MAD_KinectMasker tutorial

EDIT: this tutorial is now depreciated, as MadMapper supports QuartzComposer files natively.
We offer the original QC patch for free to anyone, get it from
MadMapper forum

In this tutorial, will use the newly released MAD_Lab applications
to plug a Kinect to your Mac and do so realtime masking… !

So first, launch MAD_KinectMasker application.
This app. uses the v002 OpenKinect plugin (bundled into the app) kindly provided by v002 team and the Syphon plugin.

You should see a grayscale depth image on the left, and a masked blue image on the right.
Adjust the tilt position of your Kinect, in order to see the whole scene.
Ideally, have someone stand in front of the unit to help set up everything.

Now that there’s someone in the frame, press the REC button. This wil turn the updating off, allowing your guinea-pig friend to take a break from standing in front of the camera, and also help you fiddle the settings.

Then, play with the min/max parameters, to actually select which depth of the image you want to extract…

Voila ! You’ve selected an interesting part, now launch another app to provide the texture you want under your mask. Here I’ve used MAD_GraphicPatterns from the MAD_Lab, but I could have launched Modul8 for instance, or any other Syphon-enabled application.

You’ll want to actually combine the output of both applications into one unique Syphon texture for use with MadMapper.
Here comes MAD_Doubler, which will just do this. So launch it !

Select your Kinect output on the left side, and the graphic patterns on the other side.

Now everythin is ready to be piped into MadMapper.
Launch it and select MAD_Doubler in the media list (under the Syphon section):

Make a bunch of Quads with an interesting texture. Here I’ve selected some diagonal lines moving around, applied on a Quad that I duplicated (cmd-D).
I like when it goes wild with a lot of surfaces. I’ve also set the blending mode to additive, and modified a few of the quad’s flipping option, to give some slight variations:

On top of all these quads, we’ll add the Kinect generated mask.
So make a new Quad and select the left part of your input. It is all black, but that’s normal, as your selecting a mask. It will be used to reveal the underlying quads.

Position the Kinect quad on the output, over all the previous textured quads.

Now you can ask you model friend to come back in front of the Kinect, switch back to MAD_KinectMasker, hit REC to enable the live feed again.

Come back to MadMapper and adjust the Kinect quad’s corner to fit the outline of your model.

Bravo ! You’re done.

Here’s a snap of the final output: