Superstar and DMX?

[mark obermiller]

I making 6 meter long smart strips that will have 60 pixels or 180 channels ea.  I will be controlling them with a Sans Devices 6804 controller using E1.31 Ethernet.

 

Is there any way to set up Superstar for this 60 pixel configuration?  I currently have an 8 CCR license but because of the high cost of CCR's I have decided to go the DMX route.

 

Any plans of making Superstar more diversified?

[dougd]

That will work perfectly fine in super star. Just draw it out in the visualizer then import that vis file into ss.

[BrianBruderer]

SuperStar will support anything that can be done in the Visualizer. Currently you can define 3rd party DMX lights in the visualizer, but you have to define each pixel in its own fixture. So it is a bit of a pain, but many people have done it.

I would like to eventually make it easier to do 3rd Party DMX lights in SuperStar.

[Ron Boyd]

SuperStar will support anything that can be done in the Visualizer. Currently you can define 3rd party DMX lights in the visualizer, but you have to define each pixel in its own fixture. So it is a bit of a pain, but many people have done it.

I would like to eventually make it easier to do 3rd Party DMX lights in SuperStar.

This would be a good Idea, not only in Superstar, but the Visualizer as well. Right now, if you create a 16 x 50 Pixel tree using Non-CCD items, you're already halfway to the visualizer fixture limit.

[Ed.Faranda]

I am currently researching the use of DMX 1.31 and trying to choose which software package would work best to control large DMX setups.  As a LOR S3 user, I would prefer to use SuperStar in programming DMX.  But, if it is diffucult to setup or has limitations, it could make it tough to use the software.

[BrianBruderer]

I am working on a way to define more easily define dmx strings using a visualization and not have the problem with the fixture limitation of 1024. Hoping to get it in the next release.

[MazdaFan]

I created a small utility to place DMX RGB strings into visualizer so they could be imported into Super Star. 

 

I have enough RGB elements that I program them seperately... Corners, Arches, Megatree, etc... This utility creates a set of horizontal lines (currently) that represent your RGB strings and outputs to a file that can be read by visualizer, therefore being able to be imported into SS.  I simply input my starting DMX network and channel, the number of strings of lights and the number of lights on those channels, where I want them to appear on the screen, and a channel prefix to be prepended to each fixture/channel name and it creates a matrix of the described size. 

 

This beats the HECK out of adding each RGB light and then having to set all of the channels for each one.

 

The utility is small enough (661 KB rar'ed. Source included)  to be received by most any email address, so if you would like a copy drop me a PM.

 

 

Jamie Tomlinson

[Ralph D]

if you go over your limit in ss will that cause lor or ss to stop working i mean not send power to lights? dmx?  

[BrianBruderer]

SuperStar exports a file that the Sequence Editor can read. Other than that, SuperStar does not interact with any of the other S3 modules. Going over the channel limit of SuperStar makes it so you cannot export that file, but it does not make anything stop working.

[BrianBruderer]

The S3 download that was released as an open beta today has an added feature to help support DMX lights. The open beta announcement is here:

http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/28086-light-o-rama-version-31012-released-as-an-open-beta/

 

Go to the announcement and click on one of the links at the bottom to download v3.10.12

 

In this version there is a new keyword that you can put in the comment line of a Prop that tells superstar that the prop is to be treated as DMX lights. Note that the keyword only works in a prop, it will not work in a fixture. To use this new feature do the following:

 

1) Launch the Visualizer

2) Click on the "CCR Draw Wizard" tool, this is the one that has a multi-colored circle with a 2 segment line on top of it. (do NOT use the "Draw Cosmic Color Ribbon" tool)

3) Do a click and drag to draw a single line, double click to terminate the line.

4) A dialog box titled "Number of Pixels" will appear, Type in a name for the "Prop (CCR) Name" and then change the number to the total number of pixels in your DMX string. This number can be any number from 2 to 500. In other words, don't worry about having it be more than the number of pixels in a CCR which is 50. In most of my testing I used 60 as the number of pixels in a string.

5) After clicking on OK, a dialog box will appear titled "New/Existing fixture". Use the default which is "Create as many new Fixtures as required (Recommended)"

6) After clicking on OK, the visualizer will create a string that will have one or more CCRs in it, enough to create as many pixels as you specified. Don't worry about defining the Unit IDs for the CCRs, you can leave them undefined because SuperStar will ignore them.

7) On the right side of the visualizer are two buttons labeled "Fixtures" and "Props". Click on the "Props" button and then double click on the prop that you just created.

8) In the comment line of the prop, add the text "superstar dmx=<universe>,<channel>"   (do not enter the double quotes into the comment line, just the text inside the double quotes)

    <universe> is the universe to use for the first pixel of the prop and <channel> is the channel to use for the first pixel of the prop.

   For example, if you had 6 strings with 60 pixels each, you would add 6 props and you could add the following in the comment line of the props:

   superstar dmx=1,1

   superstar dmx=1,181

   superstar dmx=1,361

   superstar dmx=2,31

   superstar dmx=2,231

   superstar dmx=2,410

 

In the above example, the third string starts with universe=1 and channel=361. SuperStar will automatically bump up to the next universe when it runs out of channels for the current universe. So the last 10 pixels in the third string will use universe 2.

 

Also, as noted earlier, when SuperStar sees the keywords "superstar dmx=" then it ignores the unit id settings in the CCRs that are in the prop and uses the universe, channel settings that you specify.

 

Note that because SuperStar is using the comment line to supporting dmx, you cannot play the exported sequence back to the visualization because the Visualizer doesn't recognize the dmx settings that you placed in the comment line.

 

Also, the only way I had to test this was to export some sequences and then play them to a visualization that I created using each dmx pixel as a separate fixture. I do not have any DMX lights so I have not tested this on actual DMX lights. I would love to have someone with DMX lights test this and confirm that it works on actual DMX lights.

[BrianBruderer]

Has anyone noticed the previous posting I made? If so, please reply. I would really like someone to try the new dmx keyword.

[TitanBry77]

Im very interested in Superstar.  I have pixel ribbons that outline the horizontal portion of my house, equals out to roughly 212 pixels.  Would Superstar help with that?  I see some folks doing really cool effects especially on the Aussie forums with pixels and it seems that would take forever in the LOR sequence editor.  It's tough enough trying to chase a color within a color, the best way I can do it is with White through either Red Green or Blue.

[BrianBruderer]

Create a visualization of your pixels, import them into SuperStar and there are a variety of cool effects you can do. The latest effect that was added was "VisEffects" that allow you to do a smooth sweep across your pixels based upon their coordinates in the visualization, meaning a smooth sweep across your display.

[TitanBry77]

Ok that sounds just like what I need. I am not sure how to create a visualization of the pixels though. Right now the only way I've been able to see what they do is create ccr devices in the vizualizer program. Is there a different way I should be doing this?

I am on version 3.8x as well, does that matter? Your earlier post about the beta version has me very interested in upgrading.

[BrianBruderer]

The normal way to do DIY DMX RGB lights in the visualizer is to create each pixel as an single bulb. It is very tedious to do manually. As someone else mentioned there are some tools people have created that will aid you in creating DMX pixels in the visualizer. But I do not know how you get them, should be able to find out somewhere in the forums, I'm just not sure where. Hopefully someone else can point you in the right direction.

[Ron Boyd]

Here's one:    http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/26528-rgb-pixel-utility/?p=252006

 

and here's the other:   http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/28138-creating-dmx-pixel-strings-in-visualizer/?p=264292

 

These are the only two I know of.

[TitanBry77]

Ok thanks for the info guys. Ill check it out when I get home.

[TitanBry77]

Ok, I got all the files / props and everything setup using MazdaFans app.  It worked great but I cant find any of the presets like VizEffects etc in Superstar.  Is there superstar primer somewhere to get me familiar?

[BrianBruderer]

To do VisEffects, launch the Morph dialog box and select the "VisEffect" checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box, then you apply the morph to the visualization the same way you would apply a morph to the sequencing grid.

If you do not see the VisEffect checkbox at the bottom of the morph dialog box, download the most recent version of S3 then you will see it.

[TitanBry77]

Ok, I don't see anything like that so I must be on an old version, I'm on version 3.82 advanced license.  I guess I don't get that effect.  I'm not sure that Superstar is what I'm looking for maybe its more for pixel trees and matrixes?