drawing elements in elevation and plan view.

[Kaite Clocks]

Hi all,
Starting from point zero, and have not considered any hardware as yet.
My question relates to software and the way you draw / display your elements when programming you musical sequences for your show.
I would like to know if there is any software available, that can draw and display your elements as a split screen, both in elevation and plan view, and able to flash in sync. at he same time, to indicate the motion of your programe.
I need this function as the configuration of my house, will not allow me to view all the elements front on.
hope that is clear .
thanks in advance for any advice

 

[AAH]

Hi Vespa and welcome to ACL.
As far as displaying 2 concurrent visualisations of your lights I think the only program that will currently do that is Light-O-Rama and by default it doesn't allow it. Somewhere I have a link saved that describes what is required to allow 2 copies of the visualiser to run. Having said that I wouldn't suggest LOR as the program is now lagging behind somewhat in features and you can get better results for free with Xlights 4 or Vixen 3. Xlights 4 may not allow you to have 2 concurrent display previews running but it's probably quite an easy process to configure 2 of them and swap between them.

 

[Kaite Clocks]

Thanks,

I will analyse those two programs and post results.

 

[AAH]

The info on how to get 2 or more visualisers happening with LOR is at http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/27513-2-visualizer-screens/

 

[Kaite Clocks]

Cheers.

 

[Gilrock]

Using xLights you can create many different Layout views you just can't view more than one at a time in the preview....yet. Using the Model Group filtering you could create many different views and just turn on/off each group to show which view you want. The only thing I can think of that's missing right now is we only allow one background image but if you can ignore or just not use a background image you could do it. In fact you could model the lights for lets say 10 different houses on your street using a Model Group to represent each house. Once you learn how the program works you just gotta think creatively.

 

[Kaite Clocks]

Hi Gilrock,
thanks for that advice.
I am sure that during a browsing session on you tube, i did notice that a video showing a "walkthrough" of a christmas display, where a person was sitting in front of a terminal, and the display on the program he was using
showed both an elevation and plan view of the light show he was programming.
i will try to go back on my history and see if i can find again.
i think is some kind of church display in the U.S.
chhers.

 

[smeighan]

Uses sketchup and draw all props. U can now see what your house looks like from front, side, above.

 

[Gilrock]

I would love to add a 3rd dimension to our layout and allow multiple views but it hasn't seemed high enough on the priority list yet. We had a lot of bugs and enhancements on the list from last year that we had to wait till January to start on. To be honest most people get too hung up on making the preview look too exact. I have lights that wrap around the edges of the roof but I just draw them out as straight lines. It doesn't look like my house in the preview but it looks great when I play it on my house so I don't worry about it. Nobody but you sees the preview and it's only meant to be a tool to help you know what will happen on the house.

 

[ocanada1]

I know you guys are busy making a fantastic product, but for those like me who live on a curve (and thus have three distinct views of the show), I hope that you eventually have time to allow preview for different views. My neighbors always comment that the south side of my display isn't as good as the north side or straight on view. And they are right! Not as important as many of the features you guys are working on but it would be a nice enhancement. Thanks for all the good work that you do.

 

[Gilrock]

Like I mentioned earlier nothing is stopping you from having 3 different Layout views so you could preview your house at different angles.