bob_moody Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 After reading some of the radar blips about a new animator, it might be able to do exactly what I am about to ask.I am looking for a way or method to draw a yard grid. Drawing the grid is easy of course its the interaction at each intersection that throws me.Any suggestions? Will the "new" animator allow for this? (and the million dollar question... ) Will it come out before my subscriptions to upgrades is over? Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace_master Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Are you trying to decide how to lay your strings, or are you just looking for the software to program what you already have designed?Are you working with individually controlled bulbs or whole strings?There is a thing referred to as a Matrix that you can draw your individual lights on and create frames (like individual video frames) for your show. I plan on using this method for a 'video screen' I plan to make using the new Cosmix Color Bulbs as the pixels. I haven't heard if this programming method is going to be incorporated into the new LOR software or not... I sure hope so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_moody Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 I will be laying strings. 8 channels horizontal and 8 channels vertical.While programming in LOR II, I wanted to use the animator to see the grid for horizontal and vertical chases along with the rest of the display elements.Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace_master Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 I think I know what you're asking... to deal with the crossing pattern, I would say that you should draw the horizontal strings in and proceed with a quilt pattern (over/under/over...) for each vertical string.You would of coarse end up with a grid that appears more as a rectangle than a square in the animator, but you can get the general feel of how the display will look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 bob_moody wrote: I am looking for a way or method to draw a yard grid. Drawing the grid is easy of course its the interaction at each intersection that throws me. For now, why not just leave that pixel empty? Or draw the grid with broken lines and intersect them at those broken points? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Last year, I drew my lawn grid as a very sparse grid. I think i had at least 40 pixels top to bottom on my yard, and I only drew like 10 dots for each string going front to back. Each side of the sidewalk was about twice as wide, so I drew twice as many pixels. Zero issues with collisions, and was very easy to see what was going on in the animation.Of course I was using multi's as my strings. For some reason, when I remember multi color mini lights, my primary recollection is yellow, so it gets a nice bright color in the animation, making it easier to see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabian Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 bob_moody wrote: I will be laying strings. 8 channels horizontal and 8 channels vertical.While programming in LOR II, I wanted to use the animator to see the grid for horizontal and vertical chases along with the rest of the display elements.BobIt was pretty painful, but when I finally got this built I found it very useful. In this case there are actually two complete grids on each side of the yard. In order to make it fit the size limitation of the forums I had to really crank up the JPG compression so it doesn't look as good as the original, but you should be able to get the point:Fabian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Wow!! You actually have RGB channels drawn for each pixel in that middle row of mini trees? Looks like about a 1:1 mapping of real pixels to screen pixels. How does the animation window perform like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabian Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 -klb- wrote:Wow!! You actually have RGB channels drawn for each pixel in that middle row of mini trees? Looks like about a 1:1 mapping of real pixels to screen pixels. How does the animation window perform like that?If by "Wow!!". You mean, "that must have been really tedious an painful to do", then yes, you're on the money. But it was worth it. Yes, that a pixel for pixel mapping.The animation window performs wonderfully, much to my amazement. To be fair, the laptop used for sequencing is a quad core Dell Precision m4400 running 64bit win7, with 8 GB of RAM...Fabian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lkcubsrule Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Wow, and I thought my house was hard to draw! Nice job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scubado Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 HOLLY CRAP! I had fun doing 48 channels, yours is a work of art! :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scubado Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Up here I don't think doing a lawn grid or a roof would work well. We can get too much snow, easily thick enough to not see the light shine through. I'm thinking of coloring the snow from above without seeing the spots or floods. Has anyone tried this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_moody Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 I KNEW I should have sneaked into Fabian's house last year when he was showing me the setup and flashed his show computer .. LOL ...That gives me a place to start ...Thanks for all the feedback ...Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Hurrle Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 Nice work. How do you get a screen shot of your drawing? I have followed the instruction for Vista and can never do it. Do you need additional software?Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryb721 Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 Terry Hurrle wrote: Nice work. How do you get a screen shot of your drawing? I have followed the instruction for Vista and can never do it. Do you need additional software?ThanksPressing the "alt" button and "prt scr" button at the same time will copy the top window to your clipboard, then you can simple open paint paste the image (ctrl V) and save your image.Pressing "prt scr" only will copy the entire desk top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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