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Is there a faster way?


wbaker4

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I am starting to get things going with new additions for this year's lights.

 

I am adding 20 fixtures/props.  Each fixture/prop has 48 RGB pixels - each arranged in 16 columns, 3 pixels per column.  Pixel 1 is upper left, pixel 48 is lower right.   Each fixture/prop is placed next to each other - horizontally.

 

1   4      ------   43    46

2   5     -------   44    47

3   6     -------   45    48

 

 

I created a visualization file with 10 of these fixtures/props and loaded it into SuperStar.

 

Observation after setting 3 columns of pixels on for the third fixture, and setting starting y pos to -20 and ending y to 30, was an EXTREMELY slow and choppy update.

 

I have not yet tried loading this sequence into the Sequence Editor and running it with the visualizer. 

 

Is there a more efficient way to arrange my fixtures/props for Superstar so the updates are fast/more realistic?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Walt

Edited by wbaker4
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slow and choppy is not good. email your visualization file to brian@superstarlights.com and I will take a look at it.

 

The visualization file will end with .lee and should be at:

 

c:/ (your lightorama folder) / Visualizations / Editor

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Thanks Brian,

 

I will send you that tonight when I get home from work.

 

FYI - I just upgraded to S4 and downloaded all the new files.

 

Walt

Edited by wbaker4
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I got the files and looked at them. I was not able to reproduce the "choppy" behavior. But it maps to the sequencing grid in an undesirable way. You have "scrunch the sequencing grid" selected which causes it to map in an undesirable way. Without "scrunch the sequencing grid" selected it maps the first fixture in a good way, but not the ones thereafter.

 

In your actual display is each fixture placed the way you have it in the visualization? If so, it would work better to have the pixels laid out in horizontal rows.

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I was not able to get the choppy playback last night either.  Not sure what was going on the other night.

 

Yes - the visualization represents how my actual display will be laid out.

 

If I create the fixtures horizontally and specify the zig zag (folding), superstar does not work as I would like, especially when shifting columns of pixels.  Some move left, and others move right.

 

The way I created the fixtures in the visualization is the it appears to work best - plus it makes it much easier for me to go into the Sequence Editor and add effects manually, without having to worry about setting every 16th pixel on.

 

Why is the first fixture mapped correctly, and the others not?

 

Thanks again,

 

Walt

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I tried some different things and there are some bugs that are causing problems. One is that the visualizer matrix wizard stores some values that tells superstar what settings were used to create the matrix. But it turns out that if you used copy/paste within the visualizer, the matrix that gets pasted does not contain those values. So I believe that is what is causing the first prop to import properly and the ones thereafter do not.

 

I created 3 props using the matrix wizard each time, and then they imported in a line as you would expect.

 

But there is another issue here, the design of superstar is that you can import "horizontal" or "vertical." The idea is that if it is a vertical matrix you could import "vertical" and normally a vertical matrix will have the strings laid out vertically, and normally the vertical height of the matrix will be a large number of pixels. For example, it could be 50 pixels tall and 12 pixels wide and it is expected you would do this by having the strings run vertically, and you would have 12 strings.

 

In your case you have a "vertical" matrix because 3 pixels run vertically to form each column, and then you have 16 columns to form a 16x3 matrix. So you are expected to import it "vertical". But when importing vertical each column can be 360 pixels tall but you are limited to 64 columns. These limits were designed for the typical vertical trees where the pixel height can be a lot, and the number of strings is typically 64 or less.

 

You want to lay 20 of your props side by side so that you end up with a matrix that is 320 pixels wide and 3 pixels tall. But when importing vertically you can't be more than 64 pixels wide.

 

For a matrix that is 320 pixels wide, it is expected that you would import "horizontal" and that you would run your strings horizontally. So you would create props that are 50 pixels wide and 3 rows tall. And if you want to lay them end to end you need to click on the "superstar" button in each prop and assign a row and column. And realize that the row/column terminology gets reversed when importing horizontal. So the row/column of the first prop would be 1,1 and the row/column for the second prop would be 51,1 and the row/column for the third prop would be 101,1  etc.

 

I have attached a visualization with 6 props laid end to end and end up with a horizontal matrix that is 300 wide by 3 high. With this many pixels I am observing a little bit of "choppiness" in the playback. Depending on how fast your computer is you may observe some "choppiness". I don't have a solution for that.

 

When you import the file, set the sequencing grid "max length" to 300 and set "horizontal"

GarlandProp_50x3_laid_end_to_end_6_times_size2.lee

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Thanks for continuing to look at this Brian.

 

I did notice a difference in copying and pasting of the props, vs creating new ones.

 

I got to the point last night, after creating 8 props, that SuperStar reported an error of not being able to load the 7th prop - out of range.

 

I will continue to work with it.  I was hoping SuperStar could help me with some effects that are difficult to manually set in the Sequence Editor.  Perhaps using only 4 props, creating the effect and exporting to SE, and copying to multiple props will work..

 

Walt

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Did you try the visualization that I attached to the previous reply?

 

As mentioned in the previous post, you will want to do a horizontal matrix, which means you need to run the strands horizontally. You are currently running the 3 pixel vertical strands.

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Yes I tried it, but need to spend more time with it.  

 

I am rethinking my layout based upon your suggestion.  However a horizontal run of 100 pixels will not work.

 

I need to limit the total number of pixels to 96 per section, which would be 3 horizontal rows of 32 pixels.  This ends up using 15 channels rather than 10.

Edited by wbaker4
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You can stick with your 16x3 groups but run the strands horizontally. Attached is a visualization with 5 16x3 groups. Import it horizontal with "max length" set to 80 or more.

 

In this case you can use copy/paste in the visualizer and it still imports Ok. You can create more 16x3 groups, you need to click on the "superstar" button and set row/column for each group.

GarlandProp_16x3_topLeft_snake.lee

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