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LOR and dropbox


Greg Doughty

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How many of us use dropbox for sequencing? I am now as I lost 4 sequences of 64 channels. I am, however, running into an issue with the visualizer. I saved my house pic on dropbox, but the sequencer can't follow the path from one computer to another. Is there a way to standardize the path?

Thanks,

Greg

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Greg Doughty wrote:

How many of us use dropbox for sequencing? I am now as I lost 4 sequences of 64 channels. I am, however, running into an issue with the visualizer. I saved my house pic on dropbox, but the sequencer can't follow the path from one computer to another. Is there a way to standardize the path?

Thanks,

Greg


A little confused.

What software version are you using?

Are you talking about the sequence editor or the new S3 visualizer (S2 didn't have a vis, only an animation)

Do you also have the pic, config file and sequence file on your local computer, or are you trying to do everything from files remotely stored on dropbox?
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bisquit476 wrote:

I believe you need to have a copy of the picture on each computer for it to work in the visualizer.


Does S3 save the animation as a layer? In that case, I can do that.
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JBullard wrote:

Greg Doughty wrote:
How many of us use dropbox for sequencing? I am now as I lost 4 sequences of 64 channels. I am, however, running into an issue with the visualizer. I saved my house pic on dropbox, but the sequencer can't follow the path from one computer to another. Is there a way to standardize the path?

Thanks,

Greg


A little confused.

What software version are you using?

Are you talking about the sequence editor or the new S3 visualizer (S2 didn't have a vis, only an animation)

Do you also have the pic, config file and sequence file on your local computer, or are you trying to do everything from files remotely stored on dropbox?


I am using S3. I am doing everything from dropbox.

Greg
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I'm not sure how it does it, but I could import and use your visualizer file, but unless I have your picture somewhere on my computer, the only thing that shows in my visualizer is a blank picture with your fixtures and props. At least that's how it worked between my desktop and netbook.

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bisquit476 wrote:

I'm not sure how it does it, but I could import and use your visualizer file, but unless I have your picture somewhere on my computer, the only thing that shows in my visualizer is a blank picture with your fixtures and props. At least that's how it worked between my desktop and netbook.


Okay, I will keep playing. I have a lot to do between now and lights on on Thanksgiving. Thanks!

Greg
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A quick look at the innards of a LOR Visualization file (.lee) show that the pictures is saved via an absolute path. (Example: C:lordatanight.jpg")

Thus if your picture is not in the exact same path on both computers, then you will get an error.

Same goes for the S2/S3 animation window. If it's not in the same spot, you will get an error message.

Make sure everything is in the same path on all computers, and you shouldn't run into this issue.

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DevMike wrote:

Don is correct. The visualizer must be able to resolve the absolute path to the picture. That's a little different from the rest of the Visualizer/S3 suite, which allow for 'relative' paths. We went this way because pictures really aren't part of the simulation or visualizer - they are simply referenced (and most people will keep pics of their house/stage OUTSIDE of the the LOR path).

Let me ask the higher powers if they want to be able to make the picture path relative too. If so, I'll put in a fix for it ASAP.

I don't have moderator access to this forum, however I'm going to have this msg moved to the Visualizer form.

This is a timely thread:

Was just thinking of using DropBox just for this purpose and did not know if it would work.

Thanks
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Mea maxima culpa... What I said just didn't sit well with me. I'm glad I went looking....

The Background file name behaves the same as every other file name in the suite. That is, if the picture is in the Visualizations path, then the pointer to it is NOT absolute, but relative. What I said in the previous post is 100% wrong.

What that means is that as long as your picture is within the Visualizer path, you can freely move around between computers and the visualizer will find the pic.

For example, assume you have 2 machines. On machine 1 your absolute LOR data path is "D:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsLight-O-Rama", while on the other it is "C:Documents and SettingsJoe BlowMy DocumentsLight-O-Rama"

Which means your Visualizations paths are:

D:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaVisualizations

and

C:Documents and SettingsJoe BlowMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaVisualizations

As long as your background picture is somewhere in that first Visualizations path, if you copy it over to the second machine the visualizer will find it. Here is why:

On Machine 1, the Visualizer will save the pointer to your file as (for example) 'editormyhouse.jpg'. It saves it that way since it KNOWS that the file is in it's path.

On Machine 2, the Visualizer will see the pointer as 'editormyhouse.jpg', and say AH HA! That's not the full path! It will then prepend the correct structure to the front and make it 'C:Documents and SettingsJoe BlowMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaVisualizationseditormyhouse.jpg'

...BUT...

The only time the Visualizer can do that is if the picture is IN THE VISUALIZATIONS PATH. So let's say that you have those 2 machines again, and in the first one you create a visualizer and the picture you use is:

D:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturesmyhouse.jpg

That is definitely not in the visualizations path, so the Visualizer has to save the WHOLE thing as a pointer.

Now you copy over the file to the second machine (and perhaps you even copy the picture into C:Documents and SettingsJoe BlowMy DocumentsMy Picturemyhouse.jpg ). When you load the Visualizer up in this instance, it looks at the picture pointer and says: AH HA! This is a full path, because it's not something under my control. It then attempts to load the file from D:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturesmyhouse.jpg, and fails.


Ok Mike, sum it all up in a sentence (and this goes for the entire suite, not just the Visualizer):

If you are going to run S3 on multiple computers that have different data paths, keep ALL your files in the correct sections of the 'Light-O-Rama' directory.

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I have a lightorama.cmd in my startup folder that looks like this:

subst S: C:UsersKeithDropboxLight-O-Rama
c:
cd "C:Program Files (x86)Light-O-Rama"
start LORTray.exe


I start the LOTTray in the batch file too because if it is in the startup folder it sometimes runs before the drive substitution.

On my show computer the file looks almost the same:

subst S: C:Userslight-o-ramaDropboxLight-O-Rama
c:
cd "C:Program Files (x86)Light-O-Rama"
start LORTray.exe

The key is mapping a drive letter to the drop box folder.

SO far it's worked like a charm. I personally combine dropbox with crashPlan becase crashPlan will keep multiple versions of my files too.

Here's a link to dropbox: http://db.tt/xUl8wU0 if you use it we both get an extra 250 MB of space.

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  • 3 years later...

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