Hey folks, just a heads up.......

[David Barnett]

Michael Collins (Holiday Lights designer) has just released the awaited update to HLD 4.x

He's still working on the updated help file; so the old documention is still in the new update.

I think if you play around with the software, you can figure most if not of everything using the prgram.

Some things i have learned thus far. there is now an isolation feature. So let's say you have some red/geen lights on the house in seperate chanels.

You decide you want to change them to a different color/type etc. Well now you go to the specific ch. your layered lights are located..ie Controller 1 Channel 1.

If you then click on the Channel number, it isolates all the other lights so you jsut have the section of lights for Controller 1 Ch 1...pretty cool I think.

Another nice feature.....if you have bulb connect selected, when drawing the light section; it just treats it that you drew 1 bulb..saving a lot on memory.

The update will convert your old stuff. However, i was told to get the best benefit from the changes...to redo your setup again.

Mega Tree changes...Better!

When you setup your tree, and lay out your lights...you can click anywhere now; and it will draw the strand for you.

Also, when rotating(orbiting) the tree, it now jsut turns the tree frame and not the whole scene. BIG improvement.

I know there are others, when Michael catches up withthe documentation...we'll know more. Hopefully soon, he'll post the updated changes.

So, for those that are using HLD 4.x; get the update..I think you'll be rather pleased witht he improvements.

Oh yeah, another change I think is a timesaver. You can now import your LOR channel config into HLD 4.x...then you jsut have to lay down your lights..saves a lot of time.

Finally, some folks had some trouble with the update. On the forum there is a solution from Michael regarding the problems. I reccommend following that procedure. I had update problems, but after d/l the appropriate files...HLD works just fine.

Hope this helps fellow HLD users.

Best,

David

[traveler911]

Sounds like a great update... and to think, I was just thinking about uninstalling it. I will DL the update, and check it out.

Thanks for the heads up.

[David Barnett]

hi traveler. I recently discovered that the lor inport has a bug. Michael is aware of it, and is in the process of fixing the problem. apparently some other anomalies popped up as well, so he's working on another update..hopefully soon. also coming out with updated documentation.

I would still recommend giving the update a chance. You may have to redo your setup to take full advantage of the changes, but if your show isn't too big..shouldn't take too long. :-)

Best,

David

[jimswinder]

David Barnett wrote:

Oh yeah, another change I think is a timesaver. You can now import your LOR channel config into HLD 4.x...then you jsut have to lay down your lights..saves a lot of time.

I don't see this feature anyway...can you point me in the right direction?

[David Barnett]

Hi Jim...see above. there is a bug in the import of the lor channel stuff. Michael is aware of thr problem..hopefully fixed real soon.

When it works, you click on the LOR icon in the lower right side, it will open a menu to either connect hld-lor or allow import of your channel config file.

it will be a timesaver when fixed I believe.

Best,

David

[Dan C]

I just downloaded and installed the the version 4 software.

my first thoughts are this would be pretty cool way to visualize the lights. I setup a few strings of lights, and connected to LOR. it played for the first 10-15 seconds, and then stopped, Now I can't ge it to connect again.

It seemed very clunky to use. there were no hoverover descriptions on the buttons which would be nice.


movement around the 3d space should be much smoother with the mouse. I work with 3D Cad Applications for a living, so it seemed very difficult for me to move around.


The ability to have multi colored straight strings of lights was great!

The software ran extremely slow! There are all kinds of suggestions to watch the memory requirements. With the computers and amount of memory we have now, I don't think this should be a problem. especially with accelerated video cards.

It could be a pretty good software, but it lacks the ease of use and its prett slow.

Oh, one other thing. My Kasperski Antivirus software reported a Keylogger in it.

I hope that is a false positive.

[David Barnett]

Hi Dan. Make sure your version of HLD is 4.0.1.8. This is the newest updated version with a lot of fixes. Also, I beleieve it's in the about window, that you are running directx in the hardware mode and not software. It will sometimes shift to software mode, making things quite slow. It is under the Help/About screen say render;directx9, if yours says software and or directx7 your running an older version.

With just a few lights up, HLD-LOR should run fairly fast. If you have the update, it should be even better.

Also, I believe, there is some mention regarding the anti-virus stuff on the holidaylights website. I think it's under the support tab.

If you have an older version of HLD, go to the forum area, the top thread is the release of version 4.0.1.8. d/l and install. :-) It should load up as a Red box

When I lay out some lights, then hover over them, in the lower lrft corner, I'll get a description. Also, try turning on the HUD, see if that will give the info you would like to see.

Be more than happy to try and help anyway I can, via here or PM. I don't have a dog in this hunt; I just happen to like HLD, and as the enhancement get fixed...even more so.

Best,

David

EDIT; this is what is posted in the support tab on the holidaysoft website:





Support












[align=left]*Note: If you have Trend Micro or BitDefender software running it may block the program from running. If this problem occurs you will get an error message "runtime error List expected for handler". You may need to temporarily disable that software while running Holiday Lights Designer.[/align]
[align=left]REEdit: Dan, and all, jsut checked on the newer version. If you hover over the buttons, you'll see a description in the lower left corner. Hope this helps.
[/align]

[Dan C]

Thanks for the help. I just downloaded the 30 day trial from the website, so I would have assumed it was the most recent version. Apparently its not. it downloaded version 4.0.1.5 and it was using DX 7.0. No wonder its so slow!!!

I'll try and get the new verson and let you know how that works.

Hopefully that solves a lot of my problems.

Thanks again.



Dan






Edit. I downloaded the upgrade. When I tried to install it. I got this error.

"the upgrade patch cannot be installed by the windows installer service because the program to be upgraded may be missing or the upgrade patch may update a different version of the program. Verify that the progam to be upgraded exists on your computer and that you have the correct upgrade patch."

Yes I have the program on my computer. I even tried a reinstall. but still go that error.

[David Barnett]

Hi Dan, did you follow the info. in this link?

http://holidaysoft.com/UserForums/index.php?PHPSESSID=lepnobah30s9tmj9suq4bgfns3&topic=187.0

Might help.

Best,

David

[Dan C]

well, the previous version was working just fine. So i did the updated and got that error message. Just to be sure there wasn't something weird going on. I followed those directions. I clicked on the download link, and started the install. once it got going, it asked me for a registration number.

Maybe I should have been more clear. I'm just trying the demo out. and with this much trouble and effort to get it to work, I'm just about at the end patience.

It should not be this difficult. and FYI, I am proficent in installing configuring and building computers.

In case it matters, which it shouldn't. I'm running windows 7 64 bit.

thanks for your help though.



Dan

[David Barnett]

Hi Dan, sorry you are having so much difficulty. Not sure why it's asking for a reg number if you are just doing the demo.

Wish there was more I could do to help. Maybe a quick message to support?

Hopefully, you can get things running OK....the update does help somewhat.

Best,

David

[David Barnett]

Recently ran the update of HLD. Seems Micheal has secretly fixed the LOR import thing.

Don't know of any other fixes at this time.

Best,

David

[gizmomkr]

I was reading over the HLD pages (and quite new to lor) I just wanted to make sure I understood it right - HLD is just a Visualizer tool, Correct ?

I didnt see anywhere they talked about sequencing - Is this strictly to visualize the output ?

[Don]

gizmomkr wrote:

I was reading over the HLD pages (and quite new to lor) I just wanted to make sure I understood it right - HLD is just a Visualizer tool, Correct ?

I didnt see anywhere they talked about sequencing - Is this strictly to visualize the output ?

Yes, HLD is a visualizer program. I've never known it to have sequencing abilities.

[David Barnett]

gizmomkr, let me clarify. HLD is indeed a visualizer.

However, in order to be able to tell the lights what to do, when interfaced with LOR...you still have to set up channels and controlers.

What I meant by the import, when the updated HLD was released that particular feature had a bug.

The feature allowed you to import your LOR channel config. file into HLD, saving a little bit of typing and setup time. Then you just had to draw your lights/trees etc on the corect channel/controller.

That is now fixed. When creating a new HLD project, you can import youtr LOR channel config. file into HLD..saving some time.

Hope this clarifies things.

Best,

David