I use Resolume for fun on a Mac, and I couldn't find any decent alternative. I also use HeavyM, which is pretty good, also on a Mac and cheaper, but while it does support VJ use case, it's more designed around projection mapping.

Piece of advice: if you want to buy Resolume (and I do recommend it, it's fantastic): the only discount they do all year is on Black Friday, 50% off. So that is THE day to buy a license. And if you happen to be a student or teacher of a related field (or know anyone who is), you can get an additional 50% on that, and buy it for 25% of the total price.

With some limitations, you can play with TouchDesigner which is the other major VJ utility.

https://derivative.ca/download

Not exactly VJ, but could be used for it. https://openframeworks.cc

I’m working on a new VJ app here: https://vizlab.app/

It connects to pioneer gear and changes visualizer patterns and loops and shaders in sync with the music structure.

It uses canvas and webgl so you can write your own JavaScript to control things.

There will be a free and open source version.

Thanks for your patience, I’m working down the Show HN checklist as we speak.

Interesting! In my spare time for the last couple of months I’ve been working on a web-based VJ tool/toy. Nearing v1.0.0, which I hope to release in a week or so.

I was considering submitting a Show HN post too when it hits that point, but didn’t know if there was much interest on here. Turns out there is!

For anyone who is interested, the app I’ve been working on can be found here -> https://hydra.virusav.com

It’s FLOSS and the repo is here -> https://github.com/n3uromanc3r/hydra

Weirdly earlier today (prior to seeing this post) I considered starting a sister project to hydra that allows you to build a mixer and visual pipeline using a node-based system instead of the more rigid standard mixer setup.

Different hydra

https://github.com/hydra-synth/hydra

Someone needs to code all the modifications, can it be controlled by MIDI

The renderer (visual) has to be made by someone that knows how to build/code such a thing, yeah. Then once presented to the end user via the Hydra web app, that user may or may not have various UI components to influence and adjust the renderer output (sliders, buttons, etc). The app supports MIDI, and various UI components can be assigned to MIDI controls.

Post the announcement when it's ready at https://vjun.io we help you promote it further xx

I was about to ask if it would be ok to do the same for my web-based VJ app Hydra, but it looks like you found it already! Thank you, it’s most appreciated!

There used to be Quartz Composer and associated plugins, add ons and tools built by various people, but sadly, Apple dropped support for this wonderful tool as they moved away from OpenGL

I learnt a lot from using that, eventually writing my own project mapping apps.

If you don't care about watermarks, you can try out Resolume for free indefinitely.

There's Vimix for Linux and Mac (no windows binary yet), and it's great! https://github.com/brunoherbelin/vimix

You need MIDI for this type of software to have a sane automation of events.

Less straight forward but game engines can be used as VJ software.

Unity, Godot, Unreal

can you share any pointers on where to get started with this, ie using game engine for artistic video generation?

i've seen it accomplished but never found any resources on how to achieve it.

Join VJ Union on FB or vjun.io and we help you . Been doing this for decades ;)

Unreal has a particle generator that is used sometimes in art videos.

Install and start programming, then art will come.