S4.4.14 ~ What happened to Shimmer and Twinkle? All look like ON commands.

[Orville]

@DevMike is this a bug/coding error? And can it be fixed?

This is mainly addressed to DevMike, but does anyone else have this problem?

I just noticed this as I was working on a sequence in S4.4.14 SE that now, the Shimmer ON and Twinkle commands in S4.4.14 all look identical now.  No distinguishing one from the other   They all look like a steady on command in the sequences.  What happened to the x marks for shimmer and the \ marks for twinkle?   I see no way to get them back.   Why was this done?  Now I can't tell where a shimmer or a twinkle starts or ends 

Could we please get these identifiers back for shimmer and twinkle?  Sure makes it difficult to use them as it is now.

Thought it may have been a bad  install, so downloaded S4.4.14 again, same results.   Again,coding error/bug?

 

[PhilMassey]

I have 4.4.14 installed on anothet machine, and it looks the same way as it always has.

[TheDucks]

2 hours ago, PhilMassey said:

I have 4.4.14 installed on anothet machine, and it looks the same way as it always has.

Same here.  Looks fine

(but it still wont read my mind an make things look good)

[Orville]

4 hours ago, PhilMassey said:

I have 4.4.14 installed on anothet machine, and it looks the same way as it always has.

So you can see specific differences between On, Shimmer and Twinkle?  Or do they all look the same, a solid block?

Previous versions had distinct differences so you could see at a glance whether the lighting command was a shimmer, twinkle or just an on command.

[PhilMassey]

All clearly different just like always, and incidentally also in the latest S5.

Perhaps a reinstall is indicated.

[Orville]

I hope this mage clears up my issue.  See attached multi-image below.

 

[Orville]

1 hour ago, PhilMassey said:

All clearly different just like always, and incidentally also in the latest S5.

Perhaps a reinstall is indicated.

Tried that already.  Reinstalled twice, same results.  Bad download?, so I downloaded S4.4.14 again, same results.

Have no idea how to fix this problem.  As you can see by my post where I added the images, I'm not getting or seeing any differences in the twinkle, shimmer or on lighting commands.  This one is a first for me.  So I'm totally at a loss on how to fix it.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Orville

[PhilMassey]

Actually your image is too small to see much detail. Perhaps check for  a video driver update.

[Orville]

46 minutes ago, PhilMassey said:

Actually your image is too small to see much detail. Perhaps check for  a video driver update.

Drivers have been updated.  I've updated everything I can on this system.

Everything else works just fine, video games my wife plays, graphics software I use all work as they should.  The LOR SE is the only program I'm having an issue with!

[Orville]

Maybe this one will help.  Larger version of the last image.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Orville

[TheDucks]

52 minutes ago, Orville said:

Maybe this one will help.  Larger version of the last image.

Something with your system: Screen resolution?

I just check a sequence with Px. Shimmer is diagonal for both Collapsed and individual R,G,B. Twinkle is a crosshatch bot ways

[Orville]

On 11/30/2020 at 4:59 PM, TheDucks said:

Something with your system: Screen resolution?

I just check a sequence with Px. Shimmer is diagonal for both Collapsed and individual R,G,B. Twinkle is a crosshatch bot ways

Nothing has been changed, and it worked under all screen resolutions my monitor supports.   Screen resolution has never been an issue with the LOR software.   So it shouldn't start now.

 

[LOR Staff]

Other than version number changes, there have been no other changes to the Sequence Editor in the last 4 years (or more).  The issue is outside the software and is most likely a video driver issue.

Try playing with the opengl settings in the Sequence editor: http://www1.lightorama.com/downloads/4.4.14/help/advanced_opengl_settings.htm

 

FYI:  I may or may not catch stuff posted here even if @ed to me.  If you are having issues the best thing to do is open a help desk ticket.

[Orville]

On 12/3/2020 at 1:50 PM, DevMike said:

Other than version number changes, there have been no other changes to the Sequence Editor in the last 4 years (or more).  The issue is outside the software and is most likely a video driver issue.

Try playing with the opengl settings in the Sequence editor: http://www1.lightorama.com/downloads/4.4.14/help/advanced_opengl_settings.htm

 

FYI:  I may or may not catch stuff posted here even if @ed to me.  If you are having issues the best thing to do is open a help desk ticket.

I've tried everything I can think of.  I've tried updating the video drivers to the latest ones available for the system I'm using, but I think it might be too old to get an update for.   If I could have used my graphics card, I know the issue would be fixed, but it doesn't fit in this old, antiquated beast.   So I couldn't use it.

Working on trying to get another system that would allow me to use the graphics card.  I finally realized the other 'night that this started sometime near the beginning of October, when I had to change over systems.  So I'm thinking it probably is the video driver not being new enough to handle the graphics.  I tried reverting back to an older version, 3.2.x, and the issue was there too.

Guess this particular machine is too old to work with anything LOR related when it comes to the effects blocks or the visualizer, because that was working fine too, now I can't even sequence the singing trees, because I can't see what they are doing now either.   Older technological gadgets just suck!

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Orville

[Orville]

PROBLEM RESOLVED!

{and it was an undertaking too!}

Well, I finally found the issue with my LOR SE showing me all solid blocks for everything, it seems that Windows thought the ATI Graphics Card was installed in the current computer {it won't fit in this one}, so for some reason Windows was reporting the graphics card was 100% functional and working properly.  WHAT???    It's NOT even installed, so don't trust Windows when it tells you something is working properly, especially when it doesn't exist in or on the system at all!

So I tried to uninstall the ATI Drivers and other programs that were associated with the Graphics Card, nope, no dice, now I get a reportr some file is missing that needs to be there to uninstall everything.   Fortunately I had the original installer and so re-installed the program over itself again, then uninstalled everything.  Okay, great, it's gone.   Okay, it was removed, but the SE still did not show me what I expected for the twinkle and shimmer effect, they all were still coming up as solid blocks.  Okay, let's see if their is now a video driver issue, no, everything is up to date.

Okay, perhaps rebooting will resolve the problem.......Hmm, no, that didn't do it either.

Okay time to reboot again and press F2 to get into CMOS and see if something in there may fix this, YES!  This system defaults to AUTO for video detection, and even the CMOS under AUTO thought I was using an external video card, which I wasn't.  Changed AUTO to OnBoard, saved and exit CMOS, Windows 7 starts up, LOR light bulb shows up, right click the LOR bulb, select Sequence Editor, Load a sequence I know has Shimmer and Twinkle effects, Yahoo!!!  Success!!!

Not only did this fix my issue with the SE Blocks all looking solid, it also fixed the Visualizer so I can now start sequencing my LOR Singing Christmas Trees again.

So case in point, don't just check and uninstall software drivers, check your systems CMOS settings as well, since it also may affect how software may operate on your particular system.

Just happy that everything is now working and back to normal!

Edited December 8, 2020 by Orville