Odd LOR .lms import issue

[nutz4lights]

So I am creating my first sequences for this year.  I haven't done a musical sequence for several years (just animation) and there's only 4-5 things in my display that were there when I last did music (strobes, megatree star, bells with holly wireframe, two beat tracks).  I have been successful at following the import instructions to get a couple of the items into xlights, but am having issues when I try to bring in one of the items.  I follow the same procedure, it is a single channel item, but it is bringing in a bunch of extra channels & effects and putting them on another set of models.  The extra stuff it is bringing in is not at all associated with the source channels or destination channels best I can tell.

Has anybody ever seen this before?

Thanks,

Louie

[nutz4lights]

This just keeps getting weirder.  I have gone through and deleted all models from every view that I have, nothing appears in the Master View aside from the two timing tracks that I have.  I have clicked Save As to a new sequence, I have clicked Render All.  When I click play, there are still effects playing in the preview... the same effects that I mentioned below as being imported that I don't want to be imported.  I think I am going to start this process over again... and go watch Gil's video on importing from LMS files, but something is not right.  Again, these are all non-RGB elements and this should be easy.  The bells with holly is three LOR channels, one for each bell and one for the holly portion of the wireframe.  The megatree star is just a three way topper star with rope light.  The strobes are just a single channel.

[nutz4lights]

Just had a thought about closing down xlights and reopening, but it is still playing those effects in the preview.  I just checked the XML file and it appears to only have the timing tracks, but i'm not 100% sure on how to read these yet.  I have attached the XML file... does anybody see a bunch of effects?  Why would the preview SHOW effects if there were none present?

-Louie

[jnealand]

To clear out old effects (artifacts) you must put an off effect in for the affected areas or delete the fseq and re-render the sequence.

Artifacts have been a problem for a long time and are nothing new around here.

[nutz4lights]

Thank you, so I tried all of that and the problem persisted.  I just created a new sequence (I wasn't very far along in anyway).

I went back and watched dkulp's video and I think I found out the issue.  Again, these are all single string display elements... when I was doing the Import Effect and selecting the items from the drop down to add, the column where you tell it the LOR LMS "channel" needs to be applied at the node level.  I was applying it at the model level and there seems to be some kind of bug in doing it that way...

So, to review, I clicked Import > Import Effects.  Told it where the LMS file was located.  Selected from the drop down box at the top of the display which Model I was interested in importing effects to.  At that point, even for a single strand/node element like a rope light, xlights brings in a line for the model, another for the model and strand 1, then another line for the model, strand 1, and node 1...  Selected the channel drop down box associated with the NODE, not the strand, not the model, and pick the channel in the LMS file that you want to import...

This worked.

When I selected at the Model level, or the strand level, it for some reason brings in extra effects that I didn't ask it to bring in, literally another complete channel line from the LMS sequence.

-Louie

[Gilrock]

There are no artifact problems in xLights4 its just people not knowing what they are doing.  You have a data layer that's where all the stuff you are seeing is coming from.  You need to goto the Settings dialog / Data Layers tab and delete that data layer if you don't want that data.

[nutz4lights]

There are no artifact problems in xLights4 its just people not knowing what they are doing.  You have a data layer that's where all the stuff you are seeing is coming from.  You need to goto the Settings dialog / Data Layers tab and delete that data layer if you don't want that data.

I didn't say the word artifact   

I know I most definitely DON'T know what I am doing.  And on top of that, I am probably doing something that almost nobody else needs to know how to do because I bet 95% of the folks on most of the forums these days weren't even around when these sequences were originally done (2006 time frame).  They are done in the oldest possible fashion in LOR (back when there was only one version of the LOR software), but at least now I have brought them into the new world!

So I just went into the sequence that was causing me issues and I see the ISEQ file that is there.  The only option I see is to completely delete the ISEQ, and as you can tell, I have no idea what that will do.... but I would think it would completely wipe out the effects in the sequence (I'm probably wrong).

As I said above, I don't think what I discovered will help anybody, but, for my particular type of input, it definitely made a difference to NOT try and put the single channel being imported in from the LMS file onto the model as opposed to the individual node/string.  Putting it on the node/string level seemed to work whereas the model level did not.   I still have no idea how something can show up in the Display Preview window if there are no models in the Master View.  How is that possible?

-Louie

[Gilrock]

Settle down nutz.  If you read the whole thread I was talking about Jim saying artifacts have been a problem for a long time.

[Gilrock]

Once data layer data is rendered into the sequence it will play in the preview even if you have no other effects.  You created the ISEQ file when you imported a file as a data layer.  You probably did it with the new sequence wizard because Import Effects does not create data layers.  It's up to you whether you want to delete it.  It sounded like the effects it brought in are bothering you.  You can always just import the source file again if you want it back later.

[nutz4lights]

Ahhh, fair enough.

Louie

[nutz4lights]

Ok, I am reviving this thread because I just started my second sequence and am having the same issue again and I'd like to understand it.  Please be patient with me.  Here is exactly what I did to start this sequence:

-  new sequence, show it the music, create a blank timing track, nothing else.

-  click on Import > Import Effects, show it my LMS file location, map out the following items:  Star 1, Star 2, Star 3, Strobes, Bell 1, Bell 2, Holly and that is it

At that point, I should only have effects in those items because I haven't done anything else to the sequence.  I click render, preview, and my gosh darn light tubes are blinking in the preview.

I didn't run the import through the wizard, I did it using the Import Effects and mapping out just the above items.  So why are there effects being inserted into my Light Tube channels?

As you might imagine, I tried converting them to an effect and deleting them, but then as soon as it is re-rendered, they are back there again as non-editable effects.  I know I can go in and put an off effect over them and then render that, which is fine, but my science an engineering curiosity is taking over and I'd like to understand the underlying reason why they are being brought in in the first place.

I tried deleted the FSEQ, re-rendering, but they are there in the underlying data (which I'm guessing is what Gil referred to as the ISEQ file).  Is it possible to edit them out of the ISEQ?  Does simply performing the activity of saying "I want to import 7 channels worth of effects from a LMS file" automatically imply that more data has to come in at the same time or am I doing something wrong?

The thing is, if I start over with this sequence, it will only do the same thing again.. and with every other of the 4 remaining sequences I am trying to leverage from my LOR days ('06 through '10)...

Any ideas?  Thanks for your time, it is greatly appreciated.  I made it through my first sequence just this morning (worked on dialing it in all week) and it is truly amazing what this software is capable of... after suffering with LSP the last 3 years to the tune of $350, I wish we could collectively sue Minleon and donate all the money to the XL-NC team...  That would probably be enough money to rent out a nice villa in Vegas for the programming team...

-Louie

[nutz4lights]

 

 

 

I guess I've been burning my brain out with the lights this year or something...  the reason there are effects on those light tube channels is because, I temporarily set them up to overlap with, you guess it, the Star 1, Star 2, Star 3, Bell 1, Bell 2, and Holly channels...

I thought the lighting pattern looked awfully familiar...

At least I figured out what I was doing wrong.

If you've read this far... lesson learned is to TAKE MORE BREAKS!

-Louie

[drlucas]

If you've read this far... lesson learned is to TAKE MORE BREAKS!

Wait...it's not buy more lights?!!?

[nutz4lights]

That is another good lesson to follow... I follow it myself, but it leads to fewer and fewer breaks!

-Louie

[drlucas]

I just built these 8 candy canes this afternoon. Later this week when I figure out how many pixels I can stuff in each one I'll populate them.

In another post Jim taunted me saying my front yard had a lot of stuff in it so I had to figure a way to cram more in there.


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