seankovacs Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 Love the visualizer...makes life easier.However, I've run into some issues.First issue is it seems to treat the lights like LED's, in a sense that when you do a long fade (i.e 0 to 100 over 3 secs), there is an initial on of about 50% (instead of near 0) and similarly with the ramp down. I used this same sequence last year and in practice and in the Animator (old visualizer), it fades VERY smoothly like I intended.I also notice some lights that randomly flick on which are not even sequenced to be on...(again, didn't happen live or in the animator).Second issue is the lack of the new visualizers ability to blink a light on and off repetitively and quickly back to back (1/10th sec on, etc).The machine I'm sequencing and doing this all on is a beefy machine...3Ghz quad core, 6GB ram, highend video card, windows 7 64bit. Nothing crazy running - antivirus...maintains 0% utilization for the most part.I went as far as to turn off Aero in Windows 7, change to 16bit color...nada.Also, I installed a virtual machine of Windows XP and tried that...set it with 1GB of ram and it did a bit worse (I'll chock it up to it being a VM).I also tested it on a clean install of Windows 7 64bit on my laptop ...it has a core i5 2GHZ, 4gb ram...very clean machine with just LOR installed (will be the machine that actually runs the show).Same issues as described above.My machines are fine...I'm controlling 128 channels...Maybe it's the densely packed lights for the props I have?Here is a video showcasing the issue (first issue)...I show both old and new visualizer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seankovacs Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 I just did another test...just 1 light in the visualizer and it got rid of my second issue (the quick blinking)...it now quickly blinks according to what I programmed. I also noticed the FPS were a constant 112 versus 10-60 before (with all lights).This doesn't really fix my problem as it's only 1 light in the scene...So either my props are too complex (software has to update lets say 100,000 "lights" versus a simplified 10,000) or something else.Also, this single light demo I made along with slowing down my sequence to 1/2 speed really showcases issue 1, with the LED like fading.... you see at either end of the spectrum (fading up or down) it has a limit before on/off. Slowing it down lets you see the issue clearly, although you can still see it at normal speed.Here is a video of that...Tell me I'm not the only person seeing these problems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 If you can, please Zip and eMail me your sequence and visualizer files. mike @ lightorama.com.Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seankovacs Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Furthermore, I made a simple sequence showing 1sec intensity increased with each visualizer and animator running side by side.The intensities are incorrect in the new version...You can see in the video that at .1 intensity, the animator (old) is dimmer than the visualizer. At around .5 intensity, they are the same. AND above .6 and above the animator (old) is more intense (brighter) than the visualizer (new).You can't get more straight forward than this.Video: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 The Animator makes a lot of approximations in order to reduce CPU usage. I imagine that the Visualizer does also. It's unlikely that they make exactly the same approximations, and so it's unlikely that they'll look exactly the same as each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seankovacs Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 But the visualizer looks awful in this respect. It's intensity curve is not linear at all...more like stairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 The thing to remember is that the Visualizer is a SIMULATION, not an EMULATION.There are simply too many variables (Monitor type/Monitor Refresh Rate/etc) to expect things to look exactly like lights, let alone between the Visualizer and the Animator.The intensity curve in the Visualizer is there to more closely approximate an incandescent, and is based on an industry standard curve for theatrical lighting. If you would rather have a 'liner' curve, feel free to edit the file called 'standarddimmingcurve.xml' in the visualizations/curves directory. If you don't mind a warning message every time you start the Vis, you can simply rename the file and it won't be used.Even if you edit this file, you'll still find a little 'stair steppiness'. The reason is exactly what Bob stated: to increase performance, the visualizer will make approximations as needed.If the Visualizer isn't meeting your needs, the Animator is still available for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seankovacs Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Not trying to bash you guys...you did a great job. I just find it disappointing that it seems the new one takes leaps and bounds forward on the drawing aspect but a couple steps back on the performance/reality aspect. I'll just stick to the animator...figured I can draw it up in visualizer, save that image and import into animator and use the magnifier in windows to draw some nice stuff. Once these other guys finish with their drawing, might see this topic pick back up again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seankovacs Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 That did the trick. Apparently the animator had a straight linear curve/line for the intensity.No errors either as it seems this file isn't checked...After I dial down the lights to draw, I might be able to use visualizer after all Thanks for the tip Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 One thing to keep in mind is that the Animator wasn't always as smooth as it is today. When it was first released, and for a long time thereafter, it was very choppy, and a notorious CPU hog. Over the years, we have made a whole bunch of efficiency improvements to it; the smoothness you see today is the result of all that.What you're seeing with the Visualizer is the first release. I'm sure that there will be efficiency optimizations that we'll find we're able to make to it, and it will continually improve as a result of those optimizations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seankovacs Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Oh absolutely. The main problem is that I was creating props (a wreath for example) at a very high resolution (so it was perfect) and scaling it down to a very low one for my display. So we're talking like a 1000 pixel/light wreath (actual size) when scaled down only actually needing 100 or so. Stuff like that really was unnecessary to which I fixed by increasing the distance between bulbs, which decreased the number of pixel/lights to animate. So it runs pretty decent now. FPS is still a bit low but the overall look seems fine.It's like wine...gets better over time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now