Superstar Request

[MazdaFan]

I would like to place a request for future versions of SS.

 

It would be nice to have the option, that when you export to sequencer, SS automagically creates RGB channels instead of exporting three seperate R G and B channels.  I find myself spending a lot of time converting to RGB channels once it has been imported to SE.

 

Thanks for the consideration.

 

Still love your SS software, and hope the number of channel/fixture issues are solved between SS and Visualizer (I already ran out of fixtures in visualizer, and this is only my first year doing RGB).  While breaking things up is a work-around, its just not practical when working with LOTS of RGB elements and trying to synchronize an entire house/yard.

 

I'm afraid that if things don't improve for next year I'm going to have to switch to another sequencing system... *sigh* 

 

 

Thanks for a great program and your consideration of my suggestion.

 

Jamie

 

(Sorry.. that last bit was off topic)

[BrianBruderer]

v3.10.12 of the S3 download that was released 10/03/13 has an added feature to help support DMX lights.

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.

I did my testing using vertical strings. It turns out there is a bug that the lights don't get mapped properly if the string is laid out horizontally. I have it fixed on my computer, if you need it to work for horizontal strings let me know and I can give you instructions on how to get an SSEdit.exe with the fix in it.

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.

Also, look at the exported file, I believe it exports as 3 separate channels as you requested. Let me know if this matches what you were requesting.

[MazdaFan]

Brian,

  I don't have the issue with the horizontal lights THIS YEAR... but its coming next year.  Doing the eves of the house next year and there will be lots of horizontal strings.

 

I'll play with the DMX keyword and let you know how it maps out to the DMX RGBs.  If that saves me fixtures, there is still hope I can keep my favorite editor.

 

As for the exporting, I was actually requesting that it export as an RGB group instead of seperate R, G, and B channels.  When I set up my RGBs I have them set as a "single channel" so that I can adjust colors as a single entity as opposed to trying to figure out how much red, how much blue, how much green.  When I import SS's file, I have to go through and convert all of the imported sequence to RGB channels (group them) before I can paste into my sequence.  I was just wondering if there could be an option to export them as grouped RGBs.  I know its a hassle to figure out the RGB grouping, but it would make life a LOT easier on this end.

 

If no one else has had issues with it then there probably isn't enough demand to make changes, and I understand that, but it was just a request.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

Jamie

[BrianBruderer]

Next year I can figure out how to export with the RGB grouping. It's too late to try to do it this year.

[vvolf27]

Jaime,

 

I use DMX lights as well, WS 2811 with Sandevices E681/E682 see the link for how I cut down on time.

 

http://www.superstarlights.com/Other/ExportingDMXRibbons.php

 

It helps to cut down on the time to get my Super Star sequence into the LOR sequencer.

 

Hope it helps!

 

Jason

Edited October 13, 2013 by vvolf27

[MazdaFan]

Brian,

  You mentioned being able to get a new copy of SS that did not have the horizontal bug.  It occured to me that I needed the horizontal feature so that I see if the visualization pairing works properly.  Would you mind passing along the instructions to get the new SSEdit.exe?

 

Jamie

[BrianBruderer]

Send an email to brian@superstarlights.com and I will send the instructions.