Vertical and Horizontal fades

[Gilrock]

I have Notepad++ but I also bought a license for UltraEdit which I really like.

[bpducman]

I will give it a try
 

[bpducman]

Hey Gil this is my communication with Brian. maybe I did not ask correctly. but here it is.

me
I have 2 request if you could. Some how I have destroyed my sup file for wizards in winter I got from you. And I am trying to run your Silent Knight in Nutcracker and having an issue with the 12th ccr bar and I have been told that it is probably an acceleration problem. Is there any chance I can get  your acceleration calculation.   I really don't want to alter your sequence it is very special to all that have viewed it down here.

Brian
There should be no problem with the acceleration in the morphs. It exports as commands the same as the non-accelerated morphs. And accelerated morphs are not isolated to the 12th CCR, so I don't think that is the problem. Can you describe the problem you are having?

And when you say you are running the sequence in "Nutcracker", exactly what do you mean? Are you merging it with nutcracker effects?

me
So last year I was creating effects in nutcracker and then c&p into LOR    very slow process file sizes were approaching a gig.

This year NC has developed a import file that sees the 12 bar ccr and brings it right in. When you run your Silent Knight @ about 41 sec in you have blue bars coming down from the red top. I see all of the bars being made right up to the 12th bar and it does not appear. Now the 12 bar does show up in other areas of the sequence. They tell me that they interpreted that effect as a morph and the timing has something to do with the 12 bar showing up. They do have a way to adjust the timing, start and stop points.

But Yes I am merging it in or I would like to anyway.

Brian
The biggest new feature in LOR S4 is the ability to export in the new "intensity data" format. And it includes the "Pixel Editor" which is really LOR's enhanced version of nutcracker. The "Pixel Editor" allows creation of the nutcracker effects at any time you want and then you can export them to the sequence editor in the new "intensity data" format and the exported files are smaller.

Superstar exports in the new "intensity data" format as well. And the sequence editor will automatically play the exported superstar sequence alongside the exported "Pixel Editor" sequence. So you don't have to do copy/paste anymore.

As for the blue bars that come down at about 41 seconds into "Silent Night," the blue effect that comes down is identical in all 12 of the CCRs. I don't know why the first 11 would work and the 12th one would not.

The rest of communication was just other things.

I know this did not help.

Brad

[Phrog30]

I'm sure Brian will be at the expo. Might be something to ask in person.

[flyinverted]

You'll have a better chance of getting the formula to Coca-Cola IMHO.

[Gilrock]

I think you mixed up two different issues.  The 12th strip issue doesn't have anything to do with acceleration.  Steve had commented on how the accelerations were different so I was just saying if I knew Brians internal algorithm on how he uses the acceleration value I might be able to match it.  It was sort of a joke because I don't expect him to show what he's doing in his code.

If you want to describe it to him the way to say it is "xLights has created the ability to purchase your SuperStar sequences and import them into xLights and it converts all the SS effects into equivalent xLights effects that are editable."

He might not be happy about the ability we've provided because now you can create a lot of those same effects without buying his program.  But on the other hand it increases the number of folks that may purchase a sequence from him and import it into xLights if they were not a LOR user to begin with.  So it's hard to say whether the stuff we've added helps or hurts his bottom line.  That's why he might not be very open to telling you how he uses the acceleration value.

[bpducman]

Oh I am sure I mixed them up.   

I am going to let this one just sit.

[Gilrock]

Well I figured out that 12th ribbon issue.  The downside is I believe the correct fix is inside the math for morph effect on how it calculates which ribbon to use based on the percentage.  The SuperStar import is doing it the way I want which is if you have a 12 ribbon tree each ribbon has about an 8% band.  The problem with the way the morph math is working is that half that 8% band is lost at the top and bottom ribbon so it changes from the first to the second ribbon at 5% when it really should have been 9%.  I've figured out the correct equation which will give each ribbon an equal proportion but the issue is existing sequence might have a morphs that could shift by 1 ribbon if they were at certain percentage values. Out of the 101 percentage locations 24 are impacted.  The good news is the folks doing SuperStar imports will see an immediate correction to their positions.  I think it's the right thing to do.  If it's really a problem for someone I could write a script to do a one time translation from the old to new scheme.

[bpducman]

It sounds like it is worth a shot.
Thanks
Brad

[Gilrock]

I already checked in the change and it fixes the SuperStar import.  Now I'm trying to figure out if its worth it to develop code that detects and modifies all the morph positions.  I hate having to have a big block of code that is only in there to fix up changes that happened during the beta phase but will be left in there forever.

[Gilrock]

I was trying to write some conversion code but it gets too complicated.  The problem is I can't convert the percentages unless I know the model size.  We store our effects in database lookup format so that if you reuse an effect with the same settings it takes up less space.  So I would have to cross reference each morph which is possible but then I run into the fact that the same morph settings could exist on multiple models in which case it cause them to no longer be the same settings and then I would have to split it into two effect settings lookup objects.  I really don't want to figure all that out.  For most of the morphs that use 0 and 100% it won't affect them.  For the ones in the middle it might shift the start point by on column or row.

[flyinverted]

I have a chart for my Megatree for morphs. I know what percentage values for X to set for any given leg of the tree. I would like to keep using those same values. Is there a bug that would require changing it up?

[bpducman]

sounds like it is best just to leave it alone.   
I am sure you have better thinks to work on right for now

And with LOR changing all of their data base it maybe better to wait and see.
JMHO

[Gilrock]

I have a chart for my Megatree for morphs. I know what percentage values for X to set for any given leg of the tree. I would like to keep using those same values. Is there a bug that would require changing it up?

Yeah the problem I found was the two ribbons on each end were only getting half of the percentage range that every other ribbon was gettng.  And the halves that were lost on each end got distributed into the middle ribbons.  The problem is worse for trees with less ribbons.  Like for a 12 ribbon tree ribbon 1 only had 0%-4% but ribbon 2 had 5%-13%.  Now that they are evenly distributed ribbon 1 will be 0%-8% and ribbon 2 will be 9% to 16%.

So yes you might need to tweak a few values on the chart.  It will depend on whether your percentages were closer to the middle of the range for that ribbon or whether you had selected a value that was just barely on the edge of the range.

Dave and I talked about this yesterday and he thought we should change it and make the math right instead of finding it 2 years later and wishing we had found it sooner.

[Phrog30]

I have a chart for my Megatree for morphs. I know what percentage values for X to set for any given leg of the tree. I would like to keep using those same values. Is there a bug that would require changing it up?

Dave and I talked about this yesterday and he thought we should change it and make the math right instead of finding it 2 years later and wishing we had found it sooner.

I absolutely agree, it should be fixed now.  We all know this is still beta and there are risks in sequencing shows until a full release.

James