DiyLightAnimation

Software => Olive Studio => Topic started by: PVPlaceLights on April 28, 2011,

Title: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on April 28, 2011,
Hi Everyone,

I've been quiet for the past month while focusing on getting the next release of Olive ready. The Olive 0.1.2 preview will be available next Friday, 6th of May, and will showcase a number of new features and significant improvements across the board. In addition, it is based on the plugin architecture that will be available to developers soon and make it possible for third parties to extend Olive functionality beyond the basic release. I will put out more information about that after this release.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to look at Olive, provide input, and encourage me through your enthusiasm.

--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: Rainlover on April 28, 2011,
Thanks for the update Matt. Looking forward to it.
 <pop..

John
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: abrianbaker on April 28, 2011,
 <pop.. >.d9
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: ptone on April 30, 2011,
any chance you'll have the Mac java packaging sorted out for this release?

-P
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on April 30, 2011,
I will add the Mac installer to the todo list for the next week and have that available too. I've already tested on the Mac and found the native libraries I have to drive comm ports does not work. So the Mac version will not support live output from Olive Studio for the time being.

--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: ptone on April 30, 2011,
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I will add the Mac installer to the todo list for the next week and have that available too. I've already tested on the Mac and found the native libraries I have to drive comm ports does not work. So the Mac version will not support live output from Olive Studio for the time being.

--Matt

no worries - its alpha/beta release.  Besides, the future is E1.31, and java does networking well so should be easy to do cross platform E1.31

-P
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: mschell on May 07, 2011,
Any update - it's now May 7, and soon to be May 8.

I just checked your site, and there's no new news there either....
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 16, 2011,
Sorry for the delay.

Release 0.1.2-dev07 is now available at the Olive Studio downloads page. Be sure to also download the Sample Project to see Olive Studio in action. This is an in development release (hence the -dev07 tag in the release name). What does this mean? An official 0.1.2 release will be made available once any obvious defects are addressed.

I will be spending the remainder of the week fixing problems and working on tutorials. Please be patient.

Note: The PixelNet over comm port output is not functional yet. This would be using the Lynx DMX Dongle with the PixelNet firmware to drive SmartStrings. It will be implemented in the final 0.1.2 release.

Downloads: http://cms.dazlyn.com/?q=node/35 (http://cms.dazlyn.com/?q=node/35)

Thank you,
--Matt

Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: Dennis Cherry on May 16, 2011,
Looking good.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 17, 2011,
Hi Matt

Thanks for the update

Can you explain what we are seeing from your sample project?

I took a screen shot of it for everyone to see.

Cheers

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 17, 2011,
This screenshot of the Track Editor view is displaying three tracks with effects laid out along the timeline. The screenshot I'm posting shows a little more detail. You can zoom in or out of the track editor by using the zoom slider at the bottom of the screen.

Each grey box represents an Effect. An icon is displayed in the upper left corner to give you a visual clue of what the effect does. The light bulb represents the "On" effect and the color squares is the "Fade" effect (these icons may change in the future). The bottom of each effect gives a visual clue to the effect settings. The upper color bar in the "On" effect represents the light intensity for solid color lights while the lower bar represents the color value for RGB lights. You can figure out what the bars in the "Fade" effect represent.

If you double-click on an effect or right-click and choose properties from the popup menu you will see the effect settings dialog. Use this dialog to set the properties of the effect as well as which channels the effect applies to.

One of the settings is called "Cycles". Keeping in mind that an effect is an animation of light channels, the "Cycles" setting allows you to repeat the animation any number of times. Visually, you can see on the Track Editor effects with two or more cycles are drawn slightly more transparent than the first cycle and have a "cycling" icon in the upper left corner.

In the Track Editor itself, you can drag effects in the timeline and even from one track to another. Notice that when an effect boundary gets close to another effect's boundary, a blue snapping line appears. Try dragging effects arround, dragging their start time, and dragging their end times.

More about the editing process will be discussed in the upcoming tutorials.

--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: ptone on May 17, 2011,
You might consider borrowing a timeline paradigm from apps like After Effects and Apple's Motion, where each effect is available on a sub-track that is displayed aligned and indented to parent track after clicking a disclosure triangle in left hand track title column.

In this view your parent track timeline representation would be a composite of brightness and color (instead of two bars) with each being a property/child track viewable when the disclosure is open.  This will let you reduce the height of each track and allow for the viewing of more tracks at one time, while also allowing plugins to represent themselves in the timeline.

Now this is all of course a TON of coding work, which is why I'm staying out of the UI side, but since many timeline oriented graphics apps already take this approach, it is worth considering.

-P
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: Freebird on May 17, 2011,
Wow.  Can't way for the tutorials so it can be dumbed down enough for me to understand...  Hoping that the tutorial will help me understand how I can get my light to blink etc.   ;D

Freebird
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 17, 2011,
Hi Matt

Thank you for the info.

If possible can you do a short video demo of how you set up your sample project and if the preview is working to record that so people can see what the output would look like.

I know you are busy programming and family life but I think it would be very helpful to a lot of folks here to see it.

Cheers

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 17, 2011,
Hi Rick (and everyone else),

I'm nearly done with video tutorial 2 which demonstrates how to add a controller with channels, set up a display with lights, and animate the lights using some effects. I might be able to finish in the next hour, we'll see. On another note, I need to clean up my lab so I can make some videos demonstrating Olive output. It's still a mess from Christmas. The to-do list is endless.

I will be working on the Mac OS X installer tonight for everyone interested in that. Again, I need to steal my MacBook back from the wife, though I'm not sure where she hid it.

Thank you everyone for your help.

--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 17, 2011,
Hi Matt,

That is awesome news.

I just used camstudio to screen record the sample project with the house preview on it. Wondering if I should post that or just wait.?

with camstudio it doesn't matter how messy your area is :D

Cheers

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 17, 2011,
Rick,

I would appreciate it if you would post it. I'm using Wink to make annotated video tutorials, so there's a lot of editing going on. Not necessarily the most expeditious method, but very thorough.

Thank you,
--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 17, 2011,
No problem

Working on it as I type

Cheers

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 18, 2011,
H Folks,

Here is the video of the sample project that Matt did.

Make sure you click on the 720 option since in 380 mode you don't see the lights correctly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHW2Jg1nlQ4

Cheers

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PJNMCT on May 18, 2011,
NICE!

-Paul
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 18, 2011,
Thank you Rick for posting the video. If I can find some time I will put together a bigger sample project with more animation. I am rather surprised with is the number of results that can be achieved by using two simple effects.

--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 19, 2011,
Hi Matt,

Is there a way to remove a light string drawing on the display screen?

I put one in a wrong spot. I assume there will be more design elements to play with down the road.

Thanks

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 19, 2011,
Rick,

I am working on moving and deleting strings now. The 0.1.2-dev07 doesn't allow it. I may just add "Delete" to the element list as quick fix because there's a little more work involved in moving elements around.

On another note, I spent last night working on the Mac version. I'm finding the performance of the GUI unacceptable. This is due in part because of the look & feel library Olive uses and how concurrent threading differs between Mac and Windows. Nonetheless, I will release a Mac installer, but I need to device a new strategy for the Mac version.

I will add the delete feature described above today and post the final 0.1.2 release. I will notify everyone when it's available.

Thank you,

--Matt
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: rrowan on May 19, 2011,
Hi Matt

Thats great, I appreciate it

Looking forward to the Mac version also since I use one along with windows and linux

Cheers

Rick R.
Title: Re: New Olive Release coming May 6
Post by: PVPlaceLights on May 19, 2011,
Release 0.1.2 is now out and it supports deleting light strings from the Display Element list. Select one or more strings and either right-click for the context menu or press the "Delete" key. Also, just about everything that can be deleted in Olive Studio can be undone using "undo" at the top of the window.

I inadvertently missed a question by Rick above about additional display element types. More types beyond the light string will be developed eventually. I've made some modifications to the plugin interface for display elements, so once that is stable, I will throw in a few more. Of course, I'm looking forward to releasing the Plugin Development Kits so I'm not the bottleneck for everyone's great ideas.

PixelNet output over comm port is also implemented, but there's a performance issue that I need to address. So if you're fortunate enough to have a Dongle with the PixelNet firmware and some SmartStrings, maybe you could test it out.

Thanks,

--Matt