questions, problems, requests...

[Steve Gase]

Haven't been using xl4 yet, but just installed 4.1.13 and watched sean's video for 4.0.9.  (lots of differences... views, button labels, etc. )

I have several questions, and looking to find which might be expected, known defects, or unknown defects.  (i'll create a ticket if unknown)

1) one useful feature with timing tracks created by audacity and displayed by xl3 was the label text... I would enter notations to help me identify what was happening in the song -- "cow say moo", "duck says quack", etc.  Is there a way to see the label in xl4?  (maybe a mouse-over or tool-tip balloon over the range?)  For timing marks ('T') created in XL4, it would be nice to add notations as the 'T' was used (if that option was turned on).

2) in the layout tab, i created some models, and then created a whole house model.  I'd like to be able to include the WHM in the display (visualizer)... i found it useful to add it to the display, shrink it, and drag it to a top corner.  In the upcoming show I planned multiple "zones" that I would have multiple WHMs and I'd want each displayed in a corner.  The problem is that I can't enable the "include in display" checkbox because that control is hidden in the model edit box and whole house models are not editable.  I think changing overall intensity for whole house models would also be useful.

3) are whole house models "broken" in the Sequencer tab?  I successfully placed effects on various models, but when i placed a butterfly on the WHM, i got nothing in the model preview, and nothing in the house preview... when I selected the individual models (which are lit by being included in the WHM, I got nothing for them). 

4) I tried to import timing marks during the wizard when the sequence was created -- and later when the sequence had been edited.  The marks would not appear -- but the row was created.  I check the radio box for the timing mark, but had no impact.  Here are the timings...

Code: [Select]

30.222199 30.222199 bring house light
40.010356 40.010356 beginning fiddle
50.101241 50.101241 cello

as I traveled through the latest version, i had a bunch of questions too:

5) what is the "From Output:" field in the model create/edit dialogs?  (I can't even guess on that one...)

6) what is the purpose for "Model Groups"?

7) in the sequencer page... what are "Views"?

It looks like I have a lot of videos to catch up on.

[flyinverted]

Hi Steve
1. The timing mark text is working for me with 4.1.13
2. Gil will have to answer that
3. There's a known issue with real time rendering with 4.1.13.  You can use 4.1.12 or just do a Render All to get the semi-real time rendering.

4. See the attached photo
5. From output.. Dan Kulp has explained that "• the 'From output' channel attribute (if set to not equal to 1)

The start channel for the model is calculated based on the “start channel” that is offset from this output number (default is 1).   If you have 4 outputs setup on your setup tab being universes 1 through 4, all with 510 channels, for  model  set as start channel “1” from output “2”, it’s real start channel in the fseq would be channel 511  (first channel of the second output).   For many of us, keeping track on a “per universe” basis is a hell of a lot easier than the raw count from the very first channel.

>       • Individual start channel

For models with multiple strands or elements, you can specify the start channel for each strand individually."

6. Model groups allow you to group several models together like 10 mini-trees and apply a single effect to all the models in the group as if they were one model.
7.  Views are user customizable groups of models that they want to view at a time.  If you had 100 models to sequence but only want to view the candy canes, you can create that view and just work on those.  The other function of views is to create a view of all your models you commonly sequence. When you start a new sequence, use that view and all those models are there, instead of having to add all the models to a new sequence very time.

Hope that helps.

-The other Steve G.

[Steve Gase]

Thanks Steve.
I didn't see the timing mark text because the few that I had were too close together for my display.

I did see an oddity... with 3 timing marks in the imported file, I only saw 2 strings... 3 marks defined 2 gaps, and 2 strings.  for the 3rd string to be visible, I needed to add a 4th timing mark.

Thanks for the other answers as well!

[kevinp]

OK, what's the procedure for adding the labels on a timing track?  I'm running the latest version (4.1.13) and for the life of me can't figure it out.  It's probably user error overlooking something right in front of my face.

[Steve Gase]

i don't know the procedure for INSIDE xl4....

but, the procedure with Audacity is

• open the song.
  
• select the point in the song, and Ctrl-B -- it adds a text field below that you can type in the string
  
• repeat.
  
• add one final timing mark at the end so that the prior label will be visible.
  
• when finished, use the menu File/ExportLabels and save to a file.

in XL4 use the Settings menu, choose Sequence Settings, and then the tab called "Timings"...  choose import.

[kevinp]

I know that Gil and Dan are working on the label ability and checked in the code (or at least part of it from what I've seen), but to my knowledge it hasn't been released to the general public yet.  And I believe Gil mentioned that in a Facebook post.  Maybe "the original Steve G" is using pre-release software or he imported the labels?

[Steve Gase]

Imported.

(Not the new-and-improved SteveG)

[flyinverted]

I imported the text via a timing track import in that photo. I just replaced the bar# with the text.  I do run pre-release code but I really have 20+ or more version of NC on my main computer I don't know which version that was.

[Gilrock]

We've been saving Audacity labels every since XL4 was in alpha release.  So if you type in the labels in Audacity we've been saving those all along.  In fact I have sequences that are now showing labels that I created last December.  Next release you can just double click the timing mark and type it in or edit an existing label.  But I"m sure someone will complain they want Dragon speech recognition so they can just talk to their computer to create the labels.

[kevinp]

Speech recognition, now you're on to something!

I'll look for it in xLights 5 or 6.   

[arw01]

Speech recognition, now you're on to something!

I'll look for it in xLights 5 or 6.   

user:  Dragon
dragon: yes masster
user: add beats timing marks to this sequence
dragon: yes master
dragon: done master
user: put garland alternating between red, green, blue on each beat timing interval
dragon: working master
dragon: done master, would you like me to play it for you..

Yes please

Now you are talking gil!

[Gilrock]

It was actually on my mind cause I was thinking of ways to automatically place the Papagayo phonemes.  My experts at work tell me speech recognition is actually easier than trying to detect lyrics buried inside music.

[Steve Gase]

I was holding back on this advice since it would give me a leg up on the rest of you fantastic designers...

At the Expo, Charles Belcher shared with us the name of the software he used to do animation of his house in the projection mapping talk.

CrazyTalk7 is an affordable software tool...  http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/default.aspx

You can take a picture of a person -- or an drawing, lifelike, or a simple outline of a snowman...  and specify the location of the face, the mouth, and eyes... and the tool will "animate" the picture.  It is creepy in how life-like it can be.

The software can listen to your voice, and move the mouth accordingly.  you can animate the facial features, and add emphasis with the face and body motions.  there is a LOT that it can do.

Originally, I was looking for a way to create monster faces for halloween that I would place on a panel... for christmas I would do the same with santa, frosty, and other characters.  I never spent the time to get the papagayo stuff to work, and to delve into the creation of video content.

This software makes it so easy.  watch the tutorials on youtube to see.

to have your character lipsync to music, you need to record your own voice singing to the song as you listen on headphones to the original song.  The software matches your voice to the the facial movements.  when you complete the animation, swap our your voice track with the original music.

try it out.

in return for this suggestion, I hope everyone shares their cool sequences so that I can use them in my own show!

http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/default.aspx

https://youtu.be/VXRjX5bNGKA?t=305

https://youtu.be/eHVs5zr6MvE?t=626

[Steve Gase]

i'm going to put the CrazyTalk discussion into a new thread so that it isn't buried here.

[danj]

Somehow I missed this post but I stumbled on double clicking a timing mark tonight.  How TOTALLY cool to be able to label timing marks right here in xlights!!!!