mhowcroft Posted November 5, 2008 Share Posted November 5, 2008 I have been sequencing Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular since May and have everything set except for stringing all the lights. What I would like to do is preview the show on the pc as it would actually play. Similar to the animation preview during the sequencing. Is it possible to preview the show from startup to shutdown on the PC? A preview would allow tweeking of the song order or the startup sequence. Thanks in advance for any help with this question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph D Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 I've though many times about this, its a good idea you should post your idea in the wish list see what dan can do for ya. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 mhowcroft wrote: Is it possible to preview the show from startup to shutdown on the PC? A preview would allow tweeking of the song order or the startup sequence. Thanks in advance for any help with this question.Not available that I am aware. Even if you had such a preview, I think you would find that there is nothing that compares to looking at the real thing and adjusting accordingly.The way I do this is probably weird, but I sit out in my lawn chair late at night and use my laptop with the USB 485 device and a wireless transceiver connected to it. This is so I can sit anywhere and not need wires for power or for LOR control. I play the sequences one by one in the sequence editor and if I see something I want to change, I do it right on the spot. If the change is too complex and not quick, I make a note to change it when I get inside. After looking at songs individually, I run an entire show to see how it will run.Bottom line, no matter how many times I use the animation feature, I have found that it gets me to about 90% of what I want, but it always takes some tweaking to get things just right.... and often the changes I make are due to non-linear ramping of LEDs. That is something you can't see in an animation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph D Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Rich I must admit i like the way you do it.lol:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhowcroft Posted November 6, 2008 Author Share Posted November 6, 2008 Thanks for the responses. I didn't think there was a way to preview the show. I might be able to do it with Holiday Soft's program but I don't have the time to get it to work right. It seems the lights lag a few seconds from the song and some fast sequences don't show up at all. I did set up the mini trees in the living room a couple of weeks ago and tested the show inside. Seemed to work fine. This is only my second year and I expanded from 48 channels to 112 this year. Also trying a fog machine and bubble machine in the show. I also invested in all led's except for the white and they seemed to fade just fine on the mini trees. Hope I don't have a problem with them. Thanks again and lots of luck and fun putting the lights up!Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stachows Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 I like Richards way... I do some thing very similar...I sit in my lawn wirelessly with my laptop and use "dameware" to take control of my PC that runs my shows.. from there I can see what I need to fix, and work on...HTH..Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Let me explain more clearly a point that I subtly mentioned in my last post.More people are using LEDs every year. With LOR where you do fading and dimming, one of the first things you will notice is that different color LEDs will not appear to be at the same brightness at the same percent level. I suggest taking a couple strings of your various color LEDs (if you use them) and experiment with different dimining levels in a darkened room. Example, you are probably going to find that if you want a blue led to appear the same brightness as a red led set to 15%, then you are probabably going to need to set the blue leds to 20% or 25% or so. It's those differences that annoy me most since I like smooth fades of all colors. Also, if you mix led with incandescant in your display, which most people do, you will see even greater differences.That is what I meant when I said you can not see those differences in an animation. It is for the above reason why I wish there was "channel scaling" feature in LOR where I could create a "fade map" of the various colors of leds. Then anytime I want to use 25% (or other value) intensity level, the appropriate channels would scale to the proper percentage without me having to manually look at my reference chart and set each channel separately. That is what takes me the most time creating a sequence. For some people this statement is probably not going to make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bossgroove Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 I know it's extra money, but I just realized that HLD displays the animation while in LOR show mode. I have too many lights though for the software to keep up, but I do my mega tree and arches. It a lot of fun whatching your show without stops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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