LSP Display Simulator

Gilrock

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I talked about my bulbs not looking round in LSP the other day. Here's a pic of what I'm talking about. The top left image is what the channel for the tree looked like when it was first drawn. I drew an extra straight line above it just to see how it would look. The image to the right is what the bulbs look like as soon as you deselect that channel to draw another channel and is what the bulbs look like during playback. I think it's terrible...most of them look like L shapes. Below is a part of my screenshot for the same area of my visualization in LOR. See how the bulbs look nice and round. If there's a way to get the bulbs to look better I'd love to hear it.
Pixels.jpg

Thanks,
Gil
 

fasteddy

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I apoligize but im actually struggling to see what the real issue is. its a visualizer so its just supposed to be representation of your display items for sequencing purposes, the lights being represented as circles, squares, triangles or what ever shape shouldnt matter as long as the location and channel allocation are correct.when they are drawn. People tend to get too caught up with the way certain elements look in the visualizer for no real gain what so ever. The visualizer is not used in a show, so im wondering why this is such a concern for you as this is actually the first time this has ever been raised.
 

Gilrock

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For me the visualizer was the most important part of the program. I verify all my timing using the visualizer and its what I stare at for hours upon hours so it sure helps the better they can make it look. It just looked so much worse than what I was used to I had to comment. I'm a software developer so I suggest improvements to software for a living. I'm just pointing this out as an area for improvement. They also should add multi-line draw instead of popping up a dialog every time I release the mouse button...let me keep clicking new points and then double-click when I'm done...or some way to switch between those two modes.
 

fasteddy

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But it still does what you are wanting, Ive stared at it for more hours than i like to think for 3 years and must say im still struggling to see why this is an issue. It must realize that this hobby does not bring in any real income for developers especially the DIY scene for the time that is comitted. similar software packages in the pro world sell for multiple thousands of dollars, so there will always be compromises because in the end because our hobby doesnt really pay the bills for developers. But LSP now has some backing to get things done so we would love someone like you to be part of the LSP Beta team to help make it a stronger program for the future. :D
 

Gilrock

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Yeah you're right it will get the job done. You know how us software guys are...we are always itching to get our hands on the code and change it. ;) To be honest I have no idea the background or size of the LSP development team. I just heard about the program a week ago when I joined here. I get the impression you are part of the team. I'd love to be involved and help out.

Gil
 

z_special

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I have to agree with Ed, the lsp software and others like it have limited venue for sales. I know for myself with the large amounts of demand there doesn't leave me with much spare time. Like Ed said these guys do it from home. Like everything lsp does have issues have you bought a dodge lately. Lol
 

Gilrock

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Ok so it's 1 vote to make the display look better and 2 votes to keep it looking ugly forever because the programmers are overburdened...it was just a suggestion...didn't mean to call someone's baby ugly...lol.

Guess I'll checkout some of the other software packages I was just reading about. I think one that lets me get involved and write plugins would probably be a big draw for me.
 

z_special

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I did not say that I would not like to see the visualizer updated, there are alot of things that I would like or love to see. BUt for now i am doing with what I have. Take windows for example they have been around for years but they still cam out with ME edition which sucked. I'm not saying LSP does or LOR does either.

Yes I am a neebie and until I know all the functionality of LSP I would say that I am not an expert or say that I am. In the end I found that the visualizer lagged and was looking for help with the 3000 + hours I put in at work coupled with the family, I would hope that the effeorts I put into sequencing would show thru the visualizer. I had hoped that maybe there was something that I missed and maybe the guys on the board could help me out, cause that is the Idea of the forum. A fresh set of eyes or a second opinion is always a good thing.

I bought the software (LSP) and looked at the possiblities that it can do and would do in the future compared to what other programs are doing now like LOR for example. You can look at it like a glass of water half empty or half full, that is your choice. Some people look and have different ideas on how things should be, Baskin Robbins has more than one flavour wonder why that is.......
 

kane

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CopperCreekLights said:
Guess I'll checkout some of the other software packages I was just reading about. I think one that lets me get involved and write plugins would probably be a big draw for me.
A bit of history - Minleon purchased LSP from the previous developer (David Johnson), and have employed a main developer Ryan, who was involved in the software years ago (and I believe another one might also be involved).. This was only a few months ago, so they've been trying to get their heads around things as quickly as they can. Because Minleon is likely to be looking at the big picture (selling hardware eventually), it's hopeful that they'll be investing in further improving the product continually - as Fasteddy mentioned, there wasn't a lot of coin in LSP for the previous developer (due to the small audience for this sort of software), so you can understand when he started getting bored with the boring stuff like fixing bugs, and focused more on interesting things like new features!

Fasteddy is not on the development team, but has spent a LOT of time testing and helping out the developers - he is part of their newly formed quality control team to help improve the product. One of the things that they are doing is helping to get the product stable, and then they'll start to look at prioritising new features etc.

I've mentioned to Ryan that there are a lot of developers out there that use the software (myself also being one), and he himself is keen on enabling plugins to be developed (or offering an api/sdk/other scripting etc).. But obviously that directive is not within his control, so we'll have to see how it goes. My opinion is that if they're smart enough to embrace plugin developers, then that will allow them to focus on the core system, and clever developers can create a heap of extra features and functionality, to further improve the product for everyone.
 

Gilrock

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Well I can understand all that.
The first thing I tried with the program is drawing all my channels and I kept finding annoying little things. Like I draw several lines to make up a single channel. Then I select a box around all of them and try to grab them to move them and it would select the end of just one of the strings and move it. And that's when I found there doesn't seem to be an undo feature for drawing operations. I also decided to Photoshop out the vehicles in my background photo and now I can't get the program to forget about the the original background picture I started with. I go into Playback / Sequence Settings and click the display tab and load a new image, then click save as defaults and finish. It changes the picture but if I open the dialog again to adjust the brightness it's got the old picture back. I even closed down the program and reopen it and first thing I goto is the display dialog and it still has the old picture even though it's showing the new picture. Here's a screenshot where you can see the photo I want in the preview window but it still has the old picture in the settings dialog even though I didn't load it.
Preview.jpg
 

fasteddy

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There is a way to remove drawings both at a single channel level and at a controller/element level. In the grid right mouse click on either the controller/element or the single channel and then select clear channel image. you can also delete within the visualizer at a channel level
Now with the image, im not sure why this is happening for you but i just tested this and the image i have changed is both correct in the visualizer and the setup even after closing and restarting.
 

Gilrock

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Yeah I know how to delete the channel images. The problem is the background image. Look in my screenshot at the display preview on the left. There are no cars in the driveway. That's the photo I loaded but it keeps reverting to the original background picture that has cars in the driveway whenever I bring up the dialog that lets you change the photo or adjust brightness. Try loading a new photo and see what happens. It will appear to have worked until you reopen dialog.
 

fasteddy

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CopperCreekLights said:
Yeah I know how to delete the channel images. The problem is the background image. Look in my screenshot at the display preview on the left. There are no cars in the driveway. That's the photo I loaded but it keeps reverting to the original background picture that has cars in the driveway whenever I bring up the dialog that lets you change the photo or adjust brightness. Try loading a new photo and see what happens. It will appear to have worked until you reopen dialog.

I can see the issue you have, I just cant replicate it on 2 of my systems here and is the first time this issue has been identified by anyone. In trying to understand why its happening to you, i wonder if its something to do with the environment. Any chance of doing a screen capture using something like ScreenCast-O-Matic so we can see the process used. I would like to confirm this as an issue so it can be added to the LSP bug tracker and prioritiesed
 

Gilrock

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I think I know why you couldn't replicate it. It only seems to be happening on the animation sequence I was creating to be my channel template. I just tried the same steps on a musical sequence and it doesn't do this behavior.
Gil
 

fasteddy

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CopperCreekLights said:
I think I know why you couldn't replicate it. It only seems to be happening on the animation sequence I was creating to be my channel template. I just tried the same steps on a musical sequence and it doesn't do this behavior.
Gil

Good find. The animation sequence is not something that is used greatly by anyone so that may be the reason why it has not been previously identified. I would use the musical sequence to make a template because the animation sequence is something that may have other unidentified issues due to the lack of past user feedback.
 
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