Hi all, I'm new to Quartz Composer -- I have pretty much zero experience with it, so I need advice as to whether or not what I'm wishing to achieve can actually be done.
I was wanting to project an iTunes visualiser (just as it's playing in iTunes) but the projection size I have isn't rectangular. So I can't just play it in fullscreen. It needs to fill a specific shape.
I can't think of any way to achieve this, other than (possibly) with Quartz Composer and a windowed iTunes. The thing is, I don't know whether I can open a Quartz composition -- in this case, a mask with some transparency and black areas and have iTunes (another window) open below it.
The objective is simply to mask my current desktop, windows and all, with a shape of transparency and black.
I know QuickTime supports alpha in its files, but when in fullscreen, the QuickTime app shows black, rather than the desktop beneath it. I thought that maybe a simple Quartz composition might allow me to composite the current desktop and a black shape (or maybe this could be achieved in another way).
I could be totally wrong. Any advice would help.
TL;DR: for a Mac, how do you crop/mask a secondary display to a shape with black in the excluded areas? Also, how do developers usually overlay images on a screen?
I was wanting to project an iTunes visualiser (just as it's playing in iTunes) but the projection size I have isn't rectangular. So I can't just play it in fullscreen. It needs to fill a specific shape.
I can't think of any way to achieve this, other than (possibly) with Quartz Composer and a windowed iTunes. The thing is, I don't know whether I can open a Quartz composition -- in this case, a mask with some transparency and black areas and have iTunes (another window) open below it.
The objective is simply to mask my current desktop, windows and all, with a shape of transparency and black.
I know QuickTime supports alpha in its files, but when in fullscreen, the QuickTime app shows black, rather than the desktop beneath it. I thought that maybe a simple Quartz composition might allow me to composite the current desktop and a black shape (or maybe this could be achieved in another way).
I could be totally wrong. Any advice would help.
TL;DR: for a Mac, how do you crop/mask a secondary display to a shape with black in the excluded areas? Also, how do developers usually overlay images on a screen?