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OK, this has been on the "wish list " since RGB usage increased...but


David Barnett

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it doesn't seem to be a high priority for LOR to fix or enhance.

I'm reffering to editing of older seq. to incorporate RGB when we were using LED etc.

Bob O convertor tool works great for converting stuff if you just want basic RGB. If you need say purple,orange etc; you hve to change the intensities in each RGB channel to make it your color.

However, you can't do this with a global change! If I want to use foreground intensity to say 50%, I can select the row and change intensity; but LOR SE won't retain my original effects!

IE If I had some fades,shimmers etc...I loose them all, as LOR just makes it an ON event now! They don't seem to want too change anything in this regard. Which would make converting LED RGB so much easier,

I ask those in the know, is it possible to accomplish this editing the LMS file in notepad++

If so, what would I need to change, to just affect my intensities,and NOT my effects.

I'm not concerned with screwing up the seq., I have backups. What/where do I change in the LMS file. Anthing will be better than redoing everything.

thanks,

David

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I just did a test with what you are talking about.  I inserted 5 shimmers, spaced evenly along 10 seconds.  Then I selected background effects and used the color fade tool to insert a orange color over the shimmers.  It kept the original simmers and inserted the orange in the unused space.  Not sure if that is what you are talking about, but maybe you need to switch to background instead of foreground effects.

 

 

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I think what he is looking for is a way to change the intensities on all of the effects on the selected row or rows. I have not seen a way to do that yet, anyone else?

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kzaas get's it. That is exactly what I'm looking to do.  If you watch Bob O's tutorial on his RGB convertor, you'll see how the conversion works.

 

However, it will retain the effects; but you have to copy the effects into the different RGB channels.  Not a big deal, if you want a full on blend of RGB colors.

 

IE I can have the red and blues to make purple. But it's that pinkish looking purple. I want a more black light purple. In order to do this, I have to adjust the intensity of each RGB channel to get my color.

 

With LOR I can select the row, change the intensity to the red/blue mix to  get my purple color.  However, I loose all of my fades,shimmers etc.  LOR just makes it an ON intensity change.

 

I then have to go back through, and redo all the fades shimmers etc.   IN other words, there is still and may never be a global intensity change setting, when trying to convert from LED-RGB.

 

Just trying to do it a simple way to save time and headache.

 

even if I changed everything to same intensity, ie to get my purple/orange colors, if I could re-copy the RGB channels from the convert over my new color, that would work too. But, I know that won't work, as LOR would just recopy the same stuff.

 

Based on numerous views to this thread, and 2 answers; I would say others have the same interest I do.......just no solution unfortunately, and most likely never will be one for this issue.

 

I'll probably just end up doing the damn thing over again, royal PIA!   Oh well, all ears if someone has a genius idea.

 

I still may try and experiment with editing the LMS, but don't have high hopes.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

Best,

David

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I think LOR is trying to make the changes needed using the new Pixel Editor, however, A simple tool in the SE is needed as well for those of us who are having difficulty with the PE. I'm guessing there's an easy way to use the PE so I'm sort of waiting for the tutorials come out but all my playing with the PE is rending nothing yet for me personally. Again, simple intensity tool for RGB would be nice in the SE. Disclaimer: Sometimes what sounds easy to do is just the opposite in software.

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  • 1 month later...

Yup, have been wondering if there was a way to do this. Converting regular lights to RGB is easy if you just a basic color (Red, Blue, Green), but if you want customer colors there is no way to do it without a huge amount of work. It actually becomes easier to just program a whole new RGB channel. I would love to see a fix/app for this. Would make life so much easier for us that just want to convert standard sequences to updated RGB.

Edited by Dcroc
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I would think they would have added this feature to the SE in this new major revision, but so far, we're not seeing it. As easy as it sounds like it would be to do, software truly can be much more difficult to accomplish something to us as easy, is or can be, by far more difficult. Lets hope they read this and add this capability to the SE. I will still buy the license for the new PE regardless so that I have a fully functional software package with all the bells and whistles.

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I see something new in 4.0.32. They've added a "Change Effect Type" with DMX Intensity as well as twinkle, shimmers and a fade.  There's also an intensity tool for I think, regular AC channels too. I tried altering a DMX group of intensities over fades and it looks like it did something. I'm not connected to test it. Essentially, you select an area of commands, right click in the area, then select these tools.

Edited by dgrant
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I see something new in 4.0.32. They've added a "Change Effect Type" with DMX Intensity as well as twinkle, shimmers and a fade.  There's also an intensity tool for I think, regular AC channels too. I tried altering a DMX group of intensities over fades and it looks like it did something. I'm not connected to test it. Essentially, you select an area of commands, right click in the area, then select these tools.

 

I think you're referring to the "Smooth to Fades" tool (in addition to the "Change Effect Type" tool).  If so, these two tools have very different purposes:

 

"Change Effect Type" will change everything in the selection to, say, twinkles (or whatever you select), but leave their intensity values alone.  So for example, here's a before-and-after of "Change Effect Type > Twinkle":

 

changeeffect.png

 

"Smooth to Fades" is intended to help with lagginess.  Often when people with very large sequences experience lagginess and such, it's because their sequence does something like this on a whole bunch of channels at once:

  • Time 0:00.00 - 0:00.05: Intensity 10%
  • Time 0:00.05 - 0:00.10: Intensity 30%
  • Time 0:00.10 - 0:00.15: Intensity 70%
  • Time 0:00.15 - 0:00.20: Intensity 80%

Very short effects, very rapidly.  If done on many channels simultaneously, this can cause lag.  But to a human eye, it's really not different than (or at least not particularly nicer than):

  • Time 0:00.00 - 0:00.20: Fade up 10% - 80%

Which is much more efficient, reducing lag and also reducing loading time.  "Smooth to Fades" basically tries to convert things like the former to things like the latter.  Example before-and-after of "Smooth to Fades":

 

smoothtofades.png

 

You can find more information on both of these new tools on this help file page.

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If they could come up with a fix for the issue Dave speaks of, it would make my life so much easier.  The way it is now, I'm looking at many, many hours spent programming new RGB channels, rather than simply converting what I already have a ton of time invested in programming.  All it really needs to do is be able to choose a custom color when converting to RGB, rather than just past into the RED, GREEN, or BLUE channel.

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They are getting there, slowly but surely. Now if they could allow selecting groups of cells or rows, then allow an overall change to intensities, such as lowering or raising by a percentage, without changing the colors, twinkles, fades and so on, that would be great. Also, selecting a specific color from the color picker tool or similar and applying that color to the selected dmx/ccr range/group, we'd be styling for sure. 

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dgrant. I hear ya, but based on Bob's response LOR is not hearing us.

LOR is awesome for sequences from scratch. If you want to take your hard work from previous sequences convert to RGB; without PIA hassles......then not so much on the upgrade list.

I tried to see if I could somehow edit the XML to just adjust the RGB color(intensity level).....above my pay grade. I mean, isn't that what we are basicaly doing when we choose a color(hue) in LOR. Telling what intensity we want?

Based on my past experiences with LOR updates vs wishlist that users have submitted; I believe if it's not on the LOR devs "wishlist"

we won't see it anytime soon if ever.

Best,

David

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I'm thinking they are spending most of their efforts on the new pixel editor which should prove to be a powerful tool. For those of us who only want to change existing sequences, the simple tools might be easier. Now as a disclaimer, I've not poked around in the PE too much yet pending release of their tutorials. From a software standpoint, what's often easy for us to think it is, sometimes the easiest of things can be the most complex to change, without impacting other subroutines. It only takes one minor mess-up to have lots of loyal LOR users, howling....lol. It sounds like someone there is working on this area otherwise there would have been no changes which isn't the fact. There indeed have been changes to this specific area. Give them time

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dgrant, I hear ya man. So much easier to do everything over, than trying to edit years of existing sequences.

This is what LOR SE has always excelled at as an awesome tool.

Have Fun!

Best,

David

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh Yeah!!! 4.0.34, they've added several new things which will take care of these issues nicely! Now there's an intensity tool, that we can select whole rows, columns or areas and "cap" the intensity level without changing the fades, twinkles and so on. I tried it on a huge group of RGB pixels, capping the intensity at %80 and sure enough, it worked!

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dgrant, sorry difficult to talk as I eat crow. LOL

Awesome deal. Thank You LOR

Purple works great. Working on Orange from a conversion.

Got new confuser system up and running with LOR and NC/XL...time to get busy.

Going to Expo, you gonna be there?

Best,

David

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  • 3 weeks later...

Oh Yeah!!! 4.0.34, they've added several new things which will take care of these issues nicely! Now there's an intensity tool, that we can select whole rows, columns or areas and "cap" the intensity level without changing the fades, twinkles and so on. I tried it on a huge group of RGB pixels, capping the intensity at %80 and sure enough, it worked!

 

 

 

Is there a video out yet on how this works?

Edited by ezimnow
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I don't think they've gotten to the video tutorials yet. I'm sure they are working on them as they are quite important for anyone getting into this hobby.

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What would be nice would be for LOR to add a bit more to this area. Such as, the ability to select a group area and alter the color or fade of that area, without changing what's there as in on/off commands, twinkles, fades and so on. Lets say, we have an area that has fades in there already timed to the music. Now add the ability to change the colors on that area, without over-writing the fades? Yes, I know that what sounds easy in programming, is very seldom the fact...just the opposite. For all I know, the capability might already be in there using combinations of tools such as the background/foreground, color fade tool and the new tools. I'll keep playing with it. The PE might have something too but need to see the tutorials yet to learn it.

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