new to the hobby and need to know what software to download?

[duane.mosley]

thanks everyone. mike, wirenut67 on the vixenlighting forum got me going . RJ I  will be contacting you soon on a dongle. i really want to dive into this project and make sure i have everything ready for this years show.

[winwin]

I assume you have decided to go with Vixen. What version? No doubt in my mind that I will use Vixen (free, good comments and support from people)... I just do not know yet which version. I would not mind using the beta one, just concerned about stability. This will be my first year, starting small and who knows where I will end up with light show.

[kgustafson]

Also know that Vixen is due for a major upgrade this year (version 3.0) that is going to change quite a bit (gone are plug-ins, in comes modules, for example).  I know that Vixen is trying to be more RGB friendly and moving towards what the trends are in animated lighting (aka smart strings and coros, etc.) 

The two mentioned software packages (LSP and S3) are probably the most mature and stable for RGB/smart string support (IMAO) at the moment.  Realize that S3 and LSP are not free.

The advantage that Vixen has is large support base (however, LSP and S3 has just as large of a support base, IMO) and that it is free.  It just lacks some of the cooler new tools to support RGB and smart strings at the moment.  Also it's scheduler is still not quite where it needs to be (IMO) at the moment. 

Hope this helps some.

Kurt

[mkozik1]

The other thing that I see with Vixen is the ability to utilize other controllers where-as LOR (not sure of LSP) are proprietary when not using DMX.  For example I need the ability to use an output board so I happen to have a Prop Contoller that I can use and write into the program with Vixen that I cannot use with LOR.

[taybrynn]

LSP can handle all the various hardware and protocol types.

LOR can only do this indirectly via. xlights, which has more support than LOR, but less than LSP.
In that scenario, you sequence in LOR (or vixen, or LSP) ... and then use xlights as the player
and show scheduler ... and xlights can play to a wider range of hardware and protocols.

LOR on its own can really only do LOR and/or DMX currently.

[mkozik1]

Thanks for that taybrynn, at first glace of x-lights I thought it was just a scheduler for Vixen.  I need to dig deeper and understand more of what it can do.  I currently have LOR S3 and would hate to try and learn a new product if I can make this one do what I need.

[pipersmall]

A very informative thread guys. I too started with Vixen 2.5 a couple of months ago when I really got started with this hobby. While I have found Vixen quite easy to use and the cost is a bonus. My dilemma is that whole I'd be happy to continue using Vixen this year with no RGB yet, it may well be a different story next year and if I'm going to change software to possibly LSP for that then it would be better to do that now. So I'm not sure what way to go.


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[mkozik1]

Well, I was over on lSPs website and all their software is half off until the end of the month.  That might help the descission a little!

[Slite]

My dilemma is that whole I'd be happy to continue using Vixen this year with no RGB yet, it may well be a different story next year and if I'm going to change software to possibly LSP for that then it would be better to do that now. So I'm not sure what way to go.


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Vixen 3 should be along soon... and that will have way better support for RGB.

/Stefan