Basic Introduction to Quartz Composer

A simple tutorial/introduction to Apple's Quartz Composer visualization software.

Notes:
While the quality of this tutorial doesn't meet my standards for quality, I thought I'd post it anyway due to a perceived dearth of QC tutorials. I hope it helps anyway, or at least gets you interested.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• quartz
• composer
• tutorial
• basic
• introduction

[steamerwon]

Sorry , the audio is way down.. I find it hard to understand you...

You go clicking all over the place without saying what you are doing.....sorry, some teachers come across as showing how clever they are rather than slowwwwwwwing down and helping poor ignorant people like me to understand what they are trying to teach. Repetition is also a good teaching strategy......

[AllocInit]

@steamerwon Firstly: Yes, it's a bit low, but is easily resolved by upping the volume.

I'm not big on banality; I didn't mention that you have to drag outputs to inputs, or the particular inputs or outputs which I used, nor do I have to: The user watches what it is I've done, listens to by general explanation, and discovers the rest by his interest.

I should have mentioned the Library, though, which is accessed by Command+Return(enter), and is invaluable.

[polymexdf69]

Hi I am ruing  mac osx 10.6.4 would this work with this operating system and where can I find it because I had an I mac and it was there so can you help me thanks

[AllocInit]

@polymexdf69 I'm literally gobsmacked that it's taken me a year to respond to this; I'm quite sorry.

Yes, QC will work on 10.6.4, or whatever iteration 10.6 is up to now. You should be able to find it on your install disc, but you may need to download XCode straight from Apple if you're using a (circa late 2010 onward) MacBook Air.

[BOOTLEGPIRATEVIDEO]

does QC come with macbooks? cos ive looked through my installer dvds, nd cant find it.. please help im on a 2,2ghz 2gbram 08 model.

[AllocInit]

@BOOTLEGPIRATEVIDEO Good question! Sort of yes, sort of no: On DVD releases, it'd been tucked away in the Developer Utilities option install (you should be able to load up the disc and install it from there), at least prior to Lion (10.7); for Lion, though, I think you need to grab XCode from the App Store.

Heads up, though! It's 1.7GB download and the files decompress into several more gigabytes, which is something to consider. Hope this helps!

[GuildD695]

To answer the viewer's questions. Would love to see more or an online class...

[GuildD695]

Excellent tutorials, great dialogue of one's self to aw

[androgenecollective]

awesome tutorial, wish you had more as you've got a great way of bring it across !

[AllocInit]

@SpencerDieal To that end, this tutorial is meant to be used side-by-side with Quartz Composer; that way you can see, in front of you, what's what and tinker with it. What you made is a very basic Composition, which you can use it as a ScreenSaver by dragging it into ~/Library/Screen Savers/ or a Music Visualizer by dragging it into ~/Library/Compositions/ , although it wouldn't be terribly interesting as either, as rudimentary as it is.