Welcome to Le Biniou

Le Biniou is made of a set of plugins (nearly one hundred), that produce various graphic effects, depending on a source input (usually, your soundcard).

There are several types of plugins:

• Drawing plugins (oscilloscopes, screensaver effects, etc.)
• Filtering plugins (blurs, distortions, etc.)
• Image plugins (that use a background image)
• Color plugins (modify the current colormap)

These plugins can be selected and organized in a particular order, forming “sequences”.

Sequences can be created by the user (in the interactive mode), or by Le Biniou's Artificial Intelligence (in the automatic mode).

Le Biniou has an integrated On Screen Display, that shows you what's going on, and acts as a User Interface to select, organize or reorder plugins.

By default, Le Biniou starts in automatic mode, without OSD.

Le Biniou can randomly pick between many different colormaps and background pictures, allowing evolving rendering effects.

There are three “auto-modes”, that will randomly change the current sequence between user-defined and/or Le Biniou-generated ones.

The Keyboard controls page lists all available commands.

Le Biniou runs on many UNIX-based platforms:

• GNU/Linux
  • Debian and Ubuntu packages are available in “unstable/testing” (Debian) or “precise” (Ubuntu):

     $ sudo aptitude install lebiniou

• *BSD
  • FreeBSD
  • NetBSD
  • OpenBSD
  • MacOS X (we need developers)

See the Installation page to compile from a tarball or from git

Le Biniou can be started by:

• the Applications/Sound&Video menu
• using the command line

Using the command line, you can activate specific options, like the display mode (window size, full-screen, etc.), the input source to use, which On Screen Display mode to activate, and more.

To start from the begining, use [Shift-c] to remove all the plugins, and [Shift-z] to clear the screen. Note: In the top-left part of the OSD, the sequence will have the name ”(none)”.

• First, add a plugin: find the “rotors” plugin in the list and add it to the sequence.
• Use [UP]/[DOWN] to navigate through the list, and [RETURN] to add or remove the plugin.
• Use [PAGEUP]/[PAGEDOWN] to scroll faster in the list.
• Now, add a filtering effect: find the “blur2” plugin and add it.
• New plugins will be added at the end of the sequence (except a few plugins, like the “clear” plugin, that will be added at the front).
• Then, change the colormap (using the controls described before) to one that pleases you.
• Finally, add a plugin that reacts to the sound, for example, the “X oscillo stereo” plugin.

You can save your newly created sequence using [Ctrl-s].

From now on, the sequence will have a name (the timestamp you saved it), for example: “1300821622”. It will be saved in your ”.lebiniou/sequences/” folder under the name “1300821622.xml”. Later, you can rename this file to a suitable name, eg “My cool sequence.xml”. This new name will be displayed in the OSD.

You can overwrite an existing sequence using [Ctrl-u] (the name will not be changed).

When you have several sequences, you can cycle through them using [Shift-LEFT] and [Shift-RIGHT], pick one at random using [F10], and use them in the Automatic Mode. Reorganizing the sequence

You can change the plugins order in the sequence:

• Use [Shift-UP]/[Shift-DOWN] to select a plugin in the sequence (the selected plugin will have an arrow before it's name)
• Use [Ctrl-UP]/[Ctrl-DOWN] to move the selected plugin up/down in the sequence

If you use the Debian or Ubuntu packages, example sequences are available. Install them by issuing the following command in your home directory:

$ tar xvfz /usr/share/doc/lebiniou-data/examples/sequences.tar.gz

Some plugins (eg: the “galaxy” plugin) operate in 3D.

• Use [F2] to display a bounding shape (cube, sphere, wired sphere, or none)
• Drag and drop the mouse to rotate the 3D view
• Use the mouse wheel to zoom in/out
• Hit [F3] to toggle 3D rotations on/off

• Use [Shift-h] to show/hide the mouse cursor
• Use [Ctrl-f] and [Alt-f] to adjust the desired frame rate
• [Shift-r] will fill the screen with random pixels

These people are using Le Biniou and want to share their tips/howtos:

• oliv3
• Zebulon
• Manu Kebab
• Idonea Verba