Sean Meighan
Welcome => What new effects you would like to see => Topic started by: Steve Gase on December 31, 2015, 01:15:41 PM
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Thought I'd start a thread to find out where XLv5 might be heading in the coming year... no doubt it will be jaw-dropping!
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Thought I'd start off by suggesting some features that are off the beaten path...
- Servo control... i've not used servos before, so I don't have a frame-of-reference, but I think some experienced and creative minds would have some great ways of approaching the problems of integrating servos with a show... maybe the ability to execute macros with recursion, coupled with some feedback...
- dmx-controlled devices... with bubblers, projectors, foggers, lasers, and moving lights there seem to be a lot of accessories that could be integrated with a show... again, some macros might be defined (like a control library) to create a common set of operations that could be generically called from XL.
- others ideas...?
...and, btw -- XLv4 was AWESOME!!! thanks, Gil, Dan, Sean, David, Matt, and EVERYONE that contributed to this work of magic! ;D
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I thought number 2 was already addressed....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Sw2Kr36kk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Sw2Kr36kk)
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some of the things i am thinking about:
a way to only define channels once, the information will be passed to controllers and fpp automatically
a single push button to re-save all sequences in your show and push the fseq files to fpp
more work on autocreate sequences
more effects (clouds, sound to effects like equalizers)
3d effects, build a cube and get effects to play in 3d space
performance improvements. something like sirty bits set so we dont need to re-render portions of a sequence that have not been modified.
we will see
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Import LMS and have Sequencer recognize the Props and effects so we can edit a LOR sequenced prop and modify it.
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Import LMS and have Sequencer recognize the Props and effects so we can edit a LOR sequenced prop and modify it.
I would like a feature that can read my mind and then execute. ;D
James
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Cut and paste with timing.
Background sequence that runs all the time the show is running for items like "tune to signs", blowup fans etc.
Sub animation sequence triggered from a main animation or musical sequence.
FPP features:
Able to play a sequence from a DMX or E3.11 input like Madrix. For Example if universe 1 channel 512 is a absolute value of 51 play sequence. if the value change stop the sequence and play another if setup.
E3.11 priorities to allow a main and backup FPP live on the network at the same time.
KEN
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My feature request for V5 would be a VU meter as the pixels would instantly respond to the voltage waveform of the audio. LOR has had this for years and I have used this successfully. It's a big hit. --Greg--
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Larger color pallet, and/or be able to change the color order, possibly by just dragging and dropping?
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Ability to drag fades to precise locations and also in both directions.
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Second Jeffl - make it easier to work with fades
second Gadget - make the colour pallet bigger, i'll use 20+ colours from a pallet.
Honestly the way Vixen 3 handles colours and curves via a user built "library" is just better.
would love to see gradients and gradient libraries in xl5, it's a major thing i missed in changing from vix3
right click paste options to paste with current time or fit into timing marks.
second tptech - E131 priority (does need controller support as well)
The ability to limit the effects used for autocreate..... some like lightning just don't work for my display at least.
autocreate also to be time period sensitive, no need for fast pace in a 10 second timing period.
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It would be useful to be able to insert time at the start of the timeline, say 5 seconds and have all the effects move with the timeline. My typical use case is to display something on my matrix prior to the start of a song. I currently edit the soundtrack with Audacity and then drag the effects right 5 seconds but something like this would definitely streamline the workflow. Alternatively, I create a five second sequence and add to the playlist ahead of the sequence.
Paul.
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some of the things i am thinking about:
a way to only define channels once, the information will be passed to controllers and fpp automatically
a single push button to re-save all sequences in your show and push the fseq files to fpp
more work on autocreate sequences
more effects (clouds, sound to effects like equalizers)
3d effects, build a cube and get effects to play in 3d space
performance improvements. something like sirty bits set so we dont need to re-render portions of a sequence that have not been modified.
we will see
I would like to see an layer added to defining network/port controllers in the same manner as you have defined models, and the physical definitions do not have to be completed to start sequencing. They should be added when you are ready to output to lights.
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... be able to change the color order, possibly by just dragging and dropping?
Agree. dragging to change the order of colors on the palette would be fantastic.
Honestly the way Vixen 3 handles colours and curves via a user built "library" is just better.
would love to see gradients and gradient libraries in xl5, it's a major thing i missed in changing from vix3
Agree. The Vixen3 Color Gradients and Dimming Curves (per effect) are hard to give up. Would love to see similar functionality in xl5.
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... be able to change the color order, possibly by just dragging and dropping?
Agree. dragging to change the order of colors on the palette would be fantastic.
Honestly the way Vixen 3 handles colours and curves via a user built "library" is just better.
would love to see gradients and gradient libraries in xl5, it's a major thing i missed in changing from vix3
Agree. The Vixen3 Color Gradients and Dimming Curves (per effect) are hard to give up. Would love to see similar functionality in xl5.
I gave up Vixen 3 and haven't looked back. Once you thoroughly understand xlights you will see how much better it is compared to Vixen. Xlights already has effect presets which, to me, is more powerful than color gradients. To mimic color gradients, create an on effect with the colors you want, leave everything else at default. Then when you want these colors call the effect preset and change the effect to the one you want. Yes, it's an extra mouse click, but that shouldn't matter.
Not sure why you would need a dim curve per effect. Dim curve should be model based. Each effect has a brightness setting. Why is this not acceptable?
James
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Xlights already has effect presets which, to me, is more powerful than color gradients. To mimic color gradients, create an on effect with the colors you want, leave everything else at default. Then when you want these colors call the effect preset and change the effect to the one you want. Yes, it's an extra mouse click, but that shouldn't matter.
Thank you for the reminder about effect presets. I do need to utilize that feature more. It mimics some of the "user library" functions, but it does not replace Color Gradients. Not even close. Gradients are dynamic colors. Presets only store static colors.
Each effect has a brightness setting. Why is this not acceptable?
Because each effect's brightness setting is a static value, not a curve. Its a fixed level for the duration of the effect. One exception is the ON effect which has start and end intensity. In Vixen3, a dimming curve gives you unlimited control of intensity across the duration of the effect. Its not limited to a start and end intensity and it can be applied to any effect. For example, you can create a "heartbeat" dimming curve to make any effect pulsate like a beating heart.
Perhaps an easier request in this direction would be to take the Start/End/Cycle Intensity sliders from the ON effect and move them to the Colors window and maybe call it the "Colors and Intensity" window.
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Why don't you make a video showing how you use them in Vixen3 and what makes it so great? I just can't visualize what you are talking about. I know what a gradient is but not sure how you are using it with an effect. I can only guess its what I'd call an effect modifier where is applies a gradient to the colors that exist on the effect.
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Why don't you make a video showing how you use them in Vixen3 and what makes it so great? I just can't visualize what you are talking about. I know what a gradient is but not sure how you are using it with an effect. I can only guess its what I'd call an effect modifier where is applies a gradient to the colors that exist on the effect.
I guess he's not going to make a video. Here's a short video, sorry I don't have sound. This shows the color gradient. It's not much different than xlights, but you can adjust the points along the duration, you will see this via the sliders. You can add or remove the sliders.
I'm in no way advocating this as an enhancement, just showing you what the op referred to. If I have a chance later I will post on the brightness/dim curve.
James
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Thanks James. So is it only certain effects where you can specify a color gradient? It doesn't seem like it would fit all effect types.
You can do a multi-color wipe in xLights using a Morph with no head. Now that we support 8 colors you can have a 6 color tail. The advantage I see to how they dial in the gradients is the variable length. I've accomplished that in xLights by using the same color multiple times but granted that doesn't give you as fine of a control.
I like the looks of some of their interface stuff but they only had to make it work in Windows. Let them get that pretty stuff working in 3 OS's and then I'll applaud. ;)
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Correct, not all effects allow color gradients. You said it, xlights can do this by selecting the same color multiple times. Unless the effect is longer than a few seconds, you don't need this kind of control.
Attached is a short, no sound, video on curves. I'll be honest, I never used it much when I was using Vixen. I've never had a need for it, but maybe others do. I think you will see how it works. The brightness basically follows the line, you can have multiple points.
James
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James, MOST effects support gradients. There are a couple that do not.
Gil, your guess is correct, these things are Effect Modifiers that can be used on any effect.
I'm away from home on a business trip, so thank you James for posting the videos. Keep in mind I was not the original requester but I agreed they are features I miss while migrating from Vixen3.
I'm learning xLights this year and you guys are saying xLights does gradients with multiple colors checked. I see that for only a few specific effects, NOT most effects. For example, the simple ON effect. If you check multiple colors you still get only one solid color, right? For BARS, if you check multiple colors you get multiple solid colors, not gradients. For CIRCLES if you check multiple colors you get multiple solid colored circles, not circles with color gradients. I'm just not seeing where you guys say this is in xLights today except for a couple very specific effects as opposed to modifiers that could apply to many different effects.
Attached are a couple pictures of a very simple gradient on a tree model. How would I do this in xLights today?
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James, MOST effects support gradients. There are a couple that do not.
Gil, your guess is correct, these things are Effect Modifiers that can be used on any effect.
I'm away from home on a business trip, so thank you James for posting the videos. Keep in mind I was not the original requester but I agreed they are features I miss while migrating from Vixen3.
I'm learning xLights this year and you guys are saying xLights does gradients with multiple colors checked. I see that for only a few specific effects, NOT most effects. For example, the simple ON effect. If you check multiple colors you still get only one solid color, right? For BARS, if you check multiple colors you get multiple solid colors, not gradients. For CIRCLES if you check multiple colors you get multiple solid colored circles, not circles with color gradients. I'm just not seeing where you guys say this is in xLights today except for a couple very specific effects as opposed to modifiers that could apply to many different effects.
Attached are a couple pictures of a very simple gradient on a tree model. How would I do this in xLights today?
You are correct, the simple on effect can only have one color, at least that's what I'm seeing. Hopefully others will correct me if I'm wrong. On the effects like bars, there is a 3D option that will add a gradient like result. If you want something static, then turn speed/cycles to zero.
The most powerful option is to use a photo. I went online and created a gradient, then exported and added as an effect. See attached photo. I know this is more steps than Vixen, I'm simply stating if all else fails, use a photo.
James
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Here is an example using bars with 4 colors, white, blue, white, blue. I turned cycles to 0, and blur to 11. There are a lot of options and possibilities with xlights. If transitioning from Vixen, LOR, LSP, etc, some things will be a lot simpler and will function better. However, there may be things that are still possible but do require a few extra steps. As a whole, xlights can do anything the others can. My two pennies.
James
Edit, added another example with bars, only two colors, white and blue and changed direction to right.
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If you want create interesting gradients on effects in xLights that don't appear to support gradients then you need to learn what masking is. Create two layers on the model and put the effect that defines the shape you want on top and place an effect that defines the color you want on the bottom. Change the blend mode of the top effect to "1 is unmask". I like to make the top effect purely white just to show what it's doing. Here's a gif showing a Circles effect on top of a Bars effect. The bars effect provides the coloring to the circles. The circles were defined as white.
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James the Blur with Bars does result in nice gradients. Thanks for the tip. To be fair though, Blur was just added a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely be using that.
Gil thanks for your example too.
I can't say exactly what AussiePhil, GadgetSmith, Jeffl, etc. prefer about Gradients and Dimming Curves. There may be other aspects they are looking for.
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James the Blur with Bars does result in nice gradients. Thanks for the tip. To be fair though, Blur was just added a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely be using that.
Gil thanks for your example too.
I can't say exactly what AussiePhil, GadgetSmith, Jeffl, etc. prefer about Gradients and Dimming Curves. There may be other aspects they are looking for.
Maybe it's because it's all they know. I won't knock Vixen, it's beautiful software. But, there are a lot of misinformed users out there. Some still think xlights is only an effects generator.
James
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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I didn't say anything about these functions, I'm pretty happy with how they are. I was just looking for an easy(er) way to reorder the pallet for different effects. drag and drop would be great if possible. I could shift a red-white-black to a red-black-white by simply grabbing the black and dragging it over a spot, without having to refine the two color positions. just a thought.
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After trying to create gradients like we were discussing I didn't like the current options so I added a small feature to the Bars effect that will help. This gives a nice new option I believe and can be used as the background mask to colorize other effects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0wyC1gUYlw&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0wyC1gUYlw&feature=youtu.be)
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I can't say exactly what AussiePhil, GadgetSmith, Jeffl, etc. prefer about Gradients and Dimming Curves. There may be other aspects they are looking for.
I'm just watching and still trying to get my display down so I can start sequencing. If I comment I will get "No xLights for you!" Two years! :)
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James the Blur with Bars does result in nice gradients. Thanks for the tip. To be fair though, Blur was just added a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely be using that.
Gil thanks for your example too.
I can't say exactly what AussiePhil, GadgetSmith, Jeffl, etc. prefer about Gradients and Dimming Curves. There may be other aspects they are looking for.
Maybe it's because it's all they know. I won't knock Vixen, it's beautiful software. But, there are a lot of misinformed users out there. Some still think xlights is only an effects generator.
James
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
James,
I'll gracefully admit i don't know xlights4 back the front, but i did use it fairly heavily last year including layers etc AND i still completely miss colour gradients.....
I'll come back with some more detail tomorrow.
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Well with the change I added you should be able to produce gradients in xLights. Maybe it's not as pretty as how you do it in Vixen but then again there's a reason we can give real time feedback in our previews.
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OK thinking about the Colour gradient stuff overnight, it's going to be better to do a screen capture video of how I use the feature in Vixen and why I miss it than to write it up, this will take a few days and likely should have it's own thread.
Colour Gradients and curves for that matter can be applied to nearly all effects in vixen with a simple drag and drop that makes some sequencing things significantly easier.
I'll do the video..... need to buy a new headset first, the old one broke last night :)
Cheers
Phil
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Yeah cause I don't think Vixen has any of the cool effects I modeled after SuperStar like Morph, Fan, Galaxy, and Shockwave which all use colors in a different way where gradients don't make sense. I really can't think of hardly any effects we have where I wished I had a gradient option.
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Yeah cause I don't think Vixen has any of the cool effects I modeled after SuperStar like Morph, Fan, Galaxy, and Shockwave which all use colors in a different way where gradients don't make sense. I really can't think of hardly any effects we have where I wished I had a gradient option.
Not counting the very old nutcracker effects and the very basic effects, Vixen only has a few effects, chase, spin, and wipe (morph). The wipe is the only effect that is based on location. All other effects are based on model orientation. So put the bars effect on a "whole house model" and it will not look correct.
Xlights definitely has more to offer than Vixen. If I can be the devil's advocate though, having a gradient offering would be neat for some effects. Gil, please don't take offense to the chatter in this post. What you and the other developers have done is just amazing. What ever you guys decide we will be happy with.
James
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I'm sure adding gradients would open a whole new can of worms. Take the Circles effect for one. Should the gradient be applied to each individual circle or across all circles and then someone is going to want to be able stretch the gradient and then rotate it to any angle.
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I'm sure adding gradients would open a whole new can of worms. Take the Circles effect for one. Should the gradient be applied to each individual circle or across all circles and then someone is going to want to be able stretch the gradient and then rotate it to any angle.
I agree. I eagerly await the other cool stuff you guys have up your sleeve.
James
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I agree with the need for 3 dimensional matrix capabilities. ...
for example, matrecies made up of meteor sticks! This is a much needed addition....
Thanks for all the hard work!
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If a millionaire shows up that wants the bankroll us then I could see a full rewrite of the program to have effects and preview be 3d.
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I'd like to see the next big release only work with Falcon controllers and players so David can become a millionaire and give me 10% for such a great idea. :D
Ron