G-Force as Desktop Background on Mac OS 10.5 Leopard w/Audio

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ciphex
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 9:00 am

G-Force as Desktop Background on Mac OS 10.5 Leopard w/Audio

Post by ciphex »

G-force has so many different awesome looking styles that a casual user may not get a chance to see the vast majority of them. One way to enjoy G-force more would be to have it live on the desktop behind the work that we do day to day. This may not be incredibly functional for most users and be warned - it can be very distracting! But it sure as hell looks cool so I am posting a how-to here for those interested in getting G-force coolness onto their Leopard desktop background.

This is written for Leopard but the same ideas should apply for earlier versions of OS X.

What you will need:

1) G-force Platinum which includes a Screen Saver Module for OS X.
http://www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/

2) DeskSaver (free) or an alternative utility. Search DeskSaver

Wallsaver is also cool: Search Wallsaver

and there is a widget too! Search Apple

3) A microphone input of some kind.

4) A tiny bit of patience.

Edited by BTT. Reason: removed non SoundSpectrum related links.

Step 1 - Install the ScreenSaver
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So the goal is to get G-force to display in place of our desktop background picture and respond to audio.
Make sure you install G-force and get it registered. Install the ScreenSaver Module. If you have to install the module by itself just locate the file and double-click on it. System Preferences will take charge and put it in the right place for you.

Go to your System Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver panel. Make sure that G-force is listed as a screen saver option. Select it and hit the options button, make sure that "Run on all Display Devices" is NOT checked.
This is a limitation right now, the process will only work on one monitor if you want the display to respond to audio input. Close that box and then hit the test button. G-force should show up on your main monitor, the other will be black. It will not be responding to any audio - yet.


Step 2 - Setup Desktop Display
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Grab your utility for running the screensaver on your desktop. DeskSaver is a simple free solution, though there are other tools and a command line method to enable this. Run DeskSaver. It should play your selected screensaver (G-force of course) as your Desktop Background (very cool!)


Step 3 - Make it Respond to audio
-----------------------------------------
Now we need it to respond to audio. Due to the way CoreAudio works in Leopard the only input option we have is going to be a microphone of some sort or your line-in audio. Technically I think you could patch your headphone jack to your line-in jack with a 1/4" Jack male-male audio cable and get a cleaner signal but I have not tested this. We are going to assume that a Microphone is your input device as most macs that run Leopard will have one. The benefit/drawback here is that this will respond to everything in the room, not just your music. Personally i think this is cool. It gives the feeling that the machine is aware of it's surroundings. Also you can sing along, clap, snap, whatever you know?


Now the tricky part is to get G-force screen saver to listen to your mic.
We are going to use the G-force Standalone app that comes in the Platinum bundle to help us out a bit.

It was installed to /Applications/G-Force/G-Force Standalone.app. Open it up. The G-force toolbar should launch at the same time. The toolbar allows you to control the behavior of the Standalone app, V-Bar, or iTunes module. But not the screensaver.
Start playing some music or making noise in general.
Use the toolbar to select your appropriate microphone input. When the Standalone visuals begin responding to the sound then we are good to move on.

The toolbar is a graphical editor for the preferences files for each of the G-Force apps. There is a preferences file for the screensaver as well.

These files are located at:
~/Library/Preferences/SoundSpectrum/G-Force/Preferences (Screen Saver).txt
~/Library/Preferences/SoundSpectrum/G-Force/Preferences (Standalone).txt

(~ refers to your home directory eg. username folder)

These files are simple text files that contain some parameters for dictating how the visualization engine should behave.
For more info on tweaking the preferences file consult:
http://www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/Do ... izing.html

Open both of those files.
In the Standalone preferences we are looking for the A_in= value. Make a note of it and close the file.
Now in the Screen Saver preferences file locate A_in= and set it to the value you just made note of.

At this point you can save the Screen Saver prefs file and run or restart DeskSaver.
The visuals should be responding to the mic audio!


Troubleshooting
------------------------
If not, something isn't working right. You might try values in the -3 to 3 range for A_in=. If G-force is throwing you an error about the input device, double check to make sure you aren't trying to run it on two screens at once as this opens two instances of G-force and they compete for the audio input.

Make sure your mic is picking up audio and the sound is loud enough. In many cases the sound will not be powerful enough when playing soft sounds or at low volumes so we need to change a few more settings in this file.

A few lines below A_in= you should find:
SScl=1
RScl=1

Now your results will vary depending on how loud the music is and how far the mic is from the speakers. In normal listening conditions these defaults should be fine. I find that for most applications setting the SScl=5 or 10 works for even very soft audio but if this isn't enough you can try setting RScl=2 also. This is only for the faintest audio though. When the volume goes up things will get too wild with RScl=2.


Would be cool to see...
-----------------------------
It would be awesome to find a way to do this on multiple monitors or at least only run the screensaver on one monitor at a time so that the extra displays are not just black.

It would also be cool to see a script allowing live editing of the screen saver parameters while it's running.
I am looking into the possibility of using Quicksilver+Automator to have some level of interactive control.

Lastly, I have found that this method has one serious drawback for me. It overlaps the GeekTool output overlay on my desktop.
Now that won't affect many people but if we found a way to limit the screensaver to displaying as the background to only one display that would be a decent fix.


Wrap Up
---------------
Again, for more info on tweaking the preferences file to do all kinds of wild and crazy things consult:
http://www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/Do ... izing.html

Since the toolbar give many option to help tweak G-Force, use it to make a set that you like in the Standalone and copy the changes to other values back into the Screen Saver prefs file. It may be that copying the entire file would work well. I haven't tried.

Have fun and play around, if you find anything other cool ways to tweak the G-Force Screen Saver, comment and let the rest of us know!

kyakruu
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 4:19 am

Post by kyakruu »

Go to your System Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver panel. Make sure that G-force is listed as a screen saver option. Select it and hit the options button, make sure that "Run on all Display Devices" is NOT checked.
This is a limitation right now, the process will only work on one monitor if you want the display to respond to audio input. Close that box and then hit the test button. G-force should show up on your main monitor, the other will be black. It will not be responding to any audio - yet. ??
GuL

FrankN
Posts: 316
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 11:19 pm

Post by FrankN »

Have you guys used the V-bar? You mention it in your post, but it was designed with the same intention.

Instead of displaying in the background of your desktop, it runs on one of the edges of your display. It's always pushed to the front, and it responds to any audio source without any fancy jiggering. If you have the Platinum license, it should already be on your computer!

All the same, this is a fascinating use of our visualizers, and I hope it catches on! One of the great things about our users is that they're willing to experiment and tinker! We love our community of builders and makers, and are inspired by every cool project that comes our way! One that comes to mind is the script that changed your Phillips Hue lights to match your average visualizers color. Check them out, and maybe some cool collaboration will come of it!

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