Looking to make the switch...just a couple questions first!

[nmiller0113]

I've been following these forums closely for years and am preparing to make the move from what I've been using, LOR and Superstar, to xLights 4.  The product you've made so far looks amazing!  Before I start investing my time in migrating to a new sequencer/player/scheduler I was curious about a couple of things to see if they'll translate over and I can work solely in xL4.

- Ability to morph across a whole house display.  In Superstar I can morph across my entire display and using a grid can dictate where on the display specifically I want the morph to start and stop at.  I can also do this with a few other effects, like fan.  I have the ability to put 4 different effects across 4 (or more) different sections of the house if I wanted to and split it into quarters...or wherever.  Can I do this currently with xL4?

- Migration of AC channels and effects (Twinkle, shimmer...etc).  If I import my AC channels into xL4, will I see what I imported similar to LOR as long as my channels are mapped properly in the objects in xL4?  The reason I ask is I want to make sure I can edit or add to those channels after the import.  I really only use AC channels now for a 6 channel star, some strobes and floods...16 channels in total.  I want to make sure I'm not handcuffed after the import, if they will import at all.  I've read on the forums in a few different places that AC support was supposed to be coming around this time of the year, but nothing conclusive that I've seen.  I've also seen work arounds but don't know if that includes anything more than just on and off, but nothing for shimmer or twinkle...if those are not imported it would impact my sequence when it played as I depend on some of those.

- Rendering.  I understand what rendering means but not sure I do as it pertains to xL4.  I don't understand some of the posts here that talk about it and the differences between Render All, Render at Save or just plain Save.  When do I need to be concerned with those and what are the technical differences.  I read something about it updating xml vs fseq files, but my understanding of those as they pertain to xL4 is also limited since I haven't used it yet and couldn't find any clear answer or documentation other than fseq files are used for FPP, but some conversations weren't referring to that player.  Keep in mind that my background in this lighting hobby has been solely with LOR, Superstar and Madrix.

- Documentation.  Is there anything current I can find to get these answers and not have to bother all of you or is it just trial and error and learning by trying?

Sorry for the long winded post and thanks for anyone's input!  I really do appreciate it and am excited to make the switch!

[sean]

welcome to xl4.

ill let gil (who wrote xl4 morph) comment, but 1) Yes, i think we do all you are asking,.

Take a look at these tutorials http://www.nutcracker123.com/wk/index.php?title=Tutorials for documentation.


as far as AC imports, our effects should look similar to what you saw in LOR. There are some users (Rich Renn and others who have over 400 AC channels, they have ported to XL4).

Rendering is when we take your whole sequence and create a final binary file. Our code is very efficient. We can easil drive over 100,000 channels. The same for the FPP show player. Both Xlights and FPP take advantage of this fully rendered binary file so that at play time we are just reading bytes and pumping them out.

When you sequence you can see everything in the preview window, when you press save is when we create the binary file. On my 25K channel sequence it takes about one minute to perform the save,

Loading takes just a few seconds.

BTW, I am working on a tool that will take the LOR *.lee files and will automatically create the models for AC channels into xLights/

[Gilrock]

All of our effects can be put across the whole house including my effects that are similar to Superstar.

You can't use the built in shimmer and twinkle from LOR because that is a hardware specific proprietary protocol and we create a standard Falcon Pi Player output file so we had to be more generic since our stuff is designed to work across a wide range of controllers.  I have several LOR boxes and I've never used those built-in features.  I just simulate the shimmer and our twinkle works great.

Rendering is the act of turning the effect into data.  We attempt to do that on the fly but the button are there to force a complete re-render of all the effects.  If you attempt to preview and it doesn't look right try hitting the green gear (Render All) button and it will process all the effects to the output data buffer.

[nmiller0113]

Thanks for the prompt reply Sean!  A couple of quick responses:

2) Good to hear the AC imports work well.  Will I be able to modify or add shimmer, twinker, on/off, ramp up/down or otherwise after the import?  I thought there was still work to be done or some conversation around building a LOR-ish grid to allow people to work with AC channels in xL4.  Maybe I was misunderstanding a part.  The grid part kind of makes sense, but I can't think of a reason the timing marks wouldn't suffice to tell it when to do "something" with an AC channel or how that wouldn't work the same way we do object/model based sequencing currently in xL4.

3) So, let me see if I'm understanding correctly.  When I hit save it isn't rendering unless I have the render at save checkbox selected.  It is merely saving to a non-binary file so that sequence is saved but not playable via the preview screen or the built in player or FPP?  When I render either at Save (with the render at save checkbox selected) or by hitting the Render All it creates or updates the binary file used for playing a sequence in xL4 or FPP, correct?  Is the non-rendered / non-binary file XML and the rendered/binary file fseq?

Thanks again for the clarifications!

[nmiller0113]

Thanks Gil!

1) So just to be clear on this.  Using morph as an example.  In Superstar if I select 1/2 of my grid, let's say just the left half of my wholehouse model, I make a single morph that goes from left to right and it covers the every model on the house.  I will see a morph go across every one of the models on the left half of my house all together.  If you look at this video at the 0:55 mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgsCqcxMH5w you will see it goes all together from left to right....just making sure I can do that with xL4.  Yes, the video doesn't only do half of the house, but I wanted to show what I meant just to make sure.  Thanks!

2) I'm not using LOR controllers, I'm using Renard and communicating from LOR via DMX.  I can still select the shimmer, twinkle...etc....effects but I'm guessing that LOR is doing some sort of generic translation to make it work.  I completely follow what you mean with the proprietary part and some additional features (like macros) they can take advantage of using the LOR protocol, but I'm all DMX (E1.31).

3) Makes perfect sense...thanks!

[Phrog30]

When the morph is used on the model level, it gives you a grid and you can start in the middle if you like. But, for groups in not sure this is possible. Gil, others, am I wrong on this?

[sean]

(3), example. Have a sequence for wizards.mp3. I have 100 models totaling 24,000 channels. The quick save writes wizards.xml. This file has every effect, all timing marks. It is all your work. If I do the full save there is a second file created, Wizards.fseq. Wizards.xml is 1 matte in size, wizards.fseq is 55 bytes in size. You only send wizards.fseq to the fpp to run the show


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gilrock]

The reason there is the Render On Save option is because most of the time you don't really need to save the entire sequence as data in the fseq file you really just want all the effects you are working on backed up in the xml file which you can always use to generate the fseq later.

With my morph you can control exactly where it starts and stop.  My version of the morph is like the one in Superstar on steroids.  You can specify 4 different colors in the tail you can easily create repeats of the morph with staggered start times.  There is an effect assist window where you can drag the corners around to define where the morph starts/stops.

Take a look at this video...everything I'm doing in that video is on a ribbon tree but could also be done on the whole house model.  The only issue right now is the effect assist window needs to be large enough to display all the pixels.  I need to make an update that bins the rows/columns when there are too many.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7Mnafr-PWk

[Gilrock]

When the morph is used on the model level, it gives you a grid and you can start in the middle if you like. But, for groups in not sure this is possible. Gil, others, am I wrong on this?

The grid is still there for model groups some people just don't drag the window large enough for it to display.  I need to fix it so that it can display the larger models like 400x400 when the window is smaller.  With the new option to fit a model group to the actual size of the models it contains that really helps knowing where the morphs will start/stop also.

[Phrog30]

I can also do this with I have the ability to put 4 different effects across 4 (or more) different sections of the house if I wanted to and split it into quarters...or wherever.  Can I do this currently with xL4?

As long as the effects are in layers this will work. Xlights can't blend across groups though, so the last group rendered wins.

[Phrog30]

When the morph is used on the model level, it gives you a grid and you can start in the middle if you like. But, for groups in not sure this is possible. Gil, others, am I wrong on this?

The grid is still there for model groups some people just don't drag the window large enough for it to display.  I need to fix it so that it can display the larger models like 400x400 when the window is smaller.  With the new option to fit a model group to the actual size of the models it contains that really helps knowing where the morphs will start/stop also.

Thanks Gil, will try that.

[nmiller0113]

Thanks again for the reply Sean!  Any thoughts on what I mentioned here?

2) Good to hear the AC imports work well.  Will I be able to modify or add shimmer, twinker, on/off, ramp up/down or otherwise after the import?  I thought there was still work to be done or some conversation around building a LOR-ish grid to allow people to work with AC channels in xL4.  Maybe I was misunderstanding a part.  The grid part kind of makes sense, but I can't think of a reason the timing marks wouldn't suffice to tell it when to do "something" with an AC channel or how that wouldn't work the same way we do object/model based sequencing currently in xL4.

[Gilrock]

I can also do this with I have the ability to put 4 different effects across 4 (or more) different sections of the house if I wanted to and split it into quarters...or wherever.  Can I do this currently with xL4?

As long as the effects are in layers this will work. Xlights can't blend across groups though, so the last group rendered wins.

So if you need them to blend you can just use a whole house model and then use the X/Y positioning to move each effect to a different quadrant and if you do that on 4 different layers they will all blend if you use the Normal blend mode.

[nmiller0113]

Thanks again to everyone who replied and helped here!  It was VERY helpful in my understanding and trust in moving forward!

[Phrog30]

Interesting, I will check this out. Thanks Gil.