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Quick Update: 8-26-10
I haven’t stop and I keep working hard on it.
I have found a problem in performance which some kind limits the application to goes beyond 512 channels and still have frame rate above 25FPS (Frames Per Second), we need 40FPS to do not lose any light state if we run the show with a 25ms frames, or 20FPS running the show with 50ms frames, I’m dumping almost all processing on the GPU and it is not enough (unless you have a $200-$300 video card :)) I’m talking with the APIs developers here at Microsoft and basically this problem is part of the 3D APIs, basically they don’t scale to the magnitude we need to go (above 2K channels), I’m investing a little time in go more low level but that makes the programming be less productive and have to spend too much time on it.
I’m deciding for now stay with the current model at least to make progress in the application but at the same time isolate all the 3D APIs to be able to use a more low level technology in the future when there is good progress in the application.
The problem is in the live preview and not when the sequence is exported to Vixen, so is not a critical problem and will work well under 512 channels, otherwise playing the song a little slower automatically boost the FPS otherwise spending $100 in a medium-high profile video card probably will give you another 512 channels.
I’ll be uploading the current progress in a couple days.
Cas.
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The problem is in the live preview and not when the sequence is exported to Vixen, so is not a critical problem and will work well under 512 channels, otherwise playing the song a little slower automatically boost the FPS otherwise spending $100 in a medium-high profile video card probably will give you another 512 channels.
Once you've bought enough stuff for 512 channels, an extra $100 to program the next 512 channels is probably not an issue ;) ...
\dmc
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That's true,
A couple days ago I spent $500 in just 20 strobes, vampire plugs and SPT-2 wire :).
Cas.
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Progress 8-29-2010
Sorry about demos getting big in size.
As always I just show incremental progress, if you missed some videos, see previous videos on topic "Started software to create sequences", there you can find all videos from Prancer's beggining.
Cas.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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WOW!
Thank You
Ron
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Progress: 9-1-2010
Pay job is getting a little active and I'm slowing down a little bit :P, but you can bet I won't stop.
The logic to produce effects is in place, it does just a little for now as you can see in the previous video but that is a good foundation for what is coming later, so a lot monkey work still need to be done for effects.
Switched to the logic to create devices, this small demo is a proof of concept for what I think can be a interactive an easy way.
Devices will be split in categories as trees, arch, strings, etc, and when the category is selected the device can be customized on a pop-up window with preview before is added to the scene.
In the video I show how it could be done.
Cas.
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Progress: 09-06-10
New term: Scene object => any object that forms part of the scene, they can be interactive as devices or static like backgrounds.
The work on this week was based on backgrounds and scene objects manipulations. Background can be added to give dimension to the scene; several backgrounds can be added to form a 3D environment where to put the devices.
For scene objects now there is support for Move, Scale and rotate, there are several things that needs to be done but now is usable and allow me to continue with the work to support more devices type.
Support was added for mini-tree, I wanted to know how the interaction was with objects that support only one channel.
I uploaded two files:
Prancer09-06-10.zip: It shows how objects now support the 3 main integrations (Move, Scale, Rotate)
15MinutesSequence.zip: This was a test to see with the elements I have so far what I could do in 15 minutes. Basically I created the environment put the devices in place and created several effects for the archs and mini-tree, there is no copy and paste and multi-object selection yet, so the effects had to be done device by device, I think with multi selection and copy and paste the time can be reduced to less than 5 minutes.
Note: I’m trying to reduce file sizes, so the second file now is an AVI with DIVX encoding; this allows for better appearance, more frame rates and smaller size. If you can’t see the file please install the codec from http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack
From now on I’ll be uploading all videos in this way unless there are problem to see them, let me know if you have any problem.
Thanks,
Cas.
P:S: I’m watching the video and it skips a lot of frames, so the arch sequences don’t look good, on Prancer they are perfect on visualization and timing, I guess I need another program to record Prancer progress, if you have used one in the past let me know.
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Quick Update: 9-19-10
Work was based on create an effect that is related to multiple devices, so there was not specific work and I had to touch everything as effects, selections, engine and new objects.
The pattern that I showed for the effects in the previous update was quite useful and now introduces more functionality like work with channels for multiple devices and fade-in/fade-out.
Added objects:
Stars
Snowflakes
Megatrees
Strings (single and multichannel)
Strobes
RGB Flood
Logic:
Single and multiselection support
Effects now support Fade-In Fade-Out
The demo shows the new functionality and how affect the devices, there was not work trying to sync with the music so they are randomly played.
Cas.
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Very cool looking stuff Cas! <res.
RJ
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Thanks RJ,
The time is limited but I’m committed to Prancer, now that the ideas have started to materialize I gained more confidence about what I had in mind on December 2009 and it can really be done!, I downloaded several programs about sequencing to see if Prancer is ahead of the curve and oh boy…
When Prancer is released people will remember that day as the day the Grid died on sequencing software, we are going to see sequences very shortly that can be only dreamed been made on the grid, probably vendors will have to update their software or they will be in a bad shape against Prancer/Lynx :).
Still a lot to do but I’m not far from the basic functionality needed to create manual effects, after that is done I’ll use Prancer to produce the first sequence.
Next stage will be add support to export the sequences to Vixen and later will come the automated tools and there is where the powerful stuff will start to appear since devices effects will be created based in several premade or custom functions.
Looking ahead I see a “bright future” with a lot of blinkies and the future looks much closer than I imagined 1 month ago.
Cas.
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Cas:
This is really great stuff. If people are reluctant to spend the whole seven minutes watching this video (thanks, BTW, for changing formats), I'd suggest skipping to the last 90 seconds or so ... it is truly unbelievable.
When are you going to beta this? ;) ...
\dmc
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I'm now absolutely amazed with your progress. I can see the huge benefits now.
Keep up the great work!!
Leo
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Still is too early to know when a beta will be available, there are several milestones that have to meet before Prancer is usable, at least it needs to export files to vixen and working with effects have to be rock solid even on the primitive state as it is today with the patterns.
Probably, first there will be a several internal alphas before the public betas, in the alphas I’ll receive feedback to know whether I’m smoking crack or not in the way I work with some stuff.
Prancer beta can’t be released until I’m confident the user will get what he expects from it :).
Cas.
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Cas,
Nice job, looks like you made some great progress. What type of a system are you running it on. Is it a resource hog? Looks like it going to be extremely powerful tool. <la..
Rod
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Currently the code is highly unoptimized and there are several things that I’ll be working on once I can get the first alpha, but my goal is allow to run a full sequence and 512 channels at least with 30FPS on my machine which was a high end machine 2 1/2 years ago and now is OLD :P.
It is a Core2Duo with 4GB Ram and NVidia 7950GT 512MB DDR.
I dump most of the stuff on the GPU so at this point the CPU speed won’t matter much but helps (I'm using about 20% CPU Time), a good video card will make a great difference.
My Video card now cost about $35, I spent $250 when I bought it :P.
I expect will need about 500MB RAM when is running since everything get cached to improve playback performance.
Cas.
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Cas,
This is like trading in a Model T for a Ferrari. Even my wife said WOW. Truly looking forward to seeing this out there. Awesome work.
Alan T
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Cas,
Downloaded your latest video a few days ago, finally had a chance to watch it and Prancer is coming along nicely indeed!
I am really looking forward to seeing your project come to fruition, but, in the mean time, you're making it hard for me to sit down and fill in the grids for this year's show. ;)
Greg
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After you see the quick updates I’ll publish tomorrow you will feel even more depressed keep working with the grid… :P
FYI: I decided postpone my show for 2012 if I can’t get a primitive version working, so I’m more interested in make it work than anyone <fp.
Cas.
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Quick Updates: 9-26-10
More than 60hs spent last week on Prancer, send more cofee please :o
Videos now will be more explanatory, they are edited to show specifically the new functionality to make them as short as possible.
The video is about 15 minutes long but I think is worth it since a ton stuff was made, it shows the progress and I’d like to start hear more feedback, thinks are easy to change now than later, feedback also give incentive to show that I’m not making this only for 5 people between the 1300 users :P
New Terms:
Composite Devices: Devices which share physical channels, imagine two different C9 strings connected to the same channel. Composite devices can be merge/unmerged
Link Effect: This is a very powerful tool, explained in the video about minute 13; Link effect let you combine more than one effect in a single effect, very complex effects can be created using simple effects as foundation. Link effects can be linked/unlinked, multi-link supported (recursive linking) and resample affect all child effects in the link effect (must watch)
Cycle: Effects may be composed by many channel transitions, these transitions are split on cycles, a single effect can contain one or more cycles, and the time slice for every cycle in the effect can be adjusted individually.
New:
Composite Devices: (see above)
Link Effect: (see above)
Cycle: (see above)
Context Menus:
Start to appear the first context menus when the user rights click on Wave Area or Edit Area.
Accelerators:
A few accelerators were added
Ctrl-A: Select all devices
Esc: Deselect all devices
P: Pause/Resume playback
+: Zoom In
-: Zoom Out
Rendering quality:
Rendering quality settings are introduced, the scene can be render with different quality, a very high quality will render a stunning scene, but a powerful CPU/GPU is needed to run smoothly, on the other hand low spec machines can run with low quality and still produce a high frame rate.
Values:
Bad: Devices are rendered with the minimum amount of triangles, specular lights are disabled.
Poor: Devices shapes looks somewhat what like the devices created, specular lights are disabled.
Fair: Devices shapes are very close to the real shapes, specular lights are enabled.
Good: A good balance between performance and rendering quality, specular lights are enabled.
Awesome: Stunning rendering and still running on medium profile video cards, specular lights are enabled, textures enabled (not supported yet).
Insane: Every device is render with very high details, specular lights are enabled, textures enabled (not supported yet).
Visual effect preview:
Rendering effects on the wave area now show the effect, cycle time, intensity and color for each channel.
Copy/Paste:
Copy, Cut and Paste supported for effects, effects can be paste on any device, effect paste on multiple device are allowed as individual paste or combined paste (see video)
Effects selection:
Effects can be single or multi selected, they can be dragged and re-sampled, multi-selection drag all objects at the same time unless the Ctrl key is pressed which allow drag a single effect in a multi-selection
Bug fix:
Thousands :) plus fixed bug for ruler showing wrong timing.
Optimization:
There were several optimizations in the code to improve playback performance.
Next:
I think enough primitive tools to create a sequence, this will let me find out what is missing and possible implement that.
Cas.
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Here's cheering you on with your development , I don't understand much of it but us old and slow beginners need something easier than what we now have. Thanks ,if we didn't have people like yourself ,RJ and others developing this affordable stuff people like myself wouldn't have blinky .
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Greetings,,,
Watching this. Think you'll get more feedback when you put out a version that people can try, even if it's not fully ready. That's when people can see for themselves how things look and feel.
And if it save files, then you will have people trying it right now, I believe.
I do like the effects showing in the waveform, where they can easily be placed.
Keith
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I bet you have more followers then you think. I have been sitting quiet just watching every video you post. I am very excited about Prancer. I know it is easy for you because you are making it and know everything about it. To me it looks kinda of hard compared to Vixen. I know it is superior to it on the sequencing side and it is just for sequencing. I just hope you make plenty of detailed "HOW TO" videos when you release it. Don't be shy to just talk in your videos. I know no one likes to hear themselves played back. I think it would be better to simply explain what you are doing in your videos. I know it is probably lame but the short "how to" videos for Vixen helped me get started. They were short and simple. The guy took a picture of Snoopy's dog house, the peanuts theme and then showed how to set up some channels and some effects. For me it helped a bunch. I made a similar set up in Vixen and played it back and it worked. I then made a bigger one. Tried new things and was able to learn more and more. This is my first year (2010) for computer controlled animation. My show is not as big as others but I have 144 channels. My first sequence took 50 hours! I know your goal is to shortening that and make it easier without the grid. I thank you so much for your time and updates. And yes I agree with Keith. As soon as you can release a even partial working copy for us to try out will be great! You can leave out any export stuff so it would be just to try it out and get a feel of your software.
Is this software planned to be released for 2011 or what? <pop..
Again.... THANK YOU!
Ron
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Hi Cas,
I have been following along hoping to get a chance to play with Prancer. Sequencing is the hardest part of doing a show for me. So any help with that would be wonderful
Today I took a bunch of pictures of my front yard in hopes of using it with Prancer.
Many thanks for all of your effort and time
Cheers
Rick R.
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I have a mistake in one of my previous post that I may postpone the show for 2012, when really I meant was postpone the show for 2011, the reason why I'm spending a lot of time on Prancer is because I want to produce a working prototype and create sequences for 2010, still there are 5 weeks more before November and give me 26 more days to create sequences.
Thank you for the feedback, I’ll try to come up with something where you can play with Prancer.
One big module still missing is the creation of the patterns, currently I developed the logic and parser to understand patterns, but currently they are created by hand, in a close future there will be a GUI that the user interacts and everything else happen under the hood.
If I make an alpha to play, the user must understand the pseudo language for create patters.
I’ll be creating a sheet with the pseudo language (very few commands available for now so will be piece a cake to understand, I think a huge list of commands will be available when finish with even mathematical functions to be used)
For example:
0:+:100:200 means on channel 0 produce a linear fade-in and start with intensity 100 and end on 200 for the duration of the cycle
10:* means the channel 10 is On to full intensity for the duration of the cycle.
And so on.
Cas.
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For example:
0:+:100:200 means on channel 0 produce a linear fade-in and start with intensity 100 and end on 200 for the duration of the cycle
10:* means the channel 10 is On to full intensity for the duration of the cycle.
I was trying to figure out what you were doing in those dialog boxes ... now it makes sense (sort of).
Best of luck; don't kill yourself.
\dmc
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Quick Updates: 10-5-10
Well, there has been more than 10 days from the last update.
After the last quick update I decided to follow the advice from the fellows in the topic and focused the whole last week in an alpha version creation.
Has been a very busy week and now Prancer implements many things that are expected from a real application.
An alpha version was created and there were many requests to be in the Alpha testing group.
At the first round just 5 users were added to the Alpha testing group, (7 currently) and it has been a wild ride in the last days.
An installer was created and a couple hiccups prevented them from run Prancer properly, thanks to the reports those issues were resolved very quickly and now we have a stable installer.
I was expecting (hoping) some activity from them to help with the development, and oh boy… the activity is on fire, there are so many PMs back and forth about functionality/bug/requests and feedback that I can’t keep up :P.
I can’t tank enough to these guys.
I won’t publish the users unless they want to, they are free to add any comment in here about what is the initial experience, you guys rocks.
The topic is so hot that we have already a bugtracking system hosted by one of the guys. And there are 18 tickets already created.
Soon I’ll post a new video with what’s new.
Thanks,
Cas.
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This is just so cool to hear about. "I" thank all of you for the hard work. I can't wait to watch the next video.
Ron
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Quick Updates: 10-5-10
There are many news, in fact there are so many new stuff that I’ll resume in a few lines.
Current Prancer version is starting to give some rewards.
Still there are many many things to be improved but the main modules are in place.
* Devices creation and location
* Effects creation
* Ability to Open/Save/Save As/New
* Map device channels to physical channels
* And finally export to Vixen is done.
I’m starting to create a real sequence to be used on my show and here is a small progress of it.
I’m uploading a video that has 3 phases, first phase I play the current sequence (carol of the bells) with the current progress. Second phase I show how effects are displayed on the Wave form windows (many effects are overlapped for others and can’t be appreciated), third phase is exporting the sequence to Vixen and playing it (and trying to figure out what is supposed to be happening on the grid ???)
Also I'm uploading the draft document that ships with the Alpha.
I'm having troubles to upload the video with my slow connection, I'm uploading in parts, download the 4 zip files and uncompress, then execute carolsofthebells.part1.exe which will put everything togheter.
Thanks,
Cas.
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Greetings,,,
Downloading and running the program to put the zip files together into one mp4 video file is worth it for those who wish to see how this is progressing.
It may be in the Alpha stage, but it's functional, and puts a sequence together that works in multiple versions of Vixen.
Keith
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Hi Cas
Very impresive
I can't wait to give it a try when ready
Cheers
Rick R.
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Cas:
Late nights and lots of caffeine are obviously doing their job. This looks to be most-excellent software.
Thanks so much for your hard work.
\dmc
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You must be keeping the coffee companies in business...looking good (http://smilies-gifs.com/animo/12animo.gif)
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Simply amazing! What version of Vixen did you import to?
Thinking of using xLights for my scheduler this year and avoid Vixen all together if I can. Just would like to see if an import to xLights would work since it will import .vix files supposedly. Haven't tried yet.
Again....Awesome Job! Can't wait to try it out myself! (waiting patiently) :P
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So far we have tried from version 2.1 to to 2.5.0.8 and we didn't have any problems.
I guess almost any Vixen stable version will work, if xLights can play Vixen files then I don't see why it would not work.
Cas.
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Quick Updates: 10-22-10Prancer Alpha V0.51.3 implements all necessary features to create and export sequences.
A few of the latest features are:
* Allow to add hardware controllers and map the physical channels to the device channels.
* Exporting to vixen now exports the devices and the mapped channel as channels name, so is very easy to setup the hardware (Prancer does not help with anything to work in the frontyard YET).
* Allow to create effects with a graphical user interface, now effect patterns are hidden from the user and the user doesn’t need to know the pseudo language. In a future when the user selects devices Prancer will offer many pre-made effects, it will look smartly what are the selected devices and “guess” what is the user trying to do. For now all effects are “Custom”, which means the user must tell to the user interface what he wants for every cycle and channel transition.
Today I started to create a real sequence that I will use on my show, and basically I can confirm that I made it, this year my show will be Powered by Prancer/Vixen. <pop..
Still is far away from a public Beta but looks promising.
On November 1st I’ll be releasing Alpha 2, and I’ll accept 10 more users requests to be part of the Alpha development/testing, If you want to be part of the process and make a dent on Prancer’s future you are very welcome to apply, you don’t need to know ANYTHING about programming, you just
must be willing to spend time on it, report bugs, provide feedback and share what is on your mind. (I know we are getting close to Christmas and everyone will be super busy, so I won't be expecting a lot for now, but if you apply just make sure you really want to).
I’m uploading the sequence that I started today; I think I’m almost 75% of what I want so I’m getting a good speed. (The recorder I used to capture the screen can't capture too many frames per second so the video skips frames when there is much activity :) )
Cas.
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AMAZING!!!!! Wow! my brain is fried from thinking about the work you have done. Cool And Great job! Hope to play with it soon.
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Really would like to play with this software
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Great looking stuff - I'm brand new to this scene, but immediately started thinking along the same lines - the grid looks brain dead to me from the go.
see: http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12727
LSP transitions look similar to this, and its a great idea of mapping video to the spatial layout of lights. But I like the idea of abstracting the timing data from the effects. Where LSP in the end just generates grid events, I like the idea of keeping your objects interacting with some simple timing signals, and applying effects to this at runtime (or to generate "player" files).
Now being a Mac/Unix guy - I'm looking at having to roll my own. I'm not looking to put together a full blown end user product. However I've started architecting a framework of sorts that could sit between the existing protocols of MIDI and DMX - it would be a programatic framework in python - no GUI.
Anyway - in awe of your project so far - tons of work just to handle the waveform and 3D code.
Keeping something this complex easy to use is a monumental challenge, but a very worthy goal.
-Preston
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Looking great! Can't wait to try things out!
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Wow amazing progress!
RJ
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It's looking GOOD :) Love it!
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This sounds interesting, but I don't have a Windows machine. Was there a link to screenshots or similar posted? I'd love to see what everyone else is seeing.
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This sounds interesting, but I don't have a Windows machine. Was there a link to screenshots or similar posted? I'd love to see what everyone else is seeing.
I'm working on something similar for Mac/Linux - but without much of a GUI - more scripted.
-P
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This sounds interesting, but I don't have a Windows machine. Was there a link to screenshots or similar posted? I'd love to see what everyone else is seeing.
I'm working on something similar for Mac/Linux - but without much of a GUI - more scripted.
-P
Similar for me too. Nothing runs on Mac so I wrote what I needed. That's what I used for my Halloween show. I needed something that automated the automation. ;-) There was no way I was going to sequence those flickering lights. LOL
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OK, I've written a blog post and have started a different thread for what I'm working on - so we can just talk about Prancer progress here.
http://diylightanimation.com/index.php?topic=3556.0
-Preston
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Here is a video of a sequence created with Prancer 0.51 and the video in real life side by side.
http://www.vimeo.com/17255240
Still I’m mounting the lights so the Aethers are not fully in the right position yet.
Cas.
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Super display,Glad you didn't quit.
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Awesome!
Glad you did not give up on it.
RJ
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Great display.
Thanks for sharing
-Jeff
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Awesome Job Cas
After a while I forgot to watch the prancer side and just watched the right side LOL
Thanks for sharing
Rick R.
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I m impressed in quite a few ways.
1) Was this your first year doing lights? That Light display was quite impressive.
2) The visualizer in prancer Looks greats. Looks allot more better then any of the other programs I have scene.
3) The sequencing looks great, and spot on.
Now once question I do have is I was under the impression that Prancer was not going to directly control lights, is prancer controlling the lights, or what did you use for light control?
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I m impressed in quite a few ways.
1) Was this your first year doing lights? That Light display was quite impressive.
2) The visualizer in prancer Looks greats. Looks allot more better then any of the other programs I have scene.
3) The sequencing looks great, and spot on.
Now once question I do have is I was under the impression that Prancer was not going to directly control lights, is prancer controlling the lights, or what did you use for light control?
I believe Prancer creates the sequence for Vixen.
I think you are seeing a preview in Prancer on the left
Then on the right its Vixen running the outside show
Of course I could be totally wrong (won't be the first or last time LOL)
Cheers
Rick R.
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Excellent display!!!!
I decided I did not have enough time to redo my 18 sequences with prancer, so I just converted and decided to use LSP ( <fp.) The other issue I had is that most of my older controllers are d-light, which are LOR compatible controllers and vixen does not have a good LOR output plug-in. This fact alone makes it difficult to rework with prancer. I will be working on a DMX firmware replacement for my d-light boards and I will be able to use the prancer/vixen combo for next year. I will most definitely use prancer next year. Great work...
Egenoup
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If Prancer is exporting vixen files, you can run the vixen files through xlights, the newest svn version, should be working with dlight controllers.
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WOW!
Looks great!
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Looks great CAS.
Thanks for hanging in there and sharing!
-Paul
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Thats spectacular
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csf,
1) This is my second year, I did my first year with Vixen and suffered the pain with only 48 channels, this year is 270 channels (there are also 8 real trees in both sides of the street with 10000 extra lights and they do not appear on the video), so I could not take other year making it with Vixen so I decided to do something or no show for 2010 :).
2) The visualizer is really the working area, Prancer works on a 3d engine so you are editing and playing the show at real time, basically the working area IS your vizualizer, you move the camera or object anywhere you want, so you can watch the show from any 3d position and decide if the objects will be seen property from there.
Still is an alpha so the objects you see are basic shapes, in the future the shapes will support textures which will give real life appearance to the objects.
3) Because Prancer works on the working area with the audio it can be synchronized to the millisecond precision and effects are very easily expanded/shrink or moved so is very easy to synchronize with the music, after it is exported to Vixen there is a loss of 25 times precision since DMX max frame rate is 25ms, for that reason Prancer support also snap to frame rates to show what REALLY will looks like after the file is exported to Vixen.
4) As Rick said it does not control the lights but instead it export to Vixen. I need to talk later about that with you, since I need a way to control the show from Prancer at real time, since is very useful to map the channels and other things (not to run the show), I need from xLights a way to send a DMX frame through a memory map file/shared memory/pipe or socket or any other mechanism and xLight send this to DMX.
The reason is because I don’t care where I plug the lights on my LE’s (12) and SSR ( 8 ), I just plug the string wherever I can then later I map with Prancer the channels, a lot easier than go outside with a printed paper where the strings should be plugged. But for that currently there is a middle step I need to do with Vixen and the “Test Channel”, so if instead I can do it with xLights from Prancer then setting the Show wires will be a piece of cake. Just go outside plug the string wherever the heck you want and let Prancer do the mapping via software.
Cas.
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Whoa, great video and visited your blog .
I'm over the moon to see this. I've been looking for midi (show control version) tie into these lights. I've wanted to have a multi faceted show control under time code, like SFX etc. so I can tie in my pyro with the MSC.
I'm sure your aware of MSC, but if not the wiki is a great place to start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Show_Control. and have you read John Huntington's Control Systems for Live Entertainment ?
I'd like cli control over vixen or LSP scripts. Now I can drag out all my old gear . BCF2000 control of Vixen. >.d9
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Still is an alpha so the objects you see are basic shapes, in the future the shapes will support textures which will give real life appearance to the objects.
Cas, I think what you have in the 3D is already awesome. Since you will never attain photo realistic, I think a degree of proxy representation of the lights is OK. Rather than spend all that time getting the rendering improved, I'm sure you have lots of other things on your todo list.
Is there an object navigator other than the 3d view - where you can see objects in groups in a tree view?
-Preston
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There is a TON of stuff to do yet, and textures are not contemplated even in beta, after Jan 1st I'll keep working on it and until I don't have 100% of the semantics defined I'll do just some fixes on the GUI that are needed for the alpha users.
There is no navigator, the working area is the only place supported so far to interactive with the objects.
What do you have in mind that may needs a navigator?
Cas.
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There is a TON of stuff to do yet, and textures are not contemplated even in beta, after Jan 1st I'll keep working on it and until I don't have 100% of the semantics defined I'll do just some fixes on the GUI that are needed for the alpha users.
There is no navigator, the working area is the only place supported so far to interactive with the objects.
What do you have in mind that may needs a navigator?
Cas.
I've worked a fair amount with 3d software, and often if you have a high density of objects, or complex nesting/grouping of objects, its gets hard to click on the exact object you want, or to create a multiple selection of objects. Often there is a side pane, or floating window that lists all the objects in 3d space, often using a tree widget to show parent child relationships.
-Preston
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Sorry if I haven’t post in a while, as everyone knows this time of the year gets real busy, I got several delays due to the weather, and I left doing the sequencing for the end.
On January I’ll start to work again on Prancer and I hope have another Alpha for February, the reason of this is because even when the current Alpha version is fully functional still doesn’t have the abstraction that I want and I may go back to the drawing board. Currently the user doesn’t need to know about the pseudo language anymore to program the effects but still needs to know about channels, so still there is missing a higher level of abstraction where the user creates the effects from the channel colors and object physical locations.
For example currently to create a chase for all arches in Prancer is done via a single effect and a loop as you can see in the following demo, it takes 15 seconds to create the effect, but the idea is that the user can choose the first object and last object and choose create a “chase” effect with whatever object is in between and for example with a specific channel color. So the user doesn’t need to know that a chase is composed of a loop for all the channels with a specific step since all specific colors “red” are step of 4 for example.
So this level of abstraction allows the user to work with colors and effects on physical location and not with object and channels.
This is the hardest part since requires a lot of code in the core and the GUI.
For example if we want to create effects for Smart Strings there is no way that we have to select a string or specific nodes, the user should be able to select “from” and “to” (X/Y/Z) and select or create the effect. So In theory to handle 10 nodes or 1000 nodes is the same at the effect level. If the user upgrades the number of Smart String or the number of nodes per string should not be needed to update the effects since the “intent” of the user is still the same.
Still I’m thinking how all this will work and until I don’t have a good approach I won’t be releasing any new binary.
Also because I hate bugs, “they really pissed me off”, until the quality is not acceptable a Beta won’t be released and I’ll keep working with the users that apply for the Alpha testing when is open.
The following video is a sequence of the classic Wizard in Winter, I recorded from 300ft from my house :), it took me the last two nights to finish it, not bad since there is a high synchronization with the music, but still there are many things that should have been easier in the process, which I hope with the new abstraction make it way more simpler.
I got asked the question one more time and still the answer is the same, Prancer will be FREE OF CHARGE for anyone that wants to use it for PERSONAL shows, a free license will be required.
There will be a commercial license for companies or individual which provide commercial shows.
http://www.vimeo.com/17430929
Cas.
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Cas,
I think the video is awesome and as a complete newbie to light annimation and computer skills this looks like something even I could learn I love the way you can click on a object and in the visualizer you can see the colors of were the oject is playing in the song. I would like to be a betea tester on this if a complete newbie is something that you are looking for if I can learn it anyone can trust me. THANKS FOR SHAREING , GOD BLESS
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Great looking video - must be fun for you to watch and think "no grid was harmed in the filming of this video" ;-)
For example currently to create a chase for all arches in Prancer is done via a single effect and a loop as you can see in the following demo, it takes 15 seconds to create the effect, but the idea is that the user can choose the first object and last object and choose create a “chase” effect with whatever object is in between and for example with a specific channel color.
Given the stage of your 3D viewer, how would the user specify the scope and order of elements between the the start object and then end object? Would prancer try to figure this out by looking at x,y coordinates and assume a line between start and end?
But I agree, abstracting the interaction to the level of the light object or element is ultimately they way to go.
Also which is more accurate to say: that in Prancer you attach an effect to an object or group, or to you attach an effect to a timeline and add objects to it.
-Preston
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Cas I definitely fell the additional abstraction you want is the way to go.
That's part of what I hope to accomplish with x lights. Effects should be scalable to the number of channels the user selects to apply the effect too. Then just like you said there is no extra effort needed to change the amount of channels an effect contains.
I really like your idea of using a 3D map of the display, I definitely feel this will make sequencing much more interactive an easier. For good or bad though at this time I have no intention of making a 3D world to use as part of xlights. Honesty this program is looking so good if it was coming out for mac / linux I would probably just make xlights console and leave out the sequencer.
I have done a fair share of 3D work related work... I am not sure what level of 3D modeling / primitives / importing you plan to allow but if you want ideas I came up a whole plan a few years ago for a 3D modeler I am wiling to share (it's mostly script based and was meant to be part of a game, so easiness for the user was a big key to to the idea) unfortunately though I did not understand enough about representing the 3D graphics on a 2D screen and well know that I know how that's done I am kind of addicted to lights... lol
Also if you want to keep me in mind for alpha testing, fell free I have definitely tested quite a few alpha programs for people, and wont mind having to work my way through bugs.
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Sorry for the late reply :)
Preston, definitely effects “should” be attached to the timeline, objects should be part of the effect but I feel they should not be the focus of the effect since adding/removing lights or changing object location should not alter much the final goal of the effect.
I’m sure on 2011 we will have a lot news about sequencing software so I’m not worried that we will not have applications to control Smart String so I want to focus Prancer on the hard problems even if they take a while to become a product, basically I want to invests in intellectual property instead in release a product soon.
I think get rid of the grid is already a huge step in the right direction since allow us to “manage or use” 5000+ channels but still I feel is half of the solution since we are limited to create effects for objects instead take the whole display as one big canvas.
Unless the software take in consideration the physical location of every single node it can’t create effects automatically and instead the user is who has to have in mind how to proper use a combination of several effects to obtain the desired goal.
A simple example:
I want to make a mega tree, every node in a SS will be separated every 3.5”, so I was thinking I want to have less separation between nodes about 1.75” and instead run 64 nodes per string I’ll be using 128 nodes per string but the string will go to the tip of the tree with 64 nodes and go down again with another 64 nodes in the same line. So I want to manage a 128 nodes string differently, in my case if we use virtual channels will be something like channel 1,2,3,4,5,6…128 but the physical channels are 1,128,2,127,3,126…etc since the nodes are intercalated.
And here is where the physical location has a lot to offer, from the user point of view he doesn’t care how to map virtual channels to physical channels, he just care about optimize the string length and space between nodes, so he knows has 128 nodes to put in any direction he wants, hell, even he may want to use a lot more nodes for the bottom of the tree where there are more surface to cover and less nodes on the top, because of that the sequencing programming could be a total nightmare, instead the application should be “physical location aware” and the creation of the effects should be independent of the location of the nodes until the effect is “rendered”.
I imagine the creation of the effect creating an effect using a start point and vectors to define the direction of the effect, so the user does not interact “directly” on the object instead he overlay and effect at that physical location.
For example I take a AVI file, I define a start location a vector with the direction and the width of the surface to cover, so if the object behind the effect is a mega tree the mega tree should render the AVI file and NOT mapping one to one pixel vs lights since the tree is a conical surface and looking at the tree from a 2D position like stand 30ft away, we can observe a lot more nodes on the left and right of the tree than in the center line and unless the AVI file is mapped taking that in consideration the location of the nodes the AVI won’t be seen properly.
I hope I could explain myself
CSF,
You took one of the hardest problems with xLights and is about abstracting from the hardware, I don’t have ANY problem at all if you create a sequencer for it but you might be trying to do too much for you alone, something that every old and new sequencer needs is interaction with the hardware and there is where I think you have the HUGE opportunity to create something unique for many people/applications, if you focus on a single problem about the hardware interaction and basically provide APIs to render a file or render at real time on any hardware then you solve a HUGE problem and everyone will want to use your layer, but if for example xLight can process .VIX files but it can’t take real time input then I’ll be forced to create my own hardware layer for Prancer in a future and then if I have my layer then I won’t need xLight anymore, if I don’t need xLight then probably xLight will create its own sequencer since won’t be compatible with Prancer output, and there is where the applications won’t be compatible anymore.
I think what you did is awesome and has a lot of potential to provide even a lot more for the rendering of the data in the hardware. Again is pretty cool if you do a sequencer as well since it will run on Linux/Mac but keep an eye and the main focus on the hardware interaction. Who knows… when you finish with xLight to manage any hardware Preston may already have something released for Mac/Linux and you don’t need to take care of that.
Cas.
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Cas first have a Merry Christmas!
Tomorrow I plan to start working on a rapid prototype command line / xml file based program. I will post about it in more detail, but basically I want it to support network data, channel mapping, groups, and basic effects (on / off, one other random thing I create, and maybe fades) and actually control the lights.
In the process of doing this I want to create some guides to using the xlights light control library and make a list of improvements that I think it should have for making it easier to work with for other programs and so on.
My goal would be to have this done by the end of January. Now for every one else, realize that this program will have no GUI and will be missing allot of features needed to make a fully functional program, but I think it will be a good starting point for expanding xlights and giving the community a good base if other people want to jump in on using xlights or helping develop it.
After this I want to work on adding functions to xlights that I feel will be useful for my display next year, and get the chenal mapping part of xlights base.
Then I would go back to thinking about the sequencer. My biggest concern about dumping the sequencer plan completely is I may have 8,000 channels next year, on three networks and want to make sure that I will be able to sequence it all.
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Merry Christmas to all - missed responding to this by a day, had this reply started, but the day's events intervened.
Cas,
I think we are in strong agreement about many of the properties of how effects should be constructed. The idea of the effect being an entity, abstracted from the component lights, and being able to be placed or moved around in a timeline, stretched, etc.
I currently don't process or use any location information in the objects in my program. While there are advantages to the location there is also the cost of having to specify it. Complexity = Complexity no matter how many ways you slice it. I've worked with 3D programs a fair amount, and it can be painstaking getting things placed just so. With things like a doublebacked smartstring as you describe, you've got to draw the line in 3D space, and not only specify a start, end, and density, but the doubleback point as well, and how that all maps to channels. Whew, that is a lot of stuff to come up with a UI for. Also this idea of using video files for LSP style transitions I have a couple problems with. 1) is that rarely do people have a density of lights available where the transition renders with much clarity (unless we are talking about a simple wipe, or a matrix element) 2) is it doesn't really consider that 3D space you've worked so hard to construct. It has to assume a single viewing angle and flatten all that nice 3D info into a 2D representation in order to map to video frames. Now video frames mapped to smaller sub elements are still pretty interesting for sure, but for those the 3D information isn't as important. I'm still using my model of choreographing dancers. Each dancer has a set of characteristics and capabilities that you can take advantage of.
CSF,
I'm going to echo Cas here that I would love to see the API space of xlights worked up. I've posted on this before of course. I think your prototype app is an awsome way to explore how to improve that API interaction. By writing a basic reference app that uses all the features of xlights externally - you are basically writing a set of tests to the xlights API. The documentation will also be most welcome and I'll certainly read whatever you put together and offer whatever helpful comments I can.
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Cas,
Just reread the part of your post about projecting onto megatree, and want to acknowledge that such an idea is cool. The idea of flattening that way seems similar to the techniques used in architectural "projection" mapping - where they are projecting from one point, onto a 3D surface.
see some of the videos I link here: http://diylightanimation.com/index.php?topic=3599.msg66484
-Preston
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Cas,
Maybe I missed this somewhere... Have you posted the software for download yet? I want to get a head start on next season.. After working with LSP, and not being overly pleased, I'd like to try something new.
-Roger
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Where do I send the coffee!?
This is fabulous and I would love to send you a can of coffee to replenish all you must be drinking!
RW
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A significantly advanced technology will appear as magic to the casual observer.
Congrats you have some awesome magic.
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CAS,
Just wondering how things are progressing any updates
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Hey CAS,
I imagine you are working hard on prancer I just wanted to see if you could update us on your progress? Thanks for your innovation!
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I too am interested in the status of this project.
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ME too it looks very promising!!
<pop.. <pop.. <pop.. <pop..
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Not sure but this may be a dead product development... Cas's profile indicates he hasn't been logged on since this past March.
Hopefully nothing unfortunate has happened to him and he will come back to this because it really was looking promising.
Perhaps one of the admins knows more or can contact him....
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It's ashame that he got so far along, even to the point of running his show but it does appear it is a dead project. This project was the finest example yet I've seen of the Object Oriented Sequencing with 3D layout, objects, object collections, etc.
It would be great if he was willing to release the code so that others could build on his ground work....
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Has anyone heard anything new on this project? Or does anyone have a contact for Cas? Maybe an admin would be willing to try contacting him on behalf of the community?
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The last time he even logged into the site was back in March so I would say that this project is either dead or gone full commercial which also makes it dead for us.
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The last time he even logged into the site was back in March so I would say that this project is either dead or gone full commercial which also makes it dead for us.
Hopefully he is not dead. I am going to try to get in contact with him somehow, will post back if I reach him.
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He quit the hobby once when the wind blew down his mega tree - and he got fed up with the weather. He did come back for a bit, but I'm guessing he is just done with it.
-P
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The last time he even logged into the site was back in March so I would say that this project is either dead or gone full commercial which also makes it dead for us.
Hopefully he is not dead. I am going to try to get in contact with him somehow, will post back if I reach him.
LOL, I didn't say that he was dead, just this project. Good luck getting a hold of him.
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The last time he even logged into the site was back in March so I would say that this project is either dead or gone full commercial which also makes it dead for us.
Hopefully he is not dead. I am going to try to get in contact with him somehow, will post back if I reach him.
LOL, I didn't say that he was dead, just this project. Good luck getting a hold of him.
Thanks, at this rate I'm definitely gonna need it.
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Maybe try contacting him through his Vimeo account... I was really looking forwards to this software too...
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If he is really "over it", could somebody check to see if he would be willing to open source his code? Seems like a large waste to have that much creativity and effort die completely. One of the major advantages of open source (for users) is that projects don't need to die if the developer(s) lose interest or ability to continue them.
(It's up to Cas of course; just hoping!)
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Contacted has been attempted by a number of people. SO I am going to lock this thread as it keeps going and make new people think it is still alive.
RJ