Stack the Vis Background for more room

[Denny]

I have not tried to use visualizer since it was introduced in S3.  My problem then was how to fit the props into a picture of a house 96 ft wide and a lot with 200 front feet.  In the animation window, I was able to use a straight down, aerial view.  What are the size limitations for props used in the visualizer?  In the animation window, many (most) of my elements are only a single square and not placed where they are physically located in the display.  

 

Guess I need to go back to the Visualizer and see if something similar can be accomplished.  Maybe I don't understand how its supposed to be used.  Guess I could always hook up my video projector so I can get a large enough image of the visualizer.

 

Just to take a picture, I had to do a panoramic shot with five photos stitched together.  The result was way too small to be of any use in he visualizer.  

 

I am definitely open to clarification of any misunderstandings I have of its use.

[LOR Staff]

You could do the exact same thing in the Vis....  Bring in your overhead picture, and use the 'Floodlight' tool to create single spots of light (like a square in your Animator).  

 

Of course, that is not using the Visualizer to it's fullest, but would let you convert what you have into something that is usable in the future.  Especially if you are going towards pixels.

[k6ccc]

Denny, you should be able to do the same thing with your overhead view in Visualizer.  There is no requirement to have a face on view in Visualizer.  Nor is there any requirement to place things in Visualizer in their actual locations - although that can cause some issues if imported into SuperStar and a morph across the yard is done.

 

In my case I also have a very wide area.  I have a photo of my house and stuff on the house is accurately placed, but a lot of other stuff is not.  It works fine.

[LOR Staff]

Remember too, you can 'stack' pictures in a photo editing program.  For instance I have seen visualizers where 2 houses are on the same screen, making it about 400' wide in real life.

 

Most pictures people take of their stages are far higher than they need to be.  See all that sky?  Cut it off.  See all that lawn that doesn't have anything on it?  Cut it off.  Got the side of house where nothing happens?  CUT IT OFF.

 

Then take all your pictures and stack them together into a single JPG.

 

I'm going to try to make an example.  When I'm finished, I'll split this off into the Visualizer forum since it applies to all versions, not just S4.

[LOR Staff]

Here is an example of what I am talking about.  I'll bet this is similar to a lot of the pic out there loaded into the Visualizer.  WHY?

 

 

(Image stolen from Google.  Not an actual display home).

 

Look at all that wasted space.  Do you decorate the trees behind you?  Do you REALLY NEED to see 100' of them?  Do you decorate the street?  CUT IT ALL OFF.

 

 

 

 

 

[LOR Staff]

So now you cut it down....  But you got that neighbor on the left you also decorate as well as that big open space on the right.  STACK EM.....  

 

Bonus:  Have some extra room?  Want a better look at something?  Those black areas are PERFECT.

 

[LOR Staff]

This conversation started in the S4 beta board, but this applies to ALL versions of the Visualizer.  Have a really WIDE stage?  STACK.

 

Use a photo editing program to first cut out all the unnecessary parts of your pictures.  Then copy each individual picture into a single larger one.  Use that single larger picture (which is actually a combination of all those other pictures) as your Vis background. 

[Denny]

Thanks to both of you, I will mess with the Visualizer this weekend.  I am already over 1800 pixels and all the other RGB.  Will install S4 on a computer other than my regular sequencing or show machines just to play with the Visualizer so I don't mess up my existing sequences.  Looks like I will be watching some visualizer tutorials over Easter!