What is hydra?

Hydra is live code-able video synth and coding environment that runs directly in the browser. It is free and open-source and made for beginners and experts alike.

Hydra is written in JavaScript and compiles to WebGL under the hood.


Hydra - inspired by analog modular synthesis

Moog Modular Synth|500

In which chaining or patching a set of transformations together generates a visual result.


hydra example


Super Easy Starting Point

This is going to be easier if you can have a play without have to type the commands.

Open this https://utcsheffield.github.io/utc-olp-hydra-toy-cam/

  1. This will use either your camera or a video of stuff at school.
  2. Wave your mouse over the commands.
  3. Click [SELECT] when you like an effect
  4. Click Skip to go to the next set of choices.
  5. Notice the code at the bottom and copy it


Edit it

Visit https://hydra.ojack.xyz/ get into the editor and paste the code in.

It probably won’t work if you were using the camera so copy one of the lines below in at the top.

s0.initCam() // If you were using the camera
s0.initVideo("https://utcsheffield.github.io/xibo-screen-info/UTC%20OLP%20Promo.mp4") // For the video

https://hydra.ojack.xyz/?sketch_id=ISD4DlyEMlsglL5V

Play about with dice

Click the Dice to make it tweak the numbers at random. It also arranges the code so you can // comment out lines. Press Shift+Ctrl+Enter to rerun the edited code.


Play about with hydra


Docs etc.

For more information and instructions, see: the interactive documentationa list of hydra functionsthe community database of projects and tutorialsa gallery of user-generated sketches, and the source code on github,


Store your code

  • Upload to gallery with the button & if you have a Github account please post the link in the comments below.
  • Or paste the code in to the comment but it will be harder to work with

Next Time

Session 2 - More code more fun