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Want a little more control


Phippers

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So I finally made the switch to pixels, and went ahead and got my order ready for 8,000 pixels. Almost every light on the house will be a pixel.

 

So, originally my thought in doing this is mainly so i can do smooth fades across the whole house instead of it having to be faded by section of bush.

 

I started to dive into the pixel editor, and like any software hated it until i learned all it could do. I have two beefs with this software that I was hoping someone could give me tips on how to get around these problems.

 

The First thing I want to be able to do is:

 

Fade from left to right (or up and down). I thought I could just go in and manually program each pixel but it seems like the pixel editor kind of blocks me out of that, and only allows me to edit each individual string. Do you know how I can do this? The Colorwash effect would work but it does not look like it has a speed setting.

 

The second thing is i am a little confused... if I have the same channels in the sequencer, can I sequence a portion in the sequencer and as long as nothing is playing at that point in the sequence with the pixel editor, will it still play on the visualizer, or lights for that matter?

 

Thanks!

Matt

Edited by Phippers
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Superstar is generally what a lot of people use to get individual pixel control, or manually in the sequence editor.

It's my understanding that if you begin to program channels in the pixel editor that you can't also program those channels in the sequence editor. At least that's how it was at one time

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You can combine all three (S.S. / S.E. / P.E.) so long as they don't overwrite each other.  I'll start with exporting effects from SuperStar in legacy format.  Then copy and paste that into the Sequence Editor by time.  Then I'll add any effects using the Sequence Editor.  Once that's done I'll open the song in Pixel Editor and import the props from S.E.  Then apply my Pixel Editor effects where there aren't any effects that were imported.  Once it's completed I'll save the intensity data and delete the channel group that has the effects from Superstar to make the file smaller since they are already saved in the intensity data file.

Edited by B.Y.R.G.
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You can apply effects to all of your RGB elements at once by putting them into a Prop Group in the Pixel Editor, and then applying effects to the group from within the PE Sequence Grid. This makes it easy to achieve movement across your display.

 

In the attached screenshot, a picture effect is being applied to a group containing all RGB elements.

 

Matt

post-2660-0-73535900-1438976709_thumb.pn

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I have put some effects in PE and it looks great.  I then open it in SE and play looking at LOR vis, choppy and lights missing due to lag.  Last year I found that if it was choppy in LOR Vis then it was choppy in reality when lights were hooked up. 

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I have put some effects in PE and it looks great.  I then open it in SE and play looking at LOR vis, choppy and lights missing due to lag.  Last year I found that if it was choppy in LOR Vis then it was choppy in reality when lights were hooked up. 

 

How many channels are you running? Can you attach a screenshot of the Help > About box from PE into a post here?

 

Matt

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Roughly 45K lights, mixture of RGB and pixels (mostly pixels e.g 4000px matrix is the primary cause of big hiccups when playing)

 

PEAbout_zpse76f6bgk.jpg

 

40GB RAM - Total overkill yup lol

Edited by ShellNZ
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So far Shell my 4050px matrix is doing ok as long as I don't go over 800 meg files. I want to use the PE but having a few small issues when importing the visualizer file. I will get to play more this weekend and send Matt a few files. Last year it lag till I was able to play the first time or compress the sequence. Start playing with sequences in the morning so hope this all works out.

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Yeh, it was definately better when compressed and after first time but it still made all other pixels (e.g house outline) lag then go super quick to catch up.

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My question is this...

 

In the Pixel Editor, how would you do a smooth fade of red to blue to green across all the elements of your display (One master prop) in time to music, as in Fade for .5 sec, then stay on for 7 sec, and then do a .5 sec fade across the house to the next color. I guess you could call this a 'Holdman effect'


The only way that I can think to do this effectively is create these fades across a full resolution video, and then play the video in the pixel editor

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You open the .lms file in PE, add what you want to it.  Save Intensity data.  This will produce another file with extension .lpe.  You then open that file in SE.  Once its in there though it cannot be edited.

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Correct Shell. I am playing with it now and watch the incands and pixels. Looks like everything is working well so far and the file size is a heck of a lot smaller. Looks like Matt was able to make the LOR channels import correctly into the PE. I would like to see the PE export back out into the SE for last minute changes. 

 

What you think Matt? Is it something that can be done? 

 

Jeff

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+1 I would also like to see a legacy export for the pixel editor. Not everyone has a large pixel count and can easily run everything straight through sequence editor. I would like to be able to create the effects in pixel editor then still make mods to it in sequence editor to match up with effects from other display elements.

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My question is this...

 

In the Pixel Editor, how would you do a smooth fade of red to blue to green across all the elements of your display (One master prop) in time to music, as in Fade for .5 sec, then stay on for 7 sec, and then do a .5 sec fade across the house to the next color. I guess you could call this a 'Holdman effect'

The only way that I can think to do this effectively is create these fades across a full resolution video, and then play the video in the pixel editor

 

Have you reviewed the Pixel Editor Introduction presentation under Support > Documentation? Or viewed "Pixel Editor Introduction

Part 2" under Support > Video Tutorials? Both show you how to create cross-fading effects. Use the cross-fade technique to create a series of colorwash effects - one for each of your desired colors.

 

This would be done on a prop group containing all of your RGB props.

 

No importing from SE is required. Cheers,

 

Matt

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have you reviewed the Pixel Editor Introduction presentation under Support > Documentation? Or viewed "Pixel Editor Introduction

Part 2" under Support > Video Tutorials? Both show you how to create cross-fading effects. Use the cross-fade technique to create a series of colorwash effects - one for each of your desired colors.

 

This would be done on a prop group containing all of your RGB props.

 

No importing from SE is required. Cheers,

 

Matt

 

Hey Matt,

 

 I think we are talking about two different things. I want to do a fade that 'wipes' across my display, so my individual pixels in each prop will do a fade starting at the left, and then 'chasing' on until everything is lit up in that color, and then i would like to hold that color for 7 seconds, and then do another fade, this time possibly from the top pixels in my display and 'chases' to the bottom pixels so it looks like a fade across my house, not just a cross dissolve... more of a wipe. The only way i can think of this working is to create a video in FCPX that uses keyframes, and then i edit how i want my colors to fade to the music, and upload the video file into the PE. 

 

 Would that be the best method to do that? I've looked at all the effects in the PE and I don't think any of the effects can execute that easily. 

 

Matt

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Hey Matt,

 

 I think we are talking about two different things. I want to do a fade that 'wipes' across my display, so my individual pixels in each prop will do a fade starting at the left, and then 'chasing' on until everything is lit up in that color, and then i would like to hold that color for 7 seconds, and then do another fade, this time possibly from the top pixels in my display and 'chases' to the bottom pixels so it looks like a fade across my house, not just a cross dissolve... more of a wipe. The only way i can think of this working is to create a video in FCPX that uses keyframes, and then i edit how i want my colors to fade to the music, and upload the video file into the PE. 

 

 Would that be the best method to do that? I've looked at all the effects in the PE and I don't think any of the effects can execute that easily. 

 

Matt

Create a new track in SE that has all of your props from left to right in order, then do a chase in the PE 

 

SPaschall

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