In openFrameworks, ofx addons live like satellite organs: one for computer vision, one for sound analysis, one for network osc, one for shader chaos. Each speaks a dialect of void update() .
You run the app. The GUI sliders move nothing physical. The depth image shows a ghost that looks like your torso. OSC messages float out into the local network — received by no one, logged by no one, cherished by no one.
Every ofx addon is a scar from a previous need. Someone needed to track a hand. Someone needed to spit out MIDI. Someone needed to glitch a texture beyond recognition. scatter ofx
You are the host of ghosts. Each ofx addon is a minor deity, and you, the heretic priest, pray not with belief but with ofEnableBlendMode(OF_BLEND_MODE_ADD) . So write this into your setup() :
Thus: = the acknowledgment that no single node contains truth. Truth is in the routing. Truth is in the ofAddListener(ofxSomeEvent, this, &ofApp::someCallback) . IV. The Code as Confession void ofApp::setup(){ // I admit I cannot see alone. kinect.setup(); // I admit I need rhythm from outside. midiIn.openPort(0); // I admit my memory fails. recorder.init(ofGetWidth(), ofGetHeight()); } Scatter is not chaos — it is organized forgetting . You offload depth sensing to ofxKinect . You offload GUI to ofxGui . You offload your own obsessions to ofxSurfing or ofxMio . In openFrameworks, ofx addons live like satellite organs:
You draw them in — addon_config.mk , #include "ofxSomething.h" — and suddenly the blank ofApp has eyes, ears, a nervous twitch.
You do not begin with a whole. You begin with a vector field of potentials — empty, hungry, humming. To scatter is not to lose. It is to distribute intelligence across peripheries. The GUI sliders move nothing physical
Scatter is how the real enters the simulated. Kinect sees your skeleton as 640×480 × 30fps. Syphon streams your inner state to another app, another mind. ofx is not a library. It is a stance: I am not complete. I accept the graft.