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Demo of new SuperStar features in S4


BrianBruderer

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Below is a demonstration that can be stepped through to illustrate the new SuperStar features in S4. In the demo it mentions "ChristmasCanon_12CCRs_archive.sup" and "ChristmasCanon.mp3". If you do not have these two files, you can use any 12 CCR sequence and any audio file of your choosing.

 

Hope it all makes sense! I welcome feedback on things that are not clear.

 

 

 

Demonstration of New SuperStar Features in S4

 

1) Support of DMX addressing and Intensity Data files

Launch SuperStar

Click on the File menu and select Open, open "ChristmasCanon_12CCRs_archive.sup"

Click on the File Menu and select "Open Audio File", open "ChristmasCanon.mp3"

Click on the "Play All" button, the button that looks like a movie camera, the sequence should play to the screen

Click on the Tools menu and select "Configuration"

In the "Configuration" dialog box in the "Cosmic Color Ribbons" section there is now an option to set DMX Universe and Channel.

This is new to S4. This sets the Universe and Channel of the first ribbon and then "fully packs" the channels to assign the Universe and Channels to the rest of the ribbons.

Close the "Configuration" dialog box

Click on the File menu and select "Export to Sequence Editor"

The dialog box that appears is new to S4. You can still export in Legacy Format the same way you alwyas have.

But you can also export in the New Format (as Intensity Data)

  You can add the Intensity Data to an existing main sequence, this will put the intensity data as a line at the bottom of the existing sequence.

  In essence, this "merges" the superstar sequence with your main sequence. You no longer need to use sub-sequences or copy/paste to get the sequence into your main sequence

You can also export in the New Format (as Intensity Data) to a New Sequence. Superstar will create an empty main sequence and then add the intensity data as a line at the bottom of the new main sequence.

 

2) Import Visualization of DMX Pixel Strings

Launch Visualizer

Open the file Samples/SuperStar_12ribbons_dmxPixelTool.lee

Note that each string is a DMX string, you can change the starting Universe and Channel of Each String to match your display

 

In SuperStar

You should already have Christmas Canon loaded in superstar, you are currently in "CCR Mode"

Click on the File menu and select "Import Visualization"

  In the Import Visualization dialog box set:

     Scunch the Sequencing Grid - unselected

     Sorted by Rows - selected

     Max Length - 50

     Vertical

     Normal

     Maximum Detection Lines - 4

 

Import the file Samples/SuperStar_12ribbons_dmxPixelTool.lee

You are now in "Visualization Mode"

The Christmas Canon sequence is still loaded, you can now play it to the imported visualization.

The ribbon channels will play to the imported ribbons, and the star channels will be automatically converted to channels that will appear on the visualization of the star

If you export the sequence it will use the DMX addressing of the ribbons in the export, and it will use the channel addressing assigned to the star in the visualization

 

Note that the "samples" folder of the visualizer there are DMX visualizations for 12 CCRs and 16 CCRs. And there are regular and "fully packed" versions the 12 and 16 CCR visualizations.

 

As always, you can import any visualization and when you export superstar will use whatever addressing you have used in the visualization.

 

3) Support of superstar settings in the visualization

In S3 there were "keywords" that you could use in the comment line of a visualization. S4 still supports the keywords for backward compatibility.

In S4 there is a "superstar" button in the Visualizer Fixture and Prop dialog boxes.

Click on the "superstar" button and there are settings that do the same things that the keywords did. You no longer have to remember the keywords.

 

4) New features in Instant Sequence

a) "Rapid Fire" trigger on an RGB matrix

You should still have Christmas Canon loaded in superstar, with the imported visualization "SuperStar_12ribbons_dmxPixelTool.lee"

Click on the Tools menu and select "Instant Sequence"

Click on "Sequence All" in the Instant Sequence dialog box

Click on "Play/Stop All" in the Instant Sequence dialog box

This demonstrates instant sequence using the default "normal" trigger which is how you always did instant sequence in S3

Click on "Rapid Fire" in the TCM 1 column. Note that when you use "Rapid Fire" it defaults to Theme "1 Pixel"

In "Row Assignments to TCM (Theme/Color/Movement)" leave Row 1 set to TCM 1, but set rows 2-13 to "None"

Click on the "TIming Map" button. In the Timing Map dialog box and set "Row 1" to "All Freqs"

In the Instant Sequence dialog box click on the "Sequence All" button, then click on "Play/Stop All"

You will see a line move down ribbon 1. It will move in response to "All Frequencies" in the music, and will move faster when more is going on in the music.

This demonstrates the new "Rapid Fire" trigger.

 

Now set "Movement" to "Right multi-row", click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

You will see the line move down ribbon 1, then down ribbon 2, then down ribbon 3, etc.

 

Now set "Movement" to "Up same column", click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

You will see the line move acros the top of the ribbons. This particular setting is not particularly interesting.

So we will change the theme to get something more interesting.

 

Now set "Theme" to "Morphs Separating", click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

You should see the morphs separating theme move from left to right across the middle of the ribbons

You can try some other themes to see how they look as well

 

B) Custom Colors

This feature was in 3.12.2 as well, but it is relatively new so we will cover it as well

In the TCM 1 column, set "Color" to "Custom Colors 1 by group"

Click on the "Set Custom Colors 1" button

Select "Nbr of Colors" as 2

Click on the first color and set it to Red

Click on the second color and set it to Green

click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

The theme should cycle through Red and Green

 

c) "Rapid Fire" trigger on a simple non-RGB 

Click on the File menu and select "Import Visualization"

In the Import Visualization dialog box set "Horizontal", leave all the other settings where they are

Click on "Ok" and in the "Samples" folder select "Sample.lee"

You should see a light display with some lights on the eaves of the house, on two windows, some bushes, and a small mega tree

Note that when you import a visualization the trigger type and other settings in the Instant Sequence dialog box go back to default settings

click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

This demonstrates Instant Sequence using the default standard trigger

In the Timing Map dialog box note that the default setting for an imported visualization is to have "Extend Length of Effects" selected

This is to help the sequence look "less blinky" but it also makes the effects in the sequence be less responsive to the music

In the Timing Map dialog box, unselect "Extend Length of Effects"

In the Instant Sequence dialog box click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

Note that the effects are more responsive, but they are also more "blinky"

 

In the Instant Sequence dialog box select "Rapid Fire" in the TCM 1 column

 

 

Smaller displays such as this tend to look "blinky" when using the "Normal" trigger type

In "Row Assignments to TCM (Theme/Color/Movement)" leave Row 1 set to TCM 1, but set rows 2-3 to "None"

Set "Movement" to "Snake Up", click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

This demonstrates using "Rapid Fire" on a simple non-RGB display. 

The same "line" that you saw in the RGB matrix is snaking up the rows of the display.

It tends to be responsive to the music and less blinky as well

Look at the Timing Map dialog box. Row 1 has "Freq 1 through Freq 10" set. This means that the rapid fire trigger is responding to the lower frequencies in the song.

In the Timing Map dialog box, set "All Freqs"

In the Instant Sequence dialog box, click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

This time, you will see the lights respond to all the frequencies in the song.

You will also notice that more lights are being lit up at any one time.

Rapid Fire responds to every Frequency that you have selected in the Timing Map dialog box.

Since "All Freqs" is selected, Rapid Fire is responding to all frequencies and the lights in the display are more active.

If you want to be responsive to "All Freqs" but have fewer lights lit at any one time, the set the speed to be slower.

The default speed setting is "1.0" this means 1 pixel of movement every time a trigger happens.

In the TCM 1 column, change the speed from "1.0" to "0.3", click on "Sequence All" then "Play/Stop All"

The lights will still be responsive to all the frequencies, but fewer lights will be on at any one time

 

 

5) Other new features

a) Click on the Tools menu and select "Layout"

In the Layout dialog box, the maximum number of CCRs has been increased from 50 to 64

B) In the "import visualization" dialog box, increased the maximum value for "Max Length" of the sequencing grid to be 360.

Also, in the "Import Visualization" dialog box, increased the maximum value for "Maximum detection lines" to be 36

c) Added support for "manual clip" in smooth effects, images, and text.

This is particularly useful if you have a large display with more than one RGB matrix.

Before, smooth effects did not clip at all. Text and images did "auto clip" where they clipped to the first matrix in the display.

Now you can set the clipping rectangle to any of the RGB matrices in your display

Or you can set the clipping rectangle to a smaller rectangle within a matrix

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  • 4 weeks later...

But you can also export in the New Format (as Intensity Data)

Can this be removed from the SE file? I thought I would sample it on a unfished sequence.

Imported my Visualizer file and only 1/2 of the pixels would sequence from the instant sequence command. Might be my fault as I would be close to my 40ccr licence and visualizer is also doing funny things. (wont display some dmx pixels in preview)

Would you mind explaining to me how to use the importing visualization pair as my help files have frozen also.

Well it's getting late and cold over here downunder. Might try an update and off to bed.

 

updated to 4.0.2 and it froze. guess its too cold tonight lol

Edited by bbayjohn
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The way the Intensity Data works is that the Intensity Data is put into a file with a name that starts out the same as the name of the .lms file but ends with .ss.lid. For example, if the name of your sequence was MyAwesomeSequence, then the exported .lms and .lid file would be:

 

MyAwesomeSequence.lms

MyAwesomeSequence.lms.ss.lid

 

If you had exported Intensity Data from the Pixel Editor then the data is in a file named:

 

MyAwesomeSequence.lms.pe.lid

 

When the Sequence Editor launches it looks for the existence of Intensity Data files by the same name as the sequence and if they exist it adds them as a line in the Sequence Editor.

 

So what that means, is that the way to remove the Intensity Data from the sequence is to delete or rename the Intensity Data file.

 

As for Instant Sequence only sequencing half of your visualization file, that would not be related to your license level. Using the "Normal" trigger type, Instant Sequence will only sequence 24 rows on the sequencing grid. If you have more than 24 rows then that is the problem. If you have less than 24 rows, then it should be sequencing all of them, and if it is not it may be a bug. Please email your visualization to brian@superstarlights.com and I will take a look at it.

 

If you have more than 24 rows in your visualization you can try using Instant Sequence using the "Rapid Fire" trigger type using the instructions in section c) of the post. By setting movement to "Snake Up" it will snake up through all the rows of your sequence.

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  • 1 month later...
Hello

or find these two files you speak "ChristmasCanon_12CCRs_archive.sup" and "ChristmasCanon.mp3".

I have search everywhere on the site lor but not found

I'd like to try with both s4 file to follow your explanation correctly.

Thank you

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They are available on amazon.com in the USA. But I see you are in France and that is probably why you cannot find it. Send me an email at brian@superstarlights.com

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