Auto Mode]Enabled=1

Above, "[Auto Mode]” is a section, and “Enabled” is a name within that section. Multiple options share the same section, for example if you also change the “Weapon Cycle Time” value to 60 further down further down in the Settings (F5) panel, the setting will be added under the same section:

[Auto Mode]Enabled=1Weapon cycle time=60

There can only be one section with the same name. So for example if the documentation says thefollowing:

To set a custom folder where screenshots are saved (instead of c:\user\<your name>\pictures, add value[system]screenshots folder=d:\mypics\eventto Visikord User Config file

you need to open the Visikord User Config file and look if there is a section named [system]already. If there isn’t, add it at the bottom of the file (for example), and add screenshots folder=d:\mypics\event line under it. If there is, do not add another “[system]” section; just add the line “screenshots folder=d:\mypics\event”, or if the line beginning with “screenshots folder=” exists under “[system]” already, simply change its value.

These are advanced operations and normally you won’t need them but it is good to know you have this option.

4.1.4 Default Settings

At times you may may want to revert all settings to their default values. To do so, select Settings (F5) -> System -> Reset option and press Enter. After confirmation, all your changed settings will be erased.

You may want however to only revert some settings to their default value. To do that, simply look at the Settings (F5) table above, or the Programs -> Visikord -> README file, and you willsee what the default values are. Alternatively, you can open the Visikord User Config file and erase the lines with the settings changes you don’t want.

4.2 Controlling the behavior on the dance floor

This may be a bit of an overstatement, since it is not possible to control what people will do, however depending on the situation, adjusting some parameters may result in behavior that will make everyone enjoy themselves with Visikord more.

Here are some factors to consider:● how crowded the place in front of the Kinect is● how big is the screen dancers see themselves in● what is the demographics of the audience: are they college-aged, older, high-schoolers, or

younger, are there more girls than boys

● is alcohol served at the venue● what is the energy level of the music

As a rule, the Play/Elements mode (with bars) requires more concentration, so in a rowdy place you may actually want to make the “centering” time (time required for someone to get center stage and all the powers) longer, in a way asking the dancers to show some intent for more focused play. Or you may want to make it even shorter if it brings more fun and unexpected situations.

Another pattern is that adults are on the average more reserved than children, so younger audience is more likely to be curious about hitting bars in Play/Elements mode and with less concern about being judged if they are doing it right. Visikord is based on the idea of empowerment -- and some sense of rhythm -- so the more powerful control brings greater enjoyment to those who in general have less power, and those are the younger generations. However many adults as well may feel that releasing powerful visual (and sound) effects with movement restores that sense of empowerment, so they may enjoy it as much.

The bottom line is it is good to know what tools you have at your disposal to affect the behavior, and you can use it depending on your judgement of the situation to improve the experience.

4.2.0 Hotkeys for centering and bars in Party (F3) Mode: Shift + 1 to turn centering on/off, “.” to force vertical bars, “/” to disable them

For users who know what this means and are just looking for a quick reference, here it is:

Shortcut Key (or via F5 menu)

Function

Shift + 1 Turns on/off “centering” -- feature where the dancer who stays still in the middle for a second gets exclusive powers (and more than before they were centered)

“.” (period key) Forces vertical bars to always show, even when no one is centered. (Someone has to be centered for bars to be active though.)

“/” (slash key) Forces vertical bars to never show, even when someone is centered. When centering is enabled, centered dancer can get extra hand powers. When centering is disabled, the two dancers are always equal.

“,” (comma key) Turns automatic vertical bars on. That is, when someone is centered, the bars will show, when no one is, bars will disappear.

Detailed explanation is below.

4.2.1 Number of dancers

Up to two people (three while transitioning) can be highlighted and with significant “powers” to change things. This is ideal for dancers who want to dance in pairs; other people are shown as black shadows (configurable). To satisfy people’s individual needs there is also an automatic (configurable) mode that, on the right occasion, gives one dancer all the powers and shows the other only as a secondary. This is called “centering.”

4.2.2 Controlling Centering

As shown in the section of controlling Visikord as a Dancer, centering is a process in which when one dancer stands in the middle and at an optimal distance from Kinect -- not too close andnot too far, is relatively alone ie. without anyone in front of him or very close to him on the side or behind, and if he is relatively still, without touching any triggers, for the (configurable) period of 0.75 seconds as indicated by two arrows closing in on the middle, he gets the “center” status.

The center status means he alone is highlighted and he alone has the power to touch triggers. Another dancer, if present, will only appear as a semi-ghost who can’t touch anything:

“Centered” does not necessarily have to mean there are vertical bars, as we’ll show in the next

section; it only means “one highlighted dancer who can do anything.”

When no one is centered, up to two people are highlighted and can touch round triggers (Red/Blue, Photobooth etc.) but not the bars. They also have “hand powers” -- fires glowing around their hands. This is ideal for people who want to dance in pairs, and at that time they are not too concerned about controlling much, they just want to see themselves in this new way.

When a dancer is centered, he or she keeps that status as long as they don’t walk away from the middle too far. (Once in the center, they can move a little more freely than when they were being centered.) So a friend can pull or push them out of the middle to force them to lose center, but the friend won’t get the center status instead as it requires him to be alone in the middle and centering takes time. So by adjusting the time required for centering you can greatly affect how dancers affect each other.

The first parameter you can control is centering time: Settings (F5) -> Dance Floor -> CenteringTime. Longer values reduce likelihood of accidental centering. If you want you can up this time to a few seconds and explain to the would-be solo dancers that they need patience to get to that level.

You can also disable centering completely, by pressing Shift + 1 or changing Settings (F5) -> Dance Floor -> Allow Solo Power. In that case there will always be up to two people highlighted,but no one will ever get the full powers (described in the next section).

You can also control what potion of space needs to be cleared of others for the middle dancer to receive the center status via Settings (F5) -> Dance Floor -> Centering middle clearance. The (as of v1.9.1) value is 30%, meaning 30% of the camera field view around the middle must contain only the middle dancer. If someone else’s hand or leg or behind is in that space, the middle dancer can’t get the center status. (Remember though that center status is harder to get than to lose: once the middle dancer has the center status, others can be in front but he won’t lose the center.) Increasing this number also reduces the chance of the middle dancer becoming center, especially on the busy dance floor, and vice versa.

Again you may not need to change any of the centering settings, but if you want to, you can.

4.2.3 Controlling the Dancer mode (Business version only)

The two Dancer modes we mentioned exist are Space/Dance and Play/Elements, or simply without bars and with bars. Centering is actually independent of which mode is active: centering only means that, in the current mode, one person will have all powers and the other will be a ghost.

By default however, bars show up automatically when the dancer becomes centered (in the Party (F3) mode), but you can override that.

If you look at Settings (F5) -> Vertical Bars (top section), you will see three options:

1. The default mode (which you can restore by pressing the “,” (comma) key, is the auto bars: when someone is centered, bars always show. When centering is lost, bars disappear.

2. By pressing the “.” (period) key, you force bars to always be shown, i.e. the only mode is always Play/Elements. This mode still requires centering however: when no one is centered, the bars are dim and touching them produces no result. When one dancer is centered, the bars are active. There are no real advantages to this mode unless you want to remind dancers they need to be in the center and that they should be on the beat.

3. By pressing the “/” (slash) key, you force bars to never be shown. Two people can dance highlighted and touch round triggers and have hand powers on them. The interesting thing about this mode is the centering process still can happen -- and if one dancer becomes center, while the other becomes a ghost, the center dancer gets additional (and very intense) hand powers, that he can change by touching the Red trigger. When he walks away from the center, it’s still the standard hand powers for everyone. Use this mode if you see that the dancers may not have the necessary focus for hitting the bars.

This bars-not-allowed mode in fact is the only way to get the advanced hand powers in the Party (F3) user mode. Those are the powers shown in the pictures below:

In the Performance (F2) mode, there is no automatic switching between “no bars” and “with bars” modes. Keyboard shortcuts “.” and “/” will simply accomplish via the keyboard what the dancer would have to do with manually touching and holding the Green trigger available in that mode.

4.2.4 Setting up boundaries on the dance floor

One thing you will notice is that initially dancers (we’re calling anyone on the dance floor “dancer”, even if they stand still, for the purpose of Visikord control) tend to get as close to the camera as possible. Kinect does not see anything in short range (0.50m / 1.5 ft), but even if it did it would defeat the purpose of showing people on the screen -- whole upper bodies at least.

For that reason there is a value in Settings (F5) -> Dance Floor -> Front of Active zone, set to 0.80m / 39”. Anyone (or any body part) closer to Kinect than that simply becomes invisible, as ifit doesn’t exist. This discourages people to come closer since it’s not interesting to not exist, and depending on your setting, you can increase this value further. Against their natural tendency to

move in close is this setting, and also the size of the screen -- if the screen is very big and bright people will naturally stay away a bit from it.

Another very simple way to prevent people from coming too close is to put a chair in front of thetable or stand where the Kinect is. And another is to mark the optimal distance by making a square with red tape on the floor.

One other setting potentially of interest is Settings (F5) -> Dance Floor -> Back of Active Zone. Anyone farther than that (3.50m / 11ft) will not be highlighted. You can increase that to allow forpeople farhter in the back to be shown, but the Kinect camera won’t see well at far distances so dancers will appear more like a blot if they are farther than that.

4.2.5 Configuring the vertical bars

You can make the vertical bars farther apart by pressing the ‘2’ key, or changing Settings (F5) -> Closer Vertical Bars (for persistent change), and bring them back closer again with the ‘3’ key. Bars spaced apart more will require people to come closer to Kinect in order to reach them.

You may want to use the ‘2’ key (farther) spacing if the people are standing too close, or the screen is small so they need to come closer, or if dancers simply enjoy more space around them. The advantage of bars farther apart is dancers can still move as in the no-bars mode without accidentally triggering the bars.

The size of the vertical bars is chosen to fit most uses and to look good but you can change it by adding these settings to the Visikord User Config file:

[appearance]PB Y Top Solo Mode=1.0PB Y Bottom Solo Mode=0.0

The numbers are the normalized positions on the screen: 0.0 is all the way at the bottom, 1.0 is all the way at the top.

4.3 Controlling the appearance of dancers and synthesized graphics

The previous section was about settings that affect how dancers move; this is about settings that affect what they see. (The non-synthesized graphics, ie. “Media” -- pictures and movies -- will becovered separately as they are a layer on top.)

We will list here different things you can do in that respect, and you can pick what sounds most interesting for your audience and your aesthetic preferences. Not all settings are listed, if some others look interesting to you please feel free to experiment with them.

4.3.1 Making dancers slimmer

By default each dancer is shown some 7% slimmer than he or she is. Because only the dancers are slimmed while the other images like circles are drawn in proportion, the slimming looks pleasing while not easily noticed. You can change the amount by changing Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Dancer Slimming.

4.3.2 Quieting the visuals

Option Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Quiet visuals (key “Q”), enabled by default for Party (F3)and not in Performance (F2), fades visual effects into black when dancers are not present or are not moving around much. This is good for club/dark settings where lots of energy music would translate to lots of dancer movement and thus more brightness on the screen and vice versa. If you are running Visikord at a rave party however you may find that that the dancers enjoy more intensity and colors so this option is available.

As with most other settings, pressing the key only changes the setting for the current session, while changing it from Settings (F5) makes the change persistent.

4.3.2.1 Video-echoing the dancers in the visuals

In certain situations Visikord does a “video echo” of the dancer. This is a very psychedelic effect for the person looking at themselves, but may be too much for some. We definitely suggest you try it though.

By default, video echoing is enabled only when one person is active, and when there are no bars. You can change the level of video echoing via the option Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Video Echo (key “O”). There are three levels: 1) none, 2) when one dancer is active and it’s not the mode with bars, and 3) always. Setting the level to (3) will also enable it when there is one dancer with bars.

For the absolute maximum, turn off the quiet mode for visuals and set video echoing to “always.”

4.3.3 Changing dancer’s “skins”

“Skin” is the term for the generated surface of the dancer pasted on top of their avatars as measured by Kinect. Press the “S” key (Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Skin) to change the current skin to something else. At this point there is no fine-grained control over which skin gets to show when and by whom, the skin changing is set so that it motivates the dancers to try to do it on their own by touching both the Red and the Blue trigger at the same time.

In the Business version, you are able to define your own set of dancer’s skins, which we’ll cover in the Media section.

4.3.3.1 Enabling/disabling dancer trail

Regardless of their skin type, the highlighted dancers are shown with a glowing trail. There are no real reason why you may want that off, except to save some CPU cycles possibly, but the option is available at Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls-> Glow (trail) for dancers (key “Shift + G”)

4.3.4 Enabling and controlling Real Skin

Real Skin (which we mentioned in the “Setting up the Graphics” section) is a real-world decoration on top of the dancer’s images made from what the Kinect’s ordinary RGB camera sees and blended with the dancer’s avatar.

example with and without Real Skin

Real Skin is turned on or off via Settings (F5) -> Real Skin Enabled (top section; key “R”). In order to make things more interesting for dancers, Real Skin is not always fully shown, except occasionally, but only in certain places in space. Key Shift + R, option Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Force full Real Skin works as described.

As a rule, if you are using Visikord in the dark, you want Real Skin off. If you are using it with plenty of light, you want Real Skin on. If your lighting is somewhere in the middle, turn Real Skin on and then force it on and take a look. If it appears grainy, you probably want it off.

You can also control which portions of space make Real Skin visible by playing with the values in Settings (F5) -> Real Skin (RGB Vision) section. Real Skin is visible in so named “reality waves” which is a standing wave with the beginning, peaks, and distances from the camera. Within that wave, the reality of the dancer’s surface is shown, blended smoothly with their avatar. You can make that wave more dense if you want more skin to be shown.

Unlike most other settings, changes to these values from are not persistent, unless you highlight the “save reality wave settings” option and press Enter.

4.3.5 Making dancers invisible

Option Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Invisible Dancer (key “I”) allows you to make the dancer partially invisible or fully invisible. The only portion of their bodies will be seen through their Hand Powers when they activate them. This requires some skill from the dancers but can produce very powerful effects. It also leaves you with more clean, geometric visuals, if that is

what you prefer for your show.

The three stages you can cycle through is: Fully Visible, Partially Visible, and Fully Invisible.

4.3.6 Turning on automatic effects changing

Sometimes if there aren’t too many people or if they are not moving too much you may prefer for the generated graphics effects to change automatically instead of only in reaction to their movement, which is the default.

To do so, press the “A” key or change the Settings (F5) -> Auto Effects (top section). (Again, setting it from the Settings (F5) panel will make the change persistent -- if you do so and forget, next time you may wonder why the graphics keeps changing on their own). The group of settingsunder Settings (F5) -> Auto Mode section allow you to control how frequently different graphics element will change. For example, skins are set to automatically change every 30 seconds. You can make it longer or completely disabling auto skin change by setting this value to 0 seconds. Similarly with backgrounds, weapons, whether Media is active or not, and, when it’s active, how often pics and movies change automatically.

4.3.7 Choosing whether Background people will show and how

The term “background people” refers to anyone other than the highlighted dancer(s) -- people who may be standing too much to the side of the field of view, or too far back, but also those people mingling around the two highlighted dancers who didn’t “make the cut” for the software deciding that they are the best people to highlight. Some of them may not see themselves as “background” so the software still draws them in some way.

By default, only background people who are close, ie. in the active zone but not highlighted, are shown, and they are shown as black shadows. This reduces visual noise but only makes them visible when there’s lots of other graphics (ie. they are not visible when visuals are dark). This may work for them or they may prefer more visibility. Your options as the user in that manner are:

● Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Background people visibility option (key “B”) cycles between three levels: 0) never show them, 1) show CLOSE ones (default), and 2) show them all.

● Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Background people form option allows you to choose if you want them to be drawn as “black holes” or as “blue bodies.” You may try both to see the difference.

● Settings (F5) -> Dance Floor section that deals with background people determines up to what distances from the Kinect will they even be considered.

It is a valid question to ask, why not always draw all background people, and always more visible (as “blue bodies”)? The answer to that is:

● people too far from Kinect are not picked up well and may appear as blots

● drawing people as solid black shapes makes the visual less noisy and provides a pleasing contrast

● not drawing background people at all creates a stronger on-screen illusion for the highlighted dancers that they are not simply moving around in a club where other people are watching but that they are in their own space somewhere else where they control everything.

4.3.8 Controlling appearance of triggers and hand powers

“Hand powers” are fires glowing around the dancers’ hands. Their size depends on a complicatedcalculation but roughly the more excited the dancer is, the bigger the fires get. For example if they move their arms up, that’s a sign of excitement. Also if they push hands towards the screen (ie. the Kinect), that’s a sign of wanting to affect what they see.

This size is relative to what is an “average” arm length of a person, so a short-armed person will produce smaller Hand Powers than a long-armed person. (Typically arm length is very corelated to height.) If you are a stage performer with arms longer than the average, or are in charge of entertaining small dancers, you can adjust this sensitivity. To do so, change the option Settings (F5) -> Sensitivity for arm span (height) of: (top section) (keys left and right arrow).

The default is 1.76m (5’9”), if you accidentally change this via the horizontal arrow keys and arewondering why the hand powers are now too small or too big, please check this value.

In the section Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls you can also control whether Hand Powers are enabled at all (Shift + H) and fine tune some other aspects of their behavior -- this may be of interest to you only if you are a stage performer.

Within this section you can also control the appearance of the Red and Blue triggers. The keyboard shortcuts for these settings are:

● Shift + W disables Red and Blue triggers● Ctrl + W leaves Red and Blue triggers enabled but makes them invisible. The dancer can

still activate them if he knows where to hit.

Performers with high level of control can also use this section to turn on Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls -> Fast Elements Activation, which eliminates waiting for the progress circle to complete when switching between Space/Elements mode and when switching Elements.

4.3.9 Activating Simple Background for quietness or hardware-based chroma keying

If at times you want to 1) have a simple, consistent, (but still exciting) background visuals, and/or 2) you want to use chroma keying, you can set Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Simple background Forced to “YES.” The two setting items below that one allow you to set the amount of “radiance” (i.e. excitement) the visual will produce, and the specific color you want to use for the background. You can leave the color black or set it to blue/green and use in conjunction with hardware video mixers that support chroma keying.

4.4 Controlling Media in Party (F3) Mode (Business version)

“Media” is pictures and movies that you can mix with the dancer’s movements. When activated, the Media mode shows a supplied or your own image or movie as is unless the dancers are moving, in which case the dancer dissolve the images with their movements in a nearly unlimitednumber of ways.

The key point of media is that allows people to look at less abstract images from time to time andthus have something they can anchor onto more easily. Equally important however is that you can set the theme for the event with the choice of your own media. Some images are very powerful and having your likeness shown inside them creates an emotional connection since it is the dancer who brings them into existence and makes them disappear. Powerful images can be for someone photos from their own personal history, shown at a party, or some well known or archetypal pictures. Sponsored or branding pictures artfully done can also blend quite well:

Visikord comes with a small set of sample pictures and movies (some historical paintings and artwork in the public domain), but we recommend making a selection of your own. As a rule, rich, complex images work well, as well as those that have a slightly cartoonish (ie. drawn) looksrather than mere photos. Images that are not simple and immediately obvious -- i.e. not common/everyday/boring -- require some (very brief) mental work by the observer to be adoptedso in the context of the Visikord graphics those observers, whether they are dancers or onlookers,will appreciate them more. The more stimulating the image (or movie), the better.

Likewise for videos there are a huge numbers of excellent video artwork available for free or for a small fee. Www. vjloops.com is one such source.

All Media controls described in the remainder of the section are available through the Settings (F5) -> Media section.

4.4.1 Turning media on or off

Media mode is enabled by default when you start Visikord in F3 mode. However it isn’t active by default: the dancers activate and deactivate it by touching and holding the left (blue) trigger. In practice they activate and deactivate media often enough that the media is active about half thetime throughout the night.

● “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media mode” controls whether media is on. By default it is onin the Party (F3) mode.

● “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media active” or “Shift + F” controls whether media is active.You can override the dancers’ choice here.

4.4.2 Supplying your own media pictures / Removing pictures you don’t want

Media pictures are JPG or PNG images. You have a few options regarding pictures (and please be sure to read the recommendation at the beginning of this section 4.4 for adding your own):

1. You can simply use all the pictures that come with Visikord and nothing else. However we still recommend doing a quick check if the default images are to your liking: On a couple occasions customers voiced a concern that a couple of images may be inappropriate for some settings as they contain religious themes and even partial nudity. These are JPGs of some classical paintings we included and they indeed may be inappropriate, so if they are included in your version of Visikord you may want to at leastdo (2) below.

2. You can remove some pictures that come included with Visikord and use them alone. Theeasiest way would be to to open Windows File Explorer (Windows key + E) and navigateto folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord <version>\extras\media\images\. Then review the images in the folder and delete those you don’t like or move them to a backup folder. However the changes will hold only for the current version of Visikord -- when you get the new version you will need to repeat the process. For that reason we recommend option (3).

3. You can create your own folder with a subset of default pictures you like, plus your own if any, and use only that folder. For that, do the following:

a. Create your own folder, say d:\pics\my-visikord-images-schoolb. Review the pictures in C:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord

<version>\extras\media\images\ and copy them to your folder, d:\pics\my-visikord-images-school.

c. Add any other JPGs or PNGs you like to your d:\pics\my-visikord-images-school folder. (Read section 4.4 for recommendation on the looks). All sizes are OK, even small images look fine inside the visuals.

d. Select “Settings (F5) -> Media -> User’s own image folder” and press enter to change it to your folder d:\pics\my-visikord-images-school.

e. Select “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Came-with-install images enabled” and set it to “NO”.

When you install a new version of Visikord, you can simply migrate this setting tothe new version as described in Appendix C, “Updating Visikord.” (We’d still recommend doing a quick check in the new version to see if there may be some new images that you like -- in which case simply copy those to your folder.)

Note that you can have multiple folders prepared for different occasions -- e.g. school dance, Halloween party, Jungle Theme party etc.) and switch from one folder to another at anytime, even on the fly.

4.4.3 Supplying your own media movies

The source of your media movies is a folder containing any .avi, .mp4, .mov, or .mpg/.mpeg videos. To specify that source, select “Settings (F5) -> Media -> User’s own movies folder”.

However, the first time a movie is used, Visikord has to convert your non-Visikord-format movieinto a Visikord-format-movie. That format is XVID .avi at 4000bps (default) in any resolution. Converting for Visikord is simply taking the source movie in one of the formats above and calling a utility to convert it into the XVID .avi and giving it “.visikord.avi” extension.

So for a movie to be used, your source movies must be in a user-writeable directory, where the converted movies will be added. (The originals will remain unchanged.) This conversion will take place the first time you turn media on, i.e. when you start the Party (F3) mode of Visikord. Ifyou add new movies to the same folder, on the next start in Party (F3) mode Visikord will notice that the movies have not been converted and will ask you if you want to do it now.

The conversion process leaves the resolution as is, and you can change the quality by controlling the bit rate via “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Bitrate for user’s own movies”. The conversion process involves calling an external utility that you can examine by looking at the console window. If you are an expert you can change the conversion parameters by looking at the supplied command line, or even do the conversion yourself and simply give the “.visikord.avi” extension to the movies you converted.

In general any resolution is fine though more than 720p will not be noticed by the audience due to the way Visikord renders the image and will take unnecessary CPU resources. So up to 720p isrecommended.

Note that all this deals with static, on-disk movies. Using live video in is explained further below.

4.4.4 Controlling which media shows and how; testing

You can specify that you want only media pictures or only media movies to be shown, or a specific mix. For that, set “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Pictures to movies ratio”. By default it’s 7:1, meaning for each seven pictures shown, one movie is shown. If you want only pictures, set this to 10:0 (by changing the value past 10:1); if you want only movies, set this to 0:1.

The next media picture comes after the user touches (simply touches) the right (Red) trigger. Youcan do the same by pressing Ctrl + Space. In the mode with bars, pictures (and movies) come in pairs: for each touch of the Red trigger, two media pictures (or movies) are brought in; one shows when the left bar is hit, and one when the right bar is hit.

You can set the media to play randomly or in order via the “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Random order for media” setting. For testing, you can also enable “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Show medianames”, and turn off “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Came-with-install images enabled” as well as “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Came-with-install movies enabled”. (Don’t forget to turn them back on afterwards if you want them.)

You can also change the time it takes for the Blue trigger to be held in order to activate or deactivate media via “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media on/off BLUE hold time.” If you set it to alarge number (say, 20-30 sec), few dancers will have the patience for it and will leave the media activated as you set it via Shift + F.

4.4.5 Controlling how media is blended visually: increase resistance for less flashy effects

Two of the most interesting settings in this section are “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media blend resistance” and “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media blend speed”. Resistance factor determines how much effort the dancer needs to make to “dissolve” the media image -- by extending the armand/or creating a lightning and waiting until the dissolution occurs. The speed factor shows determines how quickly the media comes back after the dancers’ efforts have ceased. If you plan to use the visuals for a fast, high-energy music you may want to increase the resistance and/or decrease the speed, if you want the media to be more prominent.

We definitely recommend playing with the “blend resistance” and “blend speed” factors -- if you want to make your background media strong and unbreakable so the dancers can’t push through it, set the resistance to a high number.

By default Visikord tries to preserve media aspect when rendering it so when fitting it on screen it may cut sides or top/bottom if the image ratio is too much off from the screen where it shows. If you set “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Stretch media to screen” to YES, the media will always be fitted inside regardless of the aspect (but may look funny). Our recommendation is to pick up images close to the aspect ratio of the external monitor or projection screen you typically use.

Another interesting thing to play with is “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media dancer blend type”. Again by default the dancer is shown inside the media picture/movie as usual, however you can set this to GHOSTLIKE or as a semitransparent featureless SHADOW. Use this to tune into the event ambience and your own tastes. This setting is in effect only while media is active.

Another interesting pair of settings in the same section is “Pan/zoom zoom” and “Pan/zoom speed”. They determine how much media pictures will move on their own -- the pan/zoom effect makes still images come alive. It is recommended to keep the low speed, so that the dancers don’t feel at a loss for control, while the zoom amount may be higher than the default. (Set it 0.00 tu turn off the effect completely). High zoom amounts can be very effective, but you will need higher resolution images as the source. If you have powerful GPU on your laptop/PC, you can use really high resolution images (e.g. 2K width) and set “Settings (F5) -> System -> Use Extra High resolution” to ON. The pan/zoom effects looks particularly good with those.

4.4.6 Pure VJ Mode -- playing only media movies (with power-less dancers embedded in them)

This simple but occasionally handy mode, when turned on via “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Pure VJ Mode” or just Shift + V allows you to only play movies supplied in your custom and/or Visikord system folder. You can use it to break from showing any abstract Visikord graphics for awhile.

By default the dancers are shown in the picture as well, along with their colorful “skins” (or theirreal skins if those are enabled) -- but they don’t have any powers whatsoever. Their skins change periodically and you change the video. Besides having more control over the content (you may want a specific video to play undisturbed at certain times), this also gives the dancer an appreciation over what it means to be active and have control.

When this mode is active, press numeric keys (1 through 0) to play a specific video in the first 10, or Space to move to the next video.

You can disable showing of dancers completely, and/or you can change how they blend, and also whether the movies are stretched on the screen or not. For details, please take a look at the previous section, “controlling how the media is blended visually.” By default the dancer blend type is “no change”, but you can get very interesting effects with “ghostlike” blend type.

To leave the Pure VJ mode, press Shift + V again.

4.4.7 Live Video In mode

Instead of playing static movies from the disk, you can pass to Visikord a streaming video from another source. This can be a webcam, or a real video camera or camcorder connected to your computer via Video-to-USB converter -- analog/composite video signal from your camcorder or DVD player is connected to a device like “Diamond VC500 One Touch Video Capture Device” ($30 on Amazon) and connected to your computer’s USB port.

It can in fact be any “virtual webcam”, so you can stream video from another PC or Mac onto your Visikord PC and have the video show up under a virtual Webcam device. As a rule, if you can see the source in Skype, you can see it in Visikord.

This allows you to stream live VJ-ing work in real time and essentially use Visikord as a human/computer video filter for that video source.

1. To test this feature, we recommend using a Webcam, perhaps making sure that Skype cansee it first, then close Skype.

2. Start Visikord and run it in Party (F3) mode.3. From the Settings (F5) panel, set “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Live Video In enabled” to

YES. Settings underneath will become enabled.4. Select the source: with left/right arrow keys, find your Webcam under “Settings (F5) ->

Media -> Live Video In Source” 5. Set “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Live Video In streaming” to YES.6. Set “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Live Video In preview” to YES. Preview will pass the

source video directly to the screen regardless of what the dancer is doing, so you can verify the image is indeed the one you wanted to see. Then set “Settings (F5) -> Media ->Live Video In preview” to NO again and see how your movements affect the video.

4.4.7.1 Live Video In format

If you are using the video-to-USB converter as the video source, whether you are playing a DVDor showing live footage from a camcorder, you will want to deinterlace video signal. Deinterlacing is unnecessary for other sources like Webcams or network streamed videos. This and other format options like resolution you control via the “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Live Video In config” param string.

In order to access this string, you must stop Live Video In streaming first (set “Settings (F5) ->

Media -> Live Video In streaming” to NO). Then select “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Live Video In config” setting and press Enter. A textbox will appear where you can edit the format string. Bydefault that format is

"width=640;height=480;deinterlace=no;connection=Composite;format=NTSC;verbose=yes"

Video-to-USB converters will mostly support only 640x480 (for NTSC); your webcam or network video may support any other range of modes, so please pick accordingly. Set deinterlace=no to deinterlace=yes if you are using a Video-to-USB converter, and change format=NTSC to format=PAL if you are using a PAL video source (Europe).

4.4.7.2 Visikord Live Video In with Virtual DJ or other VJ-ing software

The simplest way to integrate Visikord with Virtual DJ is to run both on the same computer, and with a single mouse click decide if the Virtual DJ video or the Visikord Video will be sent to the big screen.

Every 15-20 minutes to half hour or so you can switch between Virtual DJ video mixes and Visikord: when Virtual DJ video is on, the audience watches your video mixes, and when Visikord video is on, they play with the interactive Visikord video scene.

Place the Kinect on a TV in the VIP area, or place it on a tripod or a bar table next in front of the big screen so that anyone on the dance floor can participate. (You may need an active USB extender cable from Kinect to the laptop if the screen is far away.)

You need a good laptop for this combination — Intel core i5 or core i7 CPU with NVidia graphics card.

The procedure:

1. Run Visikord and check the Settings. If not set already, set Settings (F5) -> System -> Use Real Full Screen (FAST)” to YES and press Enter, and Settings (F5) -> System -> VJ console enabled (external monitor)” to YES (restart if was NO).

Visikord will show on the main screen; press F2 or F3 to start it.

2. Next, run Virtual DJ. Virtual DJ will automatically take over the external monitor/screen.

3. Show the audience your video mixes with Virtual DJ videos for some time. (Left side of the screenshots below shows the laptop, the right side the external monitor/screen).

4. When ready to switch to Visikord, right click on the “Video” pane of Virtual DJ. It will go blank, which means Virtual DJ has disabled its video.

5. As soon as you disable video in Virtual DJ, Visikord immediately takes over the big screen and the guests are in control of its content:

6. To switch back to Virtual DJ video, right-click on the Virtual DJ pane again to enable VirtualDJ video. Visikord will disappear instantly and Virtual DJ video will be back on the big screen.

Alternative 1: Two laptops, independent videos

Instead of running both software apps on a single laptop, use a separate laptop for Visikord. The laptops don’t need to be as powerful in this case. To control which laptop’s video output goes to the big screen, use a VGA (or HDMI) switcher: Virtual DJ laptop’s VGA (or HDMI) output goes into the switcher, and the Visikord laptop’s VGA (or HDMI) goes into the switcher. The switcher has two inputs and one output: the output goes to the big screen, and with a press of the button you decide if it’s the Virtual DJ-side video input or the Visikord-side video input that goes to the big screen.

The cost for a simple VGA switcher runs at around $10.

Alternative 2: Two laptops, connected videos

The most advanced option is to serially connect two videos, so that your Virtual DJ laptop’s VGA goes into the Visikord laptop, and Visikord laptop’s VGA goes to the big screen. What the guests see on the screen is the Virtual DJ video when no one is dancing in front of Kinect, and as soon as someone starts moving, the Virtual DJ video is melted and dissolved by the dancer’s hands when they move in the Visikord fashion, and is back to normal when their hands are closerto their bodies. In a way, Visikord between the Virtual DJ and the big screen acts as a “human-electronic video filter,” for the lack of a better description.

This works thanks to the the Visikord “Live Video In” feature (in Business edition). You need a converter from Virtual DJ laptop’s VGA to USB. The less expensive option, at about $60, is to chain a “PC-to-TV” converter (VGA to composite video) with a “USB video capture” device (composite video to USB). The resulting picture is of NTSC quality with some degradation in brightness and sharpness, though normally this is not noticeable within the Visikord final video output. A more expensive option of about $300 for a direct VGA-to-USB converter has no loss inthe Virtual DJ laptop’s original video quality, and keeps the frame rate at 28 FPS when the incoming VGA signal resolution to the converter is 640x480. The most expensive option is $700 for a VGA-to-USB3.0 converter with no loss in image quality and 30FPS at all resolutions. The difference is in image quality, however all three options have low latency.

4.4.8 Custom Dancer Skins

This option, also under Media, allows you to set the “skins” that dancers wear (those are 2D images pasted on the surface of their 3D avatars). Custom skins can be artwork or perhaps some sponsored images like this:

To specify your custom skins folder, select “Settings (F5) -> Media -> User’s own skins folder” to point to the directory where JPGs or PNGs with your skin images are.

Testing however as of v1.9.2 isn’t as easy as it needs to be, since dancer skins are chosen with a complicated algorithm, and majority of skins are not static images but are generated. What complicates matters more is that some skins are static images but in a separate category from “regular” skin images. Those are called “1st class skin images” and consist of patterns like lava or sky or grass that look pleasing even with multiple repetitions. So for testing we recommend the follows:

1. Specify your own skin images folder as above.

2. Turn off Visikord-supplied regular skin images temporarily by setting Settings (F5) -> Media -> Came-with-install-skins-enabled” to NO.

3. Close Visikord, open the Visikord User Config file, locate the [skins] section, and add one item in it as below:[skins]customSequence=5

(we’ll explain in the subsection below what “customSequence=5” means) so overall you should see these lines in your config file:

[skins]customSequence=5

[media]Use System Skins=0Custom Skins Dir=<full path to the folder with your skin images>

4. Start Visikord again, set Settings (F5) -> Media -> Random order for media” to NO, run in either Solo or Party mode, and keep changing the skins (via red and blue trigger together or the S key on the keyboard).

(This setting results in the following .ini item:[media]Random order=0

)

5. When done, delete the customSequence=5 line in the User Config file (or comment it out by placing a semicolon at the beginnig of the line, i.e. ;customSequence=5.

6. You can also specify your own “first class” skin images by adding this line to the User config file:

[skins]imageDir1stClass=<full path to the folder where your 1st class skin images are>

They don’t have to be simple patterns, those images can be anything you want. “1st class” means a class of images that are fewer and appropriate for more frequent showing, where “regular” skin images are typically numerous and each one is therefore less frequently shown.

You can also pick some skins from the supplied folder and some of your own and put them all in your custom folder.

You will notice that the most suitable images are those that are either simple patterns, or like withthe Superman logo above, have one central element surrounded by a good amount of white (or colored) space. Recommended resolution for the latter is 640x480, since that is the resolution of Kinect. So your best bet for custom skins is to take an image, make the central element

prominent with empty space around, and scale it to 640x480.

Two more settings come in handy for testing, and those are● Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls ->Skin Images Vertical Offset” that lets you

push up or down the central element of the image, and● Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls ->Skin Images Horizontal Drift” that controls

how much the image moves depending on the dancer movement. If you set it to 0 temporarily it may be easier for you to see what the image always looks like. Or you maywant to eliminate the “horizontal drift” for your own visual preferences.

4.4.8.1 Custom skin sequence

You can specify in which order skins will be chosen. Unfortunately this will only work for a single dancer, when multiple people appear in the scene the selection algorithm will kick in (its purpose is to keep assigning different skins to different people), but you can still control which skins appear overall. This is accomplished via this User Config setting:

[skins]customSequence=<skinId>,<skinId>,<skinId>...

For example, setting

[skins]customSequence=5,5,2,1

means “show a user image skin (5) first, then on a change (“S” key or Blue + Red trigger) show another user image skin (5) again, then show the yellow generated skin (2), then on next change show the white “marble” skin (1), then repeat.

This is the current list of skins with their id:

0 white “marble” skin

1 yellow “silver surfer” skin

2 next “1st class skin image” from the folder in [skins] imageDir1stClass=<path to folder with 1st class images> (note that you cannot control which one; if you set [media]

Random order=0 they will be loaded in alphabetical order)

3 “real” skin (only works if real skin is enabled)

4 dark blue skin with white stripes

5 next “regular skin image” combined from the folder in [media] Custom Skins Dir=<fullpath to the folder with user skin images> and [skins] imageDir1stClass=<path to folder with default (non-first-class) skin images> (the latter being ignored if [media]Use System Skins=0)

Again please note that you cannot control which skin from this class will be loaded, it will be taken randomly or alphabetically; specifying “5” means only a picture from this class will show next

6 pulsating blue/red/hot yellow orange colors

7 golden skin

8 dark skin

4.5 Sound

Sound generation is an experimental addition to Visikord v1.9 as requested by several users. In the mode with vertical bars, if sound is enabled, when the dancer hits the bars, depending on which of the six “paddles” the dancer has hit, one of the six sounds for that page will play. A page of sounds is a collection of six sounds and the dancer can flip through the pages by hitting the Red trigger.

So a sound is a .WAV or an .MP3 audio sample associated with the vertical bar paddles in a certain way. Typically it’s a drum sample (real or synthetic).

It may seem out of place for a visual synthesizer but the effect is powerful and satisfying -- the younger the dancers or the higher their coordination, the more pleasure they derive out of the act.So if you play electro or hiphop music at a party and let Visikord dancers hit various drum sounds on the beat they can add up to the music experience, for themselves and the nearby observers at least.

One way to use the sound feature in Visikord is to assign some vocal or special effects (like the “I know you’re gonna dig this” line from the 80’s); the other is to let the dancers play air drums. There are videos for both use cases in the Visikord gallery page. Whether you want to use the sound and in which form depends on the audience and the event. In one setup, you can have the audio output of the Visikord PC connected to a small amplifier+speaker set, so that the dancers who want to play drums or other sounds in the air do not disturb the rest of the party. Then you can turn sounds on or off via the keyboard.

How should a dancer play the sounds and stay on the beat? The most accurate way is with cyclical movements, eg. moving a hand in a circle or oval in space so that when it passes the spotwhere the invisible vertical bars are, the sound is played. After a few repetitions, the body starts triggering the sounds on its own in sync with the music.

Sounds are disabled by default; to enable them, press Shift + Z or select Settings (F5) -> Sound -> Sound enabled. By default sounds from the first sound group will play.

4.5.1 Sound Groups

A sound group is a text file listing the audio samples that make the group. You select the sound group from the menu: Settings (F5) -> Sound -> Sound group.

A group is defined in the Visikord User Config file, as in this example:

[sound]group1=d:\my_sounds\vocals.inigroup2=d:\my_sounds\drums\drumsynths.ini...

By default two sounds groups come with Visikord, one just drums and the other drums and some loops. Both sound groups are defined in text files in

<visikord installation folder>\extras\sounds\soundpack-01\

folder. In this folder you will find documentation describing in detail how to define your own, from supplied (free) samples or from any .wav or .mp3 samples you have available.

4.5.2 Other sound settings

Sound instrument:

Depending on how the sound group is defined, some visual instruments can have specificsamples assigned to them. In the two default sound groups, for example, the Lightning instruments has only powerful crash sounds assigned with them. You can have a separate set of samples for each instrument.

To change the instrument, select Settings (F5) -> Sound -> Sound instrument or press keys 4 and 5 to change to previous/next. (This works when sounds are off, too.)

Sound current page:

You can change the current page of six sounds by touching the Red button or by changingSettings (F5) -> Sound -> Sound current page.

Play/test sample:

Press Ctrl+1/2/3/4/56 to activate the 1st, 2nd, … or the 6th paddle. If you press Enter while this option is highlighted, you can afterwards just press the 1..6 keys without holding Ctrl.

4.5.2 MIDI support

...with which the dancer can with their movements activate a locally running audio software like Ableton or Fruityloops or send those air touches as MIDI events to a nearby Mac or PC running these programs is coming soon!

4.6 Logos and Messages

Logos and messages are the way to communicate with your audience. There are several types of logos and messages you can define and activate:

1. Small in/out-fading brand logo in the top right corner2. Large floating graphical logos3. Floating text messages4. Words that come out of the vertical bars when the dancer hits them5. Instructional messages for new dancers in Party (F3) mode

4.6.1 Changing the Visikord Brand logo in the upper right corner (Business version only)

The Visikord logo that slowly fades in and out of existence in the upper right corner can be turned off or replaced in the Business (full) version of the software. In version v1.9.2 and earlier, this setting is changed by changing the User Configuration text file directly (see section Editing the settings in the Visikord User Configuration file for information on editing in general how).

You can turn the logo off, or use another one. The image you use will look best if it is bright (e.g.white) foreground on the black background with no transparency.

In version v1.9.3, go to Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages (DJ/Show) -> Set custom brand logo and select the image you want to use. To turn off logos completely, select a blank (all-black or transparent) image; you can use the file “NOLOGO.png” under Program Files\<visikord folder>\data\images folder. To turn back on the Visikord logo, select image “Visikord-topcorner-logo.png” from the same folder.

In versions v1.9.2 and earlier, the procedure is as follows.

To turn off the logo completely, add these lines at the end of the file:

[logo]brandLogoTopCrnr=none

(As explained earlier, if you can already see the [logo] section in the configuration file, then simply add the last line under that section.)

To show your own logo instead, specify the full path to the .jpg or .png file.

[logo]brandLogoTopCrnr=c:\full\path\to\file\mylogo.jpg

4.6.2 Changing the large floating logo

You can bring up the large floating logo on the screen by pressing the “L” key or activating Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages -> Show Logo option. It will be blended so that dancers areshown in front of it so you can achieve some interesting effects.

By default, it shows the Visikord logo, which you can change by selecting Settings (F5) -> Logosand Messages -> Set Custom Logo option and then pointing to a JPG or PNG image of your choice. Using a PNG logo with transparency is supported.

4.6.3 Changing the floating text messages

You can enter and show blended text messages at any time. You can define up to 50 text messages (in the Business version).

When there are no dancers in the screen, the message will float up and down. With one or more dancers present, it will follow the closest dancer’s hand:

You can use it for a “happy birthday so and so” message or whatever is appropriate for the occasion. You can for example place a message with your cell phone number that asks the dancers to text you a message you’d like them to appear on the screen, and then type in and showtheir messages as you receive them.

By default the message disappears a few seconds after a dancer shows up and starts moving. To make the message show regardless of whether there are dancers in the picture or not, press the “M” key or activate Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages -> Show Custom Message option to show the message. You can change the text of the message by pressing Right Shift + M or activating the Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages -> Set Custom Message option. If you have aVJ Console active and you want the dance on the main screen to go uninterrupted, Select Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages -> Edit messages in text editor to edit the message text in Notepad; each time you save the file (with Ctrl-S), if the message is visible it will be instantly updated.

Other options in Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages section allow you to define the size of the message (small, medium, or large), change the message animation type (when floating on its own) and its color, along with the current message slot (id). You can also define how soon to start

showing the message after the screen is empty of dancers, how long to show it after anyone comes back, and whether to show messages or logos when the screen is idle.

4.6.4 Changing the words for the “Words” (“A”) Element

In the mode with bars, when the dancer selects the “words” Element (“weapon”) whose icon is marked with the latter “A”, subsequent hits on the bars will produce words drawn in big font andblended with the rest of graphics, that will bounce and disappear around the center:

By default, these words come from a supplied database that leans towards more mystical and fairy tale words, but you can define your own words database. This is a simple text file with one word (or two short words) per line. The default database is at <visikord installation directory>\Elements\builtin\RandomWords.txt. Please open that file and examine it how to createyour own, and then select Settings (F5) -> Logos and Messages -> Set Custom Words option andtry your own. You have a few options underneath that one to control the order and the appearance of words.

One relevant remark is that words that appear in this way -- a single word arising from the dancer’s hand and as large as his or her body, bouncing around echoed in the rest of the digital world around the dancer -- can be felt very personally so you want to make sure the included words are neither boring nor to have a strong negative emotion (unless that is your goal).

4.6.5 Controlling Instructional messages in Party (F3) Mode

In Party (F3) mode if the dancers -- presumably new to the Visikord -- do not take advantage of touching the Red and Blue triggers to change the graphics for some time, brief instructions show up like “touch red trigger to change weapon” or “touch both triggers at the same time”, they persist for a while and then disappear. With a handful of options starting with Settings (F5) -> Party Mode ‘Kiosk’ Settings -> Kiosk message 1 timeout and below you can control this timing, and also turn those messages off completely if you set the timeouts to 0.

A related option in this section is autostarting Visikord in the Party (F3) mode instead of going through the menu every time, by setting Settings (F5) -> Party Mode ‘Kiosk’ Settings -> Kiosk Mode AutoStart Enabled to ON.

(Name “Kiosk” came from using Visikord at trade shows where visitors would come by and play

a little, then move on.)

4.7 Photo Booth (Business version only)

As we mentioned in the “controlling Visikord as dancer” section, Photo Booth is an option for the dancer to take a picture of themselves from time to time, more precisely as the camera icon drops down to the trigger level periodically:

Photo Booth options are controlled via the Settings (F5) -> Photo Booth section.

Your first option is to control whether Photo Booth is enabled and when. If Real Skin is enabled, Photo Booth is enabled by default as well, and you can disable it via Settings (F5) -> Photo Booth -> Photo Booth Enabled option. If Real Skin is not enabled, Photo Booth is disabled by default -- the idea is that Photo Booth makes sense only if people can see their faces, but you canoverride that by setting Settings (F5) -> Photo Booth -> Require Real Skin Enabled option to “NO.”

Regardless of the above setting, you can press the “U” key or activate Settings (F5) -> Photo Booth -> Photo Booth manual activate option to bring down the camera.

Other things you may want to change is the message shown after the photo is taken, defined via Settings (F5) -> Photo Booth -> Photo Booth final message option. The default message is generic text like “Find Photo at facebook.com/mybusiness” and if you want to make photos avaialble online to dancers, specify where you will upload them.

Another option you may want to change is the folder the taken pictures are stored; point out to the folder of your choice via the Settings (F5) -> Photo Booth -> Photo Booth save folder option.

There are a few other Photo Booth options you may want to tweak, such as how often the cameraappears, how long it stays before leaving if not touched, and also whether Real Skin is turned on in full during photo taking.

4.7.1 Automatic Printing Photo Booth photos with Hotfolder Print

There is a 3rd party software called Hotfolder Print (its website is at http://www.breezesys.com/Hotfolder/index.htm) that monitors a folder for changes and every time a new picture appears in it, Hotfolder Print sends it to a color printer. This way you can provide your guests with a printed color photo they took on the screen seconds after the shoot.

The gives you full control over how pictures are printed. It’s a paid software application ($99 as of this writing with one full year of updates) and it has a free trial. It also supports automatic emailing of new pictures found in the folder, and the product page mentions several applications for automatic uploading of new pictures to a social networking site.

The pictures are taken at the resolution on which visikord runs (e.g. 1280x720). While the resolution is below that of a real Photo Booth, with Visikord + Hotfolder Print + Printer you can provide your guests with powerful and completely unique pictures of themselves for a fraction ofa real photo booth price.

4.8 Graphics Backgrounds

Backgrounds are abstract graphics that appear behind the dancers and that echo their appearance or that of their weapons and twist those echoes in interesting ways. Anytime the dancer touches aRed or Blue trigger the backgrounds change. You can change them as the user/operator by pressing the SPACE key or via Settings (F5) -> Backgrounds -> Next Background option.

Advanced users may want more control over the backgrounds. By pressing Shift + P key (Settings (F5) -> Backgrounds -> Open Backgrounds load dialog option) you can load a particular background (press Enter to load the background, Esc to close the dialog when finished). You can also change the order of the backgrounds (random by default) by pressing the F11 key while the dialog with the background files is open, show the current background’s name etc. (All menu options must be accessed after you close the backgrounds file dialog).

You may also want to create your own folder with just a subset of the backgrounds you like (e.g. quiet/subtle ones or only flashy ones) the following way:

1. Start Visikord in Performance (F2) mode.

2. Optionally Press Shift + P to navigate up (“..” folder) above the current backgrounds folder, the current background folder is by default c:\program files (x86)\Visikord <version>\Presets\smaller set. One level above is a slightly larger set.

3. Press Shift + T key (Settings (F5) -> Backgrounds -> Show title of current background option) to turn on background titles

4. Play with the software, changing backgrounds via SPACE key or Red/Blue triggers. Notethat there are two backgrounds for each screen -- left and right. Write down the names of those you like (or don’t want). (We apologize for this manual method, there’s a more automatic one but requires some setup, let us know if you need it and we’ll send you the recipe.)

5. With the list of names, open Windows File Explorer and visit c:\program files (x86)\Visikord <version>\Presets\ folder. Pick the files you want and copy them to your own folder, say d:\work\mypresets.

6. Open Visikord User Config file and add this item:[settings]szPresetDir=<path to the folder with your backgrounds>

7. Alternatively, if you want total control and can use the command line (dir /b option), you can create a list with specific names, that will always play in that same order.[settings]szPresetList=<path to a text file containing full paths to background files>

You may find through your own experience that selection of backgrounds is difficult as most of them have a certain appeal, and what they do depends on the dancer’s skins and weapons, and your perception on them may depend on what music you’re listening to during the selection process.

4.9 Power Charge Settings (Party/F3 mode only): Making visuals less noisy

Power Charge is a tool to help the DJ steer the dancers towards making more controlled, less noisy/flashy effects. There is a limited charge, each trigger hit costs some power, the red/blue trigger hits cost more, the charger recharges up to capacity when no triggers are hit, and when dancers recharge the system completely all effects go dark until the dancers let go of the triggers to let the system recharge. To make the dancers mindful of not going into the red and dischargingcompletely too often, the energy fills a bit slower when it goes to zero.

The motivation for the charger came from DJs asking for an option to make visuals less flashy, and from an observation that kids and adults using Visikord behave similarly at first tend to “fire all their guns at once.” Because without a charger there was no limit to what they could do, this sometimes resulted in noise. But as we know, limiting the resources makes the children (in us)

learn how to control and pace ourselves, which is when we experience the real pleasure from our actions.

You can control and configure all the parameters via (Settings (F5) -> On-Screen Active Controls-> Trigger Charge * set of options. If you prefer no limits for the trigger effects, you can simply disable the charger. Dancers may find it however that the charger makes the instrument feel morereal. If they ask you to make it less restrictive you can use the settings to do so.

By default, it takes (as of v1.9.4.) 3 seconds for the charger to fully charge. Hitting a red or blue trigger costs 1 second worth of charge, and hitting a bar costs 0.25 seconds worth of charge. If the dancers “abuse” the triggers and allow the all power to drain, recharging takes at the slower pace, 0.25 by default. (1.0 would be normal speed and 0.0 infinitely slow.) By changing these parameters you can make the charger more or less forgiving.

You also have the option of changing how the charger appears on the screen -- you can make it more discreet to not affect the visuals, or you can make it more prominent so it’s obvious to the dancers where they stand, power-wise.

4.9.1 Other ways to make visuals less flashy

Unrelated to the Power Charge but related to the need to make visuals less flashy/explosive from time to time, here’s a list of things you can do to that extent in the Party/F3 mode, in the increasing order of taking control from the dancers over the visuals:

● Leave the Power Charge on and make trigger hits more costly● Turn on Media (pics and vids), make it nearly impossible to turn off, and increase “Media

Blend Resistance”:○ Turn media on via Shift + F or Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media active ○ Change Settings (F5)-> Media -> Media on/off BLUE hold time to a very high

number e.g 60 seconds -- few people will wait 60 seconds to complete the circle and turn media off

○ Set the number at Settings (F5)-> Media -> Media blend resistance to a high valuelike 1.0 or 2.0 -- so dancers will need much more effort to push through it.

● Set Settings (F5) -> Appearance -> Simple background Forced to “YES” and possibly lower the “radiance” setting next to it

● Turn on the Pure VJ mode with Shift + V or Settings (F5)-> Media -> Pure VJ Mode. Optionally you can make dancers look like translucent entities or shadows via “Settings (F5) -> Media -> Media dancer blend type” or turn off their image completely.

5. Capturing Visikord Video Output

Visikord does not yet have built in video capture of its screen. You may need this video capture to simply create a video for a dancer who requests it, or you may want to feed Visikord video output in real time to another video processing software.

For this purpose we recommend a third party program called PlayClaw. PlayCLAW is a game video recorder and graphically Visikord is similar to high-FPS video games. The main advantageof PlayCLAW is that it is optimized for multicore processors, so it can capture Visikord video feed in real time, without affecting performance, at the current resolution or scaled, and at 30FPSor even higher, along with any audio.

So if you want to record a video for a guest, you only need to provide audio in to the Visikord PC(sometimes even the laptop’s built-in microphone may be ok), and activate the shortcut to start recording and end recording. The resulting video is an .avi file with the MJPEG conversion, and you can recompress it in a smaller mp4 video using the video converter tool that comes with Visikord or your own.

If you want to stream Visikord video feed in real time, PlayCLAW can also send it to a virtual webcam device (like the ones Skype sees). Then you can run the software on your local machine that processes that video stream in real time, or sends it off to another computer.

One inconvenience we have seen is that when running PlayCLAW, “separate VJ console” option in Visikord must be disabled and F5 or Ctrl+F5 for the Settings panel must be used instead. The other one is when you close Visikord, if PlayCLAW is running, Visikord application will close but the process will not be destroyed, so in order to release the resources you need to kill the Visikord process in Windows’ Task Manager.

We tried a free application with the similar intent, FRAPS, but unlike PlayCLAW it degraded theperformance of the Visikord app. PlayCLAW is under $40 for the Standard version which we used (and free to try), so we definitely recommend this application if you need to capture Visikord video.

PlayCLAW can be downloaded and purchased from www.playclaw.com.

For video streaming of your Windows screen to another computer please take a look at http://www.bigfug.com/software/video-streaming/.

Appendix A: Default Settings TableBelow is the list of settings with their default values that you see when you open the Settings (F5) panel.

Shortcut Key Setting/Action Value (for persistent change, use cursor keys in this panel instead of keyboard shortcut keys)

F12 Show FPS (speed) OFF (when ON, shows camera input frame rate and display output frame rate) .

Full screen resolution New: 1280x720 (current: 1280x720, typical: 1280x720), <-,->, then Enter to switch .

R Real Skin Enabled OFF (Enter to change) Only using the depth sensor; turn on if bright .

Shift + 1 Allow Solo power YES Dancer who stands alone in the center gets all powers, 2nd dancer is transparent .

"," "." "/" Vertical bars AUTO Press '.' to force ON, '/' to force OFF, ',' for AUTO (default -- on when someone in center) .

A Auto Effects Mode OFF (if ON, effects will change automatically from time to time) .

2,3 Closer vertical bars YES (closer vertical bars when active; good for large screens/dancing areas; key: '3') .

Ctrl + R Restart camera driver manually Reset camera (do this if camera was moved around, or input became slow i.e. camera FPS dropped) .

<-,-> Sensitivity for arm span (height) of: 1.76m / 5ft 9in (Default: 1.76m. Smallervalues -> bigger effects when arms outstretched) .

F11 Toggle full screen Press F11 to switch to WINDOWED mode .

VJ console enabled (external monitor) NO Control panel always inside the main screen even with multimon (change requires restart) .

.

--- Sound --- .

Shift + Z Sound enabled NO Set to YES to play sounds by hitting the bars. Must be running in F2 or F3 mode first. .

Sound group #1 drums-and-synths.ini (.\extras\sounds\soundpack-01\drums-and-synths.ini) .

4,5 Set instrument (03) Spike Rings .

Sound current page 01/00 Current page (set) of 6 sounds; Red trigger advances page .

Ctrl + 1 to 6 Play/test sample Press Ctrl + 1 to 6 to play the sample as if hitting the bars. (Enter for Ctrl- on/off.) .

Sound volume 10

Show sample name NO Do not show name of .wav file when played.

--- Dance Floor (Coralling Dancers Into

Desired Area) ---

Shift + 1 Allow Solo power YES Dancer who stands alone in the center gets all powers, 2nd dancer is transparent

Centering time 0.75s Time (0 = disable) required for standing still in the middle to get full control

Centering middle clearance 30% Percentage of camera horiz. view in the middle to be clear of others for centering (def. 30%)

Front of Active zone 0.80 m / 2ft 7in (Min. distance from camera; everything closer is invisible! Best 0.80m-1.20m)

Back of Active zone 3.50 m / 11ft 5in (Max. distance from camera where dancers are still highlighted)

Beginning of dead zone 5.00 m / 16ft 4in (Distance from camerawhere not even shadows show)

Show secondary dancer YES Show second dancer as a translucent image when primary (solo power) dancer is active

--- Appearance ---

Shift + R Force full Real Skin N/A (enable real skin first to control thisfeature)

Q Quiet visuals (Party Mode/F3) ON (quiet when dancers idle)

B BackGround people visibility 1: CLOSE (show as silhouettes those background people mingling with activepeople)

Dancers Zoom (Party Mode/with bars) 0.75 (dancer zoom (default: 0.75) relative to the screen)

O Video Echo 1: SINGLE (video echoing when only one dancer is active)

Dancer slimming (%) 7% (amount by which the dancers are slimmer; must start playing to see)

I Invisible Dancer OFF (dancer is visible; hint: try it for a cool effect)

Background people form BLACK holes (Only showing when there's no solo power (center) dancer and his/her sidekick)

Simple background Forced NO Multitude of colors and effects is available. Set to NO temporarily for more quiet.

Simple background Radiance 0.50 (0.00 - none, 0.50 - good, 1.00 - very strong)

Simple background Color #000000 (HTML color -- RRGGBB, e.g. FF0000 red, 00FF00 green, 0000FFblue, 000000 black)

--- Auto Mode ---

A Auto Effects Mode OFF (if ON, effects will change automatically from time to time)

Red/Blue triggers enabled YES (set to NO if there is too much visual noise)

Max Time Solo 240 seconds (0 - don't cycle) Max time in solo/bars mode before auto switch back

Background effects cycle time 15 seconds (0 - don't cycle)

Skin cycle time 30 seconds (0 - don't cycle)

Weapon cycle time 90 seconds (0 - don't cycle)

Pics/Movies cycle time 30 seconds until next picture/movie pair(0 - don't cycle)

Media on/off toggle time 300 seconds between turning all media on/off (0 - don't cycle)

--- Media --- (Business Upgrade only)

Media mode OFF (when ON, shows custom media on dancer movements. Auto ON is on start.)

Shift + F Media active OFF (Media enabled but not active; dancer can hold Blue trigger turn it on)

Media Blend Resistance 0.17 (base 0.17: how strongly media image reists being chased away by user's hands; 0 - weakest)

Media Blend Speed 0.10 (base 0.10: how quickly media blends into background and back; 0 - slowest)

Pictures to movies ratio 7:1 (radio of showing; set to 0:1 for movies only, 10:0 for pics only (10:0 is after 10:1))

User's own images folder (not specified)

User's own images enabled YES

Came-with-install images enabled YES (folder: \.\extras\media\images)

User's own movies folder (not specified)

User's own movies enabled YES

Bitrate for user's own movies 4000 Bitrate for automatic conversion for custom movies (default: 4000)

Came-with-install movies enabled YES (folder: \.\extras\media\movies)

---- Media Appearance ----

Ctrl + Space Switch to next Media pair Switch to the next pair of Media imagesor movies (must be active to see).

Random order for media YES Plays images and movies and show skins randomly

Ctrl + F Show Media names NO Do not show names of Media images and movies when activating them (for testing)

Stretch media to screen NO Preserve media image's aspect by cutting off parts that can't be seen

Pan/zoom zoom (pics only) max zoom add = 0.30 Set to 0.00 to turnoff pan/zooming. Pics only.

Pan/zoom speed speed = 0.20 (recommended speed = 0.20, zoom = 0.30)

Media dancer blending type 0 - NO CHANGE (How dancer is changed when media is shown)

Adapt media image to context OFF (show media unchanged; try ON though to see what it's likes.)

Media on/off BLUE hold time 1.50s Time needed to hold the BLUE trigger to toggle Media on/off

Shift + V Pure VJ Mode OFF (when ON, plays movies in full screen with nothing else on)

Pure VJ Mode dancers ON (show dancers in pure VJ mode but without any powers)

---- Dancer Skins ----

User's own skins folder (not specified) Custom images for dancer skins. (Must restart on change.)

User's own skins enabled YES (Must restart on change.)

Came-with-install skins enabled YES Use default dancer skins supplied with Visikord (.\extras\images\skins). (Must restart 1st.)

---- Live Video Input ----

Live Video In enabled NO (Enable to see video sources available.)

Live Video In Source N/A (enable live video in first)

Live Video In Streaming N/A (enable live video in first)

Live Video In Config "width=640;height=480;deinterlace=no;connection=Composite;format=NTSC;verbose=yes"

Live Video In Preview N/A (enable live video in first)

--- On-Screen Active Controls ---

Shift + W Disable Red/Blue Triggers NO (set to YES for less fun but more artistic experience)

Shift + H Hand Powers enabled ON (makes glowing fire around hands when extended from the body)

Shift + G Glow (trail) for dancers ON (makes glowing trail around the dancer's body)

Fast Elements Activation (F2 mode only)

OFF (Elements are slowly accessed -- to prevent accidental switching)

S Skin Press to switch to next skin(s).

Trigger Charge (Party/F3 Mode) Enabled: triggers can only be hit when there is enough charge, to prevent abuse.

Trigger Charge Fill time 3.00s (def: 3.0s) time it takes the triggercharge to go from empty to fully charged

Trigger Charge Red/Blue Unit 1.00s (def: 1.00s) charge for hitting red/blue triggers

Trigger Charge Bar Unit 0.25s (def: 0.25s) charge for hitting the vertical bars

Trigger Charge speed after draining 0.25 (def: 0.25) how quickly recharges after FULLY drained: 1.0 - normal, 0.05- very slow

Trigger Charge Draw Sharp NO Soft glow, realistic -- fits nicer in the scene

Trigger Charge Indicator Thickness 3 (default: 3)

Distance of RED/BLUE triggers from top

0% of vertical camera view, from TOP

Distance of bars from bottom 68% of vertical camera view, from BOTTOM (applies to Party mode only)

Hold time for Green (bars) trigger 1.00s Hold time for the green switch to turn ON the mode with bars

Ctrl + W Invisible Triggers OFF (set to ON to make them still active but not drawn)

Flowing energy between two hands LIGHTNING (the kind of energy that flows between leftmost and rightmost hand in Party Mode)

Hand Powers selection 1: All shapes: Plasma, Rays, and Crystals

Hand Powers Arm Extend Min N/A before start playing

Hand Powers Arm Extend Max N/A before start playing

Skin Images Vertical Offset 0.00 (factor by which skin images are pushed up or down)

Skin Images Horizontal Drift 0.33 (factor by which skin images movehorizontally in reaction to dancer)

Shift + N NextGen body tracking ON (use ON for higher precision, OFF for skilled/fast dancers doing a performance)

--- Real Skin (RGB Vision) ---

Test RGB Camera View OFF

Reality Wave First Peak 1.20m (default: 1.20m)

Reality Wave Peak Distances 0.80m (default: 0.80m)

Reality Wave Thickness 285 mm (default: 115mm)

Reality Wave Fixed Border YES (default: YES)

Save Reality Wave settings Press Enter to remember Reality Wave settings for the next time.

--- Photo Booth ---

Photo Booth enabled NO: Real Skin is disabled -- enable real skin or don't requre real skin (below)

U Photo Booth manual activate Press 'U' key to activate PhotoBooth camera.

Photo Booth final message Text after photo taken (enter to change):"Find photo @ facebook.com/mypage"

Time between shots 180 sec (time for camera icon to reappear)

Time camera is visible 10 sec (time camera icon stays if not touched)

Photo Booth save folder C:\Users\davor\Pictures

Bring on full real skin YES: When taking picture, make all dancers wear their full real skin

Require Real Skin enabled YES: Only activate Photo Booth if real skin is enabled (i.e. real images/faces show in skins)

Message before countdown Text before photo shoot countdown (enter to change): "GET READY!"

Final photo show time 6 sec (time final photo is shown)

--- Logos and Messages (DJ/Show) ---

L Show large floating logo OFF (show logo only when no one is in the screen)

Set custom large logo (Business) Logo file: .\extras\images\logo\visikord-logo.png

Set custom brand logo (Business) Logo file: Visikord-topcorner-logo.png. Enter to set to new image (can be blank).

M Show Custom Message OFF

Ctrl + M Set next/prev Custom Message slot 1: Current message slot (Left Ctrl: prev,Right: next)

Set number of Custom Message slots 3: Number of message slots

Edit messages in text editor Press Enter to open message text, save & close editor when done

Right Shift + M Set Custom Message Message#1: (enter to change) "Come and dance!"

Left Shift + M Set Custom Message size Message#1 size: 3

Ctrl + Shift + M Set next/prev Animation type Message#1 animation type: 0 (Left Ctrl + Left Shift: prev, Right: next)

Set next/prev message trail color Message#1 color: 2. RED

Show Logo/Message when Idle MESSAGE (show message when idle i.e when there are no dancers)

Set Logo/Message Idle Time 30 sec (show message or logo after that time when there are no dancers)

Show Message After Idle Time 5 sec (show message for this time after a dancer comes along)

Set Custom Words (Enter to change) Words file for the 'A' element/weapon: .\Elements\builtin\RandomWords.txt

Set words order RANDOM -- order for words for the 'A'element/weapon as they show up

Set words color BLACK AND WHITE -- more legible

Set words position MIDDLE

Set words growth SIMPLE -- from big to bigger

--- Party Mode 'Kiosk' Settings ---

Kiosk Mode AutoStart Enabled Off (Visikord starts with regular menu)

Kiosk message 1 timeout 120 sec (time in sec of any trigger inactivity before showing instructions, 0- no show)

Kiosk message 2 timeout 240 sec (time in sec of DOUBLE-trigger inactivity before showing instructions, 0 - no show)

Kiosk message 1 to 2 timeout 40 sec (time in sec to wait for message 2 after showing message 1)

Kiosk message duration 30 sec (time message is visible, 0 - doesnot expire)

--- Recording/Playback ---

Start recording (Esc to stop) Slot: 1, Song: camerashutter.mp3

Start recording / New song Slot: 1, Song: [New Song]

Start playback (Esc to stop) Slot: 1, Song: camerashutter.mp3

Recording Slot 1, Song: camerashutter.mp3

Playback advance compensation 1 (num frames played in advance to compensate for camera latency)

F4/F9 Play demo (Esc to stop) Play short real-time demo recording with Kinect input

Ctrl + Enter Take screenshot Screenshots are saved in 'C:\Users\davor\Pictures' folder

--- MP3 Player ---

Z Previous song Play previous song in Media Player's playlist

X Replay song Play current song in Media Player's playlist from start

C Pause/resume song Pause/resume Media Player song

V Stop Stop playing Media Player songs

B Next song Play next song in Media Player's playlist

--- Backgrounds ---

Space, PgDn Next background

PgUp Previous background

Shift + T Show title of current background OFF

Shift + P Open backgrounds load dialog Press Enter or Shift + P. You can select a folder with smaller set of more intenseones.

0 Switch backgrounds in the active pair Switches between 'left' and 'right' activebackgrounds without loading new ones.

Backgrounds order RANDOM

--- System ---

VJ console enabled (external monitor) NO Control panel always inside the main screen even with multimon (change requires restart)

Use Real Full Screen (FAST) YES Faster. If you are having problems,press <- to change, then Enter to switch.

Full screen resolution New: 1280x720 (current: 1280x720, typical: 1280x720), <-,->, then Enter to switch

Ctrl + F5 VJ console SAFE mode (ext. monitor) N/A No multiple screens available

F12 Show FPS (speed) OFF (when ON, shows camera input frame rate and display output frame rate)

Ctrl + R Restart camera driver manually Reset camera (do this if camera was moved around, or input became slow i.e. camera FPS dropped)

Sensor restart low fps timeout 20 sec (0 = no auto restart) How long towait when sensor FPS drops before restarting sensor

Visikord monitor ID 1 (0 - main monitor, 1 - first external monitor, if available). <-,->, then Enter to switch.

VJ console ID for 3+ monitors 1 (console will be on this monitor ID if > 2 monitors) <-,->, then Enter to

switch.

Display updating fast vs. clean FAST with flicker - for weaker graphicscards; screen may flicker. Press Enter tochange.

Max. display frame rate 60 - Normal (recommended)

Windowed Border (on Esc) 0 - NORMAL (change requires resizing -- Esc from fullscreen or doubleclick from windowed)

Crash Test Press Enter to make Visikord crash. It should restart immediately.

Auto-repeat demo OFF (useful for testing when ON)

Reset to defaults Press Enter to change all SYSTEM settings to default values. Requires restart.

Force fullscreen on Play ON Force fullscreen when playing if windowed

Ctrl + P Pause Visikord Press Ctrl + P to freeze/unfreeze the screen

Use Extra High resolution OFF -- Set to ON for clearer media images. Powerful CPU/GPU required! Change requires restart.

Shift + C Console Log Show Console with system messages

Appendix B: Troubleshooting Kinect connecting issues

If Visikord or the NIViewer diagnostic tool (see User’s Guide: Install section) cannot connect to your Kinect, the typical solution is to uninstall all the drivers, apply the Windows 8 “Enabling drivers installation” step, and reinstall everything.

You can proceed directly to the second section below, however if you want you can get more information whether it really is a driver problem or something else (e.g. broken Kinect sensor).

Checking whether Kinect drivers have been installed properly

Plug in the Kinect and run Control Panel (from Windows 8 start screen type “control panel” (no quotes) and select its icon.

Run Device Manager from the Control Panel by clicking first on Hardware And Sound,

and then select Device Manager:

When drivers are installed correctly, you should see “PrimeSense” device as below:

If you only see XBox NUI motor or camera, it’s the sign the drivers have not been installed correctly:

Uninstalling all drivers to allow for a clean install

Run the Control Panel again, and select the option “Uninstall a program.”

Scroll down in the list and uninstall, one by one, all the items where publisher is “PrimeSense” (highlighted below), starting from the bottom (“Windows Driver Package - PrimeSense”).

For your reference, if you were to see two items under “Windows Driver Package - PrimeSense”,as highlighted in green below, what would mean that all the drivers were installed correctly:

Reinstalling after uninstall

After uninstalling the drivers, unplug the Kinect, apply again the steps for enabling the Kinect drivers installation earlier in this document, reinstall Visikord with all drivers, plug in the Kinect,and the sensor should be working fine.

Appendix C: Updating your Visikord installation

0. Updates are completely safe and they leave your previous installs as they are!

When you receive a download link for a newer version of Visikord or a patch, you can install it directly without worrying about license keys or overwriting your previous version. All your previous versions of Visikord will remain completely unaffected. You can choose at any time torun the new version or any older version that has worked for you without concern.

The history of all changes is located at at visikord.com/docs/changelog.

1. Full download vs. Patch

As of v1.9.4, registered users who have the v1.9.3 version can choose whether to download the full version of Visikord or just the patch. A patch is a small download that installs in the current full Visikord installation folder. It does not change your current full install in any way, but adds anew icon for the updated addition so you can choose which version you want to run. The policy is an update or a patch should never change any existing functionality — you can install any update and still know that what you have used in previous shows is unchanged and available exactly as it was before the update.

So, should you download the patch or the full update? A full update is always safest but it takes more time to download and you need to migrate the settings. The patch is more convenient as it download and installs quickly and you don’t need to migrate the settings.

As a rule of thumb, if your last full install is close in version number to the patch (eg. you have v1.9.3 full install and are downloading v1.9.4 or v1.9.4.1 patch), then the patch is the way to go. Otherwise, if your last full install is e.g. v1.8.6 it is best to download the full v1.9.4.

Some updates may be available only as patches: e.g. v1.9.4.1 and v1.9.4.2 etc. may be patches only, and then the next full release will be 1.9.5.

1. Download the newest full install, or the patch, from the link you received in the email

The email will contain a link to the file or a link to a password-protected page that links to the file. Save it in a folder somewhere and run it.

2a. Installing a Patch

When the patch installer runs, it will ask you to which full installation of Visikord you want to add the patch. It should offer the latest full install by default; if it doesn’t, please Browse to point to the folder, e.g. “c:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord v<latest>”:

When the installation is complete, the icon for the patch will appear alongside the original Visikord (and any other patches you may have installed). You can choose to run either a patch or the original at any time.

2b. Installing a full update

If you haven’t updated Visikord in 6 months or more, unplug your Kinect or Xtion before installing (non-expert users).

You will see a sequence of dialogs about drivers asking to Repair or Remove -- always click “Repair.”

If you are an expert user or update the Visikord software often, you don’t need to unplug Kinect and you can safely uncheck all components from the Component dialog except Visikord to save time -- drivers have not changed since v1.3.4.

2b.1 Importing settings from the old version (optional)

If you had settings and customizations in a previous install that you would like to apply for the new one, you will need to copy them by hand (we are working to automate this process). Some of the default settings in the new version may have changed as they have been found to work better in the field.

To manually import your settings, for example from version v1.8.6 to v1.9.4, openAll Programs->Visikord v1.8.6->License, Uninstall, etc.->Visikord User Setup File Visikord_User_config.ini

and copy all of its contents to the clipboard. Then openAll Programs->Visikord v1.9.4->License, Uninstall, etc.->Visikord User Setup File Visikord_User_config.ini

and paste the contents there. You may want to review which settings you have copied and remove some of them.

For your information -- Each new version of Visikord 1) installs toc:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord <version>\

folder, 2) keeps its settings inC:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Visikord <version>\

folder, and 3) creates All Programs->Visikord <version> program group.

3. Run Visikord as usual

You will not be asked to enter license keys if the previous version was installed and working. If that is not the case, please look at your purchase confirmation email for your license key.

If you run without Kinect/Xtion, you will be given an option to play the recordings showcasing some of the new features, or the ones you (or other people) have made previously.

With Kinect, if you are running in a well-lit room, you can enjoy the “Real Skin” decoration of your image. Press the “R” key to turn Real Skin on.

4. Check the User’s Guide and the change log for what’s new

You can find the list of all changes -- features and fixes -- at visikord.com/docs/changelog.

The updated User’s Guide describing how to use new features listed in the ChangeLog is at visikord.com/docs/usersguide. Often the Change Log itself will contain enough information for you to know how to use the features.

5. If you received a new registration key

After installing the new version of Visikord, to enter your new registration key if the software asks for it, open the DOS prompt (All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt), then type

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord new version"\Visikord.exe" REGISTER

and press Enter, then enter the new key and pair. Find out <new version> by looking at the file name from the Windows Explorer, or by using DOS autocomplete -- type "C:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord and press TAB until it completes to the version you installed, e.g. "c:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord v1.9.1.1", then add \Visikord.exe REGISTER to get"C:\Program Files (x86)\Visikord v1.9.1.1"\Visikord.exe REGISTERand press Enter. (If you are using a 32-bit version of Windows or installed Visikord in a different folder, you will

know how to adjust the path.)

If you get a “... is not recognized as an internal or external command” error, please make sure you typed the characters and the version number correctly (and didn’t misspell “Visikord”).

Contact Visikord support for any questions

Send us an email at support@visikord.com with questions or feedback. Thank you!