Wave effect going missing

[logandc99]

Apologies if this has been discussed already. This is an issue I am having with the wave effect.
I am running the Mac version 2016.23 and loaded up my Star Wars sequence.
When I initially run the sequence, I get to a point in the sequence where a wave effect (sine wave setting) is applied to my roof group giving waves of blue shooting along the roofline. It changes colour along the way.
However, if i click on the effect while the sequence is running or even stopped, the effect on the roof line disappears and all of the wave effects on the roofline no longer display in the preview screen.
http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cDhhQX1LUI

Cheers
Logan

[logandc99]

Ok, forget the above. I think i found the problem. User error 

[flyinverted]

I categorize those as "PEBKAC"   Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair.   

[logandc99]

Actually, thinking about it again, I might have been too quick to blame myself (or not  ).
When I load in my Star Wars sequence from last Xmas  (in the mac version 2016.23) and play it in the preview window, all the effects show as originally sequenced.  If I then click on an effect in my sequence, the effect settings window shows all the parameters for that effect setup to make that effect appear as it does in the sequence, i.e. if I click on a butterfly effect or single strand effect etc in the sequence grid, I can see all the settings in the effect settings window setup correctly to create the desired look in the preview window.
But it is different for the wave effect because, as per my video above, if I click on the wave effect on my roof group in the sequence, after a few seconds, the effect on the roofline disappears and subsequent wave effects don't show up in the sequence being played. I said "forget the above - user error" because after then adjusting all the various parameters in the wave effect settings window, I was able to get roughly desired lighting effect on the roofline to appear again... but I didn't think I should I have to do that? Shouldn't the settings for that wave effect in the sequence show up as originally setup when I did  the original sequence? - that seems to be true for all the other effects I click on in the Star Wars sequence but not for the wave effect.
My apologies if this has been addressed already - I'm just getting back into the sequencing more for this year and trying to keep up with the rapid rate of amazing updates and enhancements that the xlights team has been implementing.

[logandc99]

Okeee dokeee. Silence is telling me that this is a case of "PEBKAC" then 

[Gilrock]

I was actually working in that sequence right now because I'm adapting it to a single matrix to play at a high school graduation party in a couple weeks.  There's definitely nothing wrong with the Wave effect itself but not sure what is causing what you're seeing.  Something is causing it to change when you click which is really rendering over the old saved data.  It could be something to do with the Render Style or Tranformation stuff.  I'd just go around all the panels and check things out.

[logandc99]

Yes it does seem to be rendering different settings over the effects original settings. The same thing happens on two different computers (one older Mac and one very new one).
 If I load the sequence from scratch and hit play, the wave effects works ok until i click on the effect in the grid and then it disappears.
If I load the sequence from scratch and click the render button before playing, the wave effect never appears  and is gone immediately so as you said, there is a rendering going on that is over writing the original settings of the sequence.

[Gilrock]

See if you can adjust the settings for the wave and get it to appear.  If it's a group the buffer size might be coming out a different size now causing the wave height you were using to not work.

[logandc99]

If I play around with some of the settings I can get the effect to reappear on the roof group - looks little different but with a few more adjustments, it should be able to look similar.
I did a bit of trial and error looking at all the different builds of xlights since the beginning of the year.
The wave effect stays when clicked on as originally sequenced in the versions 2016.8 and below. But from 2016.9 onwards, the problem with the wave effect disappearing occurs.
 So there appears to be a change in 2016.9 which has resulted in this wave issue occurring. Hope that helps 

[Gilrock]

Yep 2016.9 was the first release to contain the new buffer types and transformation options on a per effect basis.

[Gilrock]

By the way did you add or remove any models from your Layout?  That would affect the buffer sizes allocated to the model group.

[logandc99]

Not that I remember. Whilst I am working on a new sequence with added models for this year, I am using a different Show and media directory. So when I have loaded up the Star Wars sequence, I was using the old show and media directory where the model layout is unchanged from last year.
In the end, it's not a big deal as, so far, it only seems to be that one effect where I have noticed an issue and it can be set up again to look roughly the same again anyway.  I just wanted to make sure it wasn't indicative of a bug which it doesn't seem to be.... just a minor consequence of the program advancements  .

[Gilrock]

I alerted Dan to this since he is more up to speed on what changed with the render buffers.  He just emailed he checked in a fix for this.

"Groups that were set to “grid as per preview” were ending up with a potentially much smaller render buffer than they used to so things that were based on the buffer size (like heights of waves or centers of things) could be smaller. Now fixed."

[dkulp]

I want to note that these wave effects are one area of Logan's sequence that is really not "portable" to other peoples displays.   The roof group is a "Grid as per preview" group which means the buffer is created exactly like they look like on the preview.   The wave is 50% high.  Thus, the wave would only apply to the parts of the roof that are in the middle 1/2 of the preview.   If you have a very high roofline (top 25% of your preview), those won't get the wave effect.    As a suggestion to Logan:  change the group to minimal grid and set the wave to 100%.   Thus it would be much more independent of the location of the rooflines in the preview.   

I've attache a "picture" of what I mean using my preview. (I overlaid a matrix and added that to the group so you can see the wave)   My top roofline is barely within the range of the wave.   If my background picture would have been shorter, it may not have displayed anything.

[flyinverted]

We can learn from this and include it in the manual.

For sharing sequences with model groups, the shared group should be set to "Minimal Display" ?