Feedback on working with pictures in Nutcracker

[BundyRoy]

It may be just me, but I noticed that when I was importing a png file through nutcracker onto my matrix there is an issue if you update the picture file and call it the same name. I think I have also had the same issue with jpg so I don't think it is to do with the file type.

I load the picture.png file and play effect. All works as planned.
I then decide I need to change picture.png to make it look better. Do this in paint and save it as picture.png (overwrite original file).
Go back into nutcracker and go to the filename tab and select file (so effectively select the same file as shown already in the directory box in Nutcracker), click ok. Then play effect and get same effect as original, not the updated file.

I have tried selecting another effect (eg bars) and running that and then going back to pictures and still old file.

I have to shutdown xlights and reopen it to get new file. I'm using version 3.4.11, so my apologies if this has been corrected in the 9 versions since. I have not checked.

I'm not stressed and not complaining. Can easy work around it with new file names. Just some feedback on what is a fantastic program.

Thanks Sean and all the other developers.

 

[BundyRoy]

Just installed version 3.4.21 and still get the same results. Sorry if this has been reported before (an I'm guessing it would have been), it's just the first time I've seen it.

 

[smeighan]

no one has reported this before. Sounds like the file is being cached by the os. It sees the same filename and gives us the original read. Let me ping Don Julien. He pretty much owns the Picture effect now

 

[smeighan]

we will fix this after this season, the fix could break stuff.
Instead of closing xlights, if you open another picture file and then come back to original that should work too.


you
bundy.jpg


you edit it in paint


now change the picture to anything else


sean.jpg
and then change it back
bundy.jpg


that should force the reload.


The reason it is cached is we dont want the overhead of opening an image hundreds of times in the sequence.
If you have an image that will display for 10 seconds and you are moving it left.
10 seconds at 20fps means 200 frames. We dont want to open the file 200 times. This is why we used an option to cache the image once it was opened.


we might be able to do code that says do a new open on frame 0, but since there is a workaround we will work those next year


thanks

 

[BundyRoy]

Thanks Sean.

I did try opening another picture in between later on and it does work as you suggested.

Thanks again for all your teams hard work and for sharing it with us all.

Roy