Vertical and Horizontal fades

[bpducman]

Hi Guys,

I know you guys are busting your ass trying to get all of this smoothed out BUT.

Opening an existing sequence that ran great in v3, some effects don't appear in v4. The timing is there and the effect is partially  there and it seems to be associated with fades some how. I can go select that spot and remove and or add vertical fades and the effect appears to come back, or tell the effect to be normal and not effect 1 or 2. When I compare running the sequence in v3 and then in v4 there is no comparison v3 has it beat.   I OH so want to use v4 but my brain is not as quick as some and I feel I am running out of time. If you would like me to send you anything just let me know

Thanks  for all of you hard work and I know when this is finished it will be tremendous.

Brad

[Gilrock]

Things have changed so you might need to make some adjustments especially if you had effects relying on speed or fit to time.  What effect are you trying to use?  There's isn't any effect called a fade.

[bpducman]

Hi Gil,

I understand the possible need to fine tune things. I will get you screen shots tonight after work.

I use a lot of vertical fade and horizontal fade when added on to things like color wash and for the most part it seems that if I have this VF or HF in the very beginning of the color wash effect the effect does not show up when opened in V4.

Sorry my terminology is self centered

Brad

[Phrog30]

When I compare running the sequence in v3 and then in v4 there is no comparison v3 has it beat.

Can you explain what you meant by has it beat? Just curious on the differences you see.

[bpducman]

First I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I think V4 is absolutely where this software needs to go, and I am speaking from a user stand point not a programmer standpoint.

The software is still in Beta and I keep telling myself that.

Beat is the wrong word it is not a contest. And the only reason for the comparison is because when I run this particular sequence in version 3 it is to me complete. It is what I envisioned while was using the tools to make the effects I had in my mind. Then when I run the sequence in v4 things are missing and these are probably just Beta tweaks. But once the v4 is complete I would hope that you could not see any difference in the sequence if run in v3 or in v4.

Generally in my (opinion) any software ie: cad, photo, word processor. The new version should be backwards compatible and allow you to open the previous version file and have it look just as it did in the prior version and I would bet that Sean, Gil, Dan and all of the programmers are striving to accomplish this.

There are so many ++++ with V4, Timing marks flexibility, importing many forms of sequence data especially LOR and Super Star files, Visualization of models and whole house. The list keeps getting longer.

I, Me, Brad, had just got pretty good at using some of the tools available in V3 and I have not spent the 1000 hours in V4 like I had in V3 using the tools. So I am in the learning curve and it becomes frustrating when I see some of the info I did in V3 not show up V4.

Because of my "work load" I am still on the fence for the next 3 weeks before I have to comment to V4 or stick with V3 for this year. I will not have the time to fix the little things in V3 sequences and create 9 new sequences for this year. Along with dealing with the things life tends to throw at us.

Hope this helps.

Mr. Gilrock I will now open the same sequence in V3 and V4 so I can maybe give you the information you need to point you in the correct direction.

Brad

[Gilrock]

The sequences are not going to 100% backwards compatible.  I think we are done with the v3 conversion code and if it's not perfect then so be it.  I'll help show you how to achieve something you want to do but I'm not going back and adding a bunch of code to try to do a perfect conversion.  In some cases the old code was broken or we just didn't like the design. 

[bpducman]

Got it your the man.

Here is a print screen. Look at the 21 sec area. I have no effect showing. If I press the vertical fade under the color wash then some of the effect comes back on. Just FYI.

Brad

[bpducman]

OCD Strikes again.

[Gilrock]

Did you recently convert that v3 sequence or was it converted awhile back?  I ask because we did have some conversion bugs several weeks ago that would cause major problems.  Also I'm wondering why I see OFF effects on your timeline.  If you attach your original v3 sequence and your latest xlights_rgbeffects.xml I can look at it tonight.

[bpducman]

Here is the original xml and the one I converted tonight. The original sequence is to large to attach

Hope this helps
Brad

[Gilrock]

I need your xlights_rgbeffects.xml for the model definitions you use.

[bpducman]

Here is the one from last year and the one from this year    always a work in progress

[Gilrock]

Your right there is some strange-ness going on with that sequence.  I'll try to figure out what's going on but I see where an effect background looks fine then you click on it and the background disappears.  What's probably happening is there are new settings that are undefined and when you click on them they just to a default value.  I'll let you know what I find.

[Gilrock]

I haven't played with those fades before but it appears to me that vertical fade is broken in the colorwash effect if you use the Effect1 blending mode.  We will need to look into that but it appears that it works OK if you change the blending mode to Normal which adds alpha support to the color blending.

[bpducman]

Thanks for looking at it. I used the color wash with fades allot. You are looking at 1 of 14 sequences that have that same association.

Brad