Another multi house display question

[FireMedic4Christ]

I was hoping to use an actual picture in LORII, but I can't seem to get the right angle or fit. I was wondering about doing each house seperate for the programming and then combine at the end. Any thoughts on a better way?

[lkcubsrule]

What you could do is take individual pictures, then shrink them to a small size, then combine them, or vice versa, so you end up with what looks like a "movie strip" sorta thing.

[michael.farney]

I've never done a multi-house display. However, my approach would be to create animations:

1. Your House
2. Neighbor's house
3. Neighbor's house (how many are you doing? etc)
4. Finally, one animation with everything.

Here the logic:
If I was programming this thing, I'd probably only work on one house at a time. I'd like to be able to see the full detail for each house I'm designing, so I would definitely make sure the animation is big enough to get full detail. This would be true for each house I was designing for.

Finally, I would make one "big" animation that had everything. However, this would likely not be so detailed and may not be a perfect respresentation of what's going on, but it would give you the big picture.

As long your channel assignments are identical (this should be the case), then you can import whichever animation you want to look at without affecting the rest of the sequence. So, in the middle of programming, just keep importing whichever image you want to see. You could literally change the picture/animation as often as you want. Importing only takes a few seconds.

Don't forget you have tons of extra room in the animator now. You might be able to fit everything in on one animation just fine. You could definitely fit two houses (one on top and one on the bottom) and probably 4 houses (two on the top and two on the bottom) if you maxed out the animation and drew it yourself. Now if you're trying to use a picture, you'll probably need to create one per house and a wide angle of everything. I've never used the picture feature myself, so I'm not sure how it works. If there's only two houses, can you edit both houses into one image--one house on the top and one house at the bottom? That might be the best way to get everything into one animation. There should be enough room left to get a high level of detail.

I'm just trying to get some ideas out there. Let us know what you end up deciding because it may help out some other folks.

[FireMedic4Christ]

lkcubsrule - I had not thought of that option, I will have to brush up on my photoshop skills and try it.

michael - This is the way I was originally thinking. I should look at this closer, but I thought the animation was saved with the sequence file and I would have to have two versions of each song. I would program each house seperately and then cut and paste for the final version.

I have played with the animation and come up with three or four version. None that I am really excited about.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[michael.farney]

FireMedic4Christ wrote:

michael - This is the way I was originally thinking. I should look at this closer, but I thought the animation was saved with the sequence file and I would have to have two versions of each song. I would program each house seperately and then cut and paste for the final version.

The data IS saved with the sequence file. Let's say you have two houses: House A and House B. You create two animations and export those two configurations with the name: House A and House B

OK - Now you are doing your sequencing and you're in song one. Import House A into song one. Now every time you play song one, you'll see it on House A. If you save the sequence, yes, House A will save and you will see House A the next time open the sequence. Now, let's say you are ready to see House B. Open up sequence one (will have saved House A), and import House B. Now every time you play sequence one, you will see House B. If you save, yes, it is will save House B and House B will open up the next time. Import House A...Now sequence one will play on House A every time you play sequence one.

In short, it will save as you noted above. However, that doesn't prevent you from re-importing House A or House B as often as you want.

I hope I didn't confuse you worse!

[Rick Caulk]

I just downloaded LORII and I am not up to speed yet. However, I used the animation window and drew the multiple outlines of the houses I decorate. It took some work, but it combines all of the features of my lights and I can see them working together. For me it has worked well.