How can I force a channel name association vs LOR channel in visualizer

[brianfox]

[jimswinder]

you could make two visualizations...

one with the mega tree and one with the animation....

would be a pain to flip back and forth...

I would just have both of them in the one visualization and know only one is working at a time...

EDIT:

you could also assign either the Mega Tree or animation a Unit ID you are not using (just to view it on the visualizer) then change it back for your actual show...

[brianfox]

I have an interesting situation that I need some help with.
I have a mega tree that I control with 15 channels of an LOR box.
Physically, in front of that tree, I have a large animated wireframe that I control with the same 15 channels. I use a relay to actually control the mega tree vs the wireframe. I shared the channels, since the customer can only "see" one element or the other.

In the S2 software, I got the animator to represent this situation nicely using the following method:
I had 15 rows named MegaTree (1) through MegaTree (15). They were set to 15 channels of the LOR box.
I also had 15 rows named Wireframe (1) through Wireframe (15). They were set to the same 15 channels of the same LOR box.

Clearly, this showed up as a warning in the Verifier, but it allowed me to create animation in the timeline that was associated with EITHER the wireframe vs mega tree. In fact, I created a Mega Tree track and Wireframe track that showed only the animation associated with that particular element. It was up to me to make sure they didn't overlap in the tiemline.

In the Animator, it allowed me to draw a mega tree and the wireframe separately, and because the animator only lights up segments based on CHANNEL NAME, it would animate the mega tree separately from the wireframe.

In S3, I really like the Visualizer, but unfortunately, it only lets me visualize actual assigned channels from the LOR boxes. This means that both my wireframe and mega tree are linked to the same channels in the Visualizer, so they both animate at the same time - clearly not what I want.

Now, I was hoping the VIRTUAL channel would be my answer. So in the Visualizer, I dis-associated the LOR box from the mega tree and wireframe drawings. I made sure to use the same names that I set up in the Sequence Editor. The wireframe channels in the Visualizer matched exactly the corresponding names in the Sequence Editor and likewise with the Mega Tree.

Unfortunately, the result was that neither neither animation lit up in the Visualizer. It turns out that the culprit is the Sequence Editor!

You can ONLY specify a virtual channel in the Sequence Editor. If you associate an LOR channel in the Sequence Editor, then it ONLY sends out the LOR components (channel, ID, network, etc) to the Visualizer. It ONLY sends out the channel name (i.e. virtual channel) if no box is specified.

What I WISH the Sequence Editor would do is send out ALL of the information it has (LOR components + Channel Name). That way, I could set up a virtual channel at the Visualizer level - it would FIRST try to associate with LOR components, and if no matches were found, it would THEN try to associate with the channel name. This would solve my problem. My Mega Tree would be associated to the Sequence Editor via channel name, as would the wireframe. Each would visualize based on that name - not by the channel.

Am I missing something here?
Is there another way to do what I want without changes to the S3 program?

Can someone explain to me why the Visualizer associates by channel number, rather than by name (like animator did)? I mean, why not import a Channel Configuration file into the visualizer and associate channel names with visualizations? Whether you change a channel assignment or a channel name in the Sequence Editor, it is NOT reflected in the Visualizer automatically, so I don't see the reason for the switchover from channel name to channel number. In fact, if the Channel Configuration file was linked to the Visualizer, it could do a check each time it is opened to see if channel names or channel assignments changed from the last time it was opened, and ask the user to correct the discrepancies. Maybe that would be a nice future enhancement.

[brianfox]

It was suggested to me to use two visualizers. Although I can open multiple instances of the Visualizer, it appears that only the first one opened can be linked to the Sequence Editor.

[jimswinder]

brianfox wrote:

It was suggested to me to use two visualizers. Although I can open multiple instances of the Visualizer, it appears that only the first one opened can be linked to the Sequence Editor.

sorry..didn't mean to imply that you could play them at the same time...

you could also assign either the Mega Tree or animation a Unit ID you are not using (just to view it on the visualizer) then change it back for your actual show...which is easily done now with S3...

[LOR Staff]

The Visualizer is a hardware simulator, and so it uses the same techniques that a regular piece of hardware uses, specifically the channel 'key' (Device Type, Network, Unit, Circuit). Only if the key can not be built (IE, there is no device type) will it send the channel's name as the key.

The only thing I can tell you to do is to put the Tree and the Wireframe on separate levels. You can then turn off the simulation of one or the other and only see the item you want. However, you can't do that programmatically - it's a property you'll have to set in the Visualizer before you simulate.

You could also put the channels for the tree on a different network as the wire-frame in both the sequence editor and the visualizer. You could then simulate both, but you'll have to remember to change the network of the one you changed back to your normal network to actually run the show.

[LOR Staff]

brianfox wrote:

It was suggested to me to use two visualizers.  Although I can open multiple instances of the Visualizer, it appears that only the first one opened can be linked to the Sequence Editor.

Unless you have a piece of software that re-broadcasts the UDP packets (something we don't support) only 1 visualizer can be controlled at a time.

[brianfox]

jimswinder wrote:

sorry..didn't mean to imply that you could play them at the same time...

you could also assign either the Mega Tree or animation a Unit ID you are not using (just to view it on the visualizer) then change it back for your actual show...which is easily done now with S3...

By "easily", I assume you mean there's now some macro-level way to change unit IDs within a sequence file. How do I do this?

[brianfox]

DevMike wrote:

The Visualizer is a hardware simulator, and so it uses the same techniques that a regular piece of hardware uses, specifically the channel 'key' (Device Type, Network, Unit, Circuit). Only if the key can not be built (IE, there is no device type) will it send the channel's name as the key.

The only thing I can tell you to do is to put the Tree and the Wireframe on separate levels. You can then turn off the simulation of one or the other and only see the item you want. However, you can't do that programmatically - it's a property you'll have to set in the Visualizer before you simulate.

You could also put the channels for the tree on a different network as the wire-frame in both the sequence editor and the visualizer. You could then simulate both, but you'll have to remember to change the network of the one you changed back to your normal network to actually run the show.

I acknowledge that given the capabilities of the current Visualizer, there are some options that I have to work with.

Could the issue be attacked from the Visualizer side in a future release (through software, of course), by using a second channel as a logical interlock? For instance, I need to have a Relay channel, which is either on or off. That is what selects what groups of lights will be controlled by the LOR channels. Could the state of a channel (off or not-off) be someday used as a logic gate for another channel in the Virtualizer?

I'm not trying to solve a problem that is unique to me; I know there are a good number of people who have used relays on their boxes.

I should note that I vastly simplified my situation. The truth is that I have four LOR boxes that are relay driven. My Mega Tree is 60 channels and the animated wireform is in the high 50's.

[jimswinder]

brianfox wrote:

By "easily", I assume you mean there's now some macro-level way to change unit IDs within a sequence file. How do I do this?

Open a sequence and go to

TOOLS>CHANNEL CONFIGURATION>CHANGE CONTROLLER

You can then change the Unit ID..of course it changes all 16 channels...

[LOR Staff]

I'll add it to the wishlist, but I'll be frank: You are the first one to ask for that.

[magish01]

Oh Oh! It's going to be hard to find DevMike now......His last post sez "I'll be frank". So are we now going to look for DevFrank???