The Media Pool is your central media hub organized into two sections: the Media Bin and the Media Inspector.
Access your Media Pool by clicking on Media (manage Media) at the top left of the interface:
From any Media category, you can click the "+" button to add new media:
The Media Bin displays every available media, sorted into type categories.
The generators are built-in and are initially intended for testing and calibration.
They are rendered at a specified pixel size in a texture.
Materials are generative shaders, rendered directly on the output destination (projector or preview windows).
Unlike generators where only one rendering will be done regardless of their number in your surfaces, the materials are rendered separately on each of the surfaces where they are used.
The materials are allowing extra precision at high resolution, at the expense of rendering speed.
Laser materials are Generative shader-based materials (GLSL) just like regular materials, but for Laser mapping.
Like Laser Materials, Laser Generators are the laser version designed for Laser mapping of regular generators.
Interactive Shader Format files are GLSL fragment shaders, just like the materials.
Quartz Composer files come from the node-based visual programming language.
Gathers all types of supported images.
Supported Image Containers: jpg, jpeg, jp2, j2k, jxl, bmp, png, psd, exr, heic, hdr, raw, tiff, tif, sgi, ico, tga, dds, webp, pict, pdf, svg
See Media Formats & Video Codecs for more details.
Supported Video Containers: mov, mpeg, mpg, mp4, m4v, mkv, avi, wmv, asf, gif, mts, ts, h264, flv, dnxhd, m2ts, vob, dv, webm
Playback performance may vary depending on codec/resolution. See Media Formats & Video Codecs for more details.
Add image folders.
Texture data that can be shared between applications using different protocols such as Syphon (Mac), Spout (Win), NDI (Mac/Win).
The data source is live, continuous, e.g. displaying your work done in parallel in Modul8.
Live feeds that can be streamed into MadMapper, such as webcams or BlackMagic capture cards.
You can configure an Internal Loopback on Video and DMX outputs:
The name of the output will appear under the Live Inputs section.
The Montages category displays your Timeline montages.
The Media Inspector, located below the Media Bin, allows you to access a wealth of information, settings, and parameters specifically tailored to the media currently selected in your library.
At the top of the inspector, MadMapper displays a live preview of your selected media (which can be toggled on or off via the Preview switch to save processing power). If the preview is open, you can click the three dots on the right to update or reset the thumbnail instance of the selected media when a visual is actively running.
Next to the media name, you can click the info icon (the small "i") to reveal a highly detailed, read-only pop-up containing critical file information. For a video file, this panel includes:
Media Identity: The Media Name, Type / Number classification, and internal software ID.
File Path: The exact directory location of the source file on your hard drive, which includes a magnifying glass search icon.
Basic Properties: The native Resolution, total Duration, native FPS, and primary Codec.
Advanced Details: An in-depth technical breakdown including the specific video decoder, pixel format, bit rate, color space, and embedded audio data (audio codec, channel count, and sample rate).
One of MadMapper's most powerful features is the ability to edit numerous playback settings, routing options, and visual parameters directly from the Media Inspector.
These settings are highly specific to the type of media selected. Below is a breakdown of how the inspector adapts to different media formats.
When a video file is selected, the inspector transforms into a comprehensive playback controller.
Playback Controls: Standard transport controls allow you to step backward, pause, play, step forward, or jump immediately to the beginning or end of the clip.
Playback Mode: Define how the clip behaves when it reaches the end. Options include looping continuously, playing once and holding the last frame, ping-ponging (playing forward then reversing), or playing random frames.
Timeline Sliders: Click and drag to manually adjust the playhead Position, alter the playback Speed (percentage), and set custom Loop in and out points to restrict playback to a specific segment of the video.
Audio Routing: If the video contains an audio track, you can toggle the audio on/off, route it to a specific device, adjust the volume, and link the audio level directly to the opacity of the surface it is mapped to.
Engine Settings: Toggle Use Hardware Acceleration if possible and view the active video player backend (e.g., FFMPEG Player). You can also manually assign the Color Profile.
When you import a folder of sequential images, MadMapper treats it as a continuous video sequence. The Image Folder Inspector contains many of the same transport and playback mode controls as the Movie Inspector, but adds parameters specific to rendering raw images:
Naming Conventions: Because MadMapper orders files alphabetically, it is highly recommended to format your image sequences with leading zeros (e.g., 00001_image.png, 00002_image.png) to ensure correct chronological playback.
Sequence Limits: There is no maximum limit to the number of images a folder can contain. While sequences containing 1,000,000+ files will load successfully, actual playback performance is highly dependent on your computer's hardware capabilities.
Playback & Modes: Full access to standard play, pause, loop, ping-pong, and timeline/speed sliders.
Sizing Mode: Determine how the images fit within the internal render texture (e.g., Scale to Fit).
Resolution & FPS: Unlike movies, image sequences do not have a native embedded frame rate. You must manually define the playback FPS, as well as the internal rendering Width and Height.
Cache Size: Define how many frames are pre-loaded into memory to ensure smooth playback.
Auto Scan: Toggle this to have MadMapper automatically detect and incorporate new images added to the physical folder on your hard drive while the software is running.
When selecting mathematically generated media—such as ISF Shaders, Quartz Composer patches, internal Materials, or Laser Generators—the inspector adapts to expose the underlying code variables.
Resolution: Because generative media is math-based and resolution-independent, you can manually define the exact internal rendering Width and Height you want the visual to generate at.
Custom Parameters: The controllable sliders and colors available here are entirely dependent on the specific file selected. For example, a "Simple Rotating Line" ISF shader will expose custom sliders for thickness and rotationSpeed. If you write your own custom shaders, any variables you expose in the code will automatically populate here as controllable UI elements.