Talking Trees Sequences causing upset.

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logandc99

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Jul 13, 2012
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About 5+ years ago the talking trees sound tracks were shared to me from someone who assured me they had been freely shared on the DIY Christmas site and this was confirmed to me by more than one person. There was also a Youtube video of someone else who was including them in their show from back in 2013 which seemed to fit with what I was told. However, no-one knew exactly who made them. When I shared my sequences of the trees talking, I made it clear that I had only done the sequencing and had not written the skits or done the voices.
Four years after I did my Trolls sequence and posted it on Youtube with a couple of the talking trees sequences, someone has just now come forward to claim credit for the voice tracks which I can see on DIY Christmas site but unfortunately I cannot respond as I have not been active there for so many years and seem to have lost that privilege. It was never my intention and I never did claim credit for the sound tracks just as I never claim credit for any of the sound tracks in the sequences I have done and certainly did not want to give the impression that I was claiming credit. And I certainly did not want to upset anybody with these sequences but I was unable to name the makers of the skits as no -one could tell me who they were. My only intention was to bring some joy at Christmas time and not benefit from the sequences I made in any way. I guess it is therefore probably fitting that I stopped doing Christmas displays two years ago. I have enjoyed my time immensely doing a christmas display and have enjoyed being part of this christmas light community and learned heaps from many extremely helpful members here on AusChristmas. But the display was just getting too much work for me to do alone and was taking a lot of time away from the family. I am disappointed that I have ultimately ended up unintentionally upsetting some people and giving the wrong impression about the sequences I have shared.
 
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bpratt

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Mar 31, 2019
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Jimboomba, Queensland
Wow, there's some bad vibes out of nothing that I can see.

I'm sure without a shadow of doubt, if you knew who did the voices, you certainly would have appropriately credit them.

I've run the trees here the last two years, and I can see that all you've done is sequenced pixels to a soundtrack you got hold of, and there's nothing there to make anyone assume otherwise.
 
Gerald

Gerald

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Jan 5, 2022
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bpratt said:
Wow, there's some bad vibes out of nothing that I can see.

I'm sure without a shadow of doubt, if you knew who did the voices, you certainly would have appropriately credit them.

I've run the trees here the last two years, and I can see that all you've done is sequenced pixels to a soundtrack you got hold of, and there's nothing there to make anyone assume otherwise.
Click to expand...
Hi

Newbie here from across the pond in the UK, just getting into this hobby and making some progress, although for an oldie like myself its challenging , but thanks to a lot of you "experts" out there its going OK so far.
I am trying to get the Talking trees sequence to work using a GE singing tree model , however it seems that the elements for the faces don,t exactly match up , do you know if there is a way to do this ?
Apreciate any help with this
 
Dreamin

Dreamin

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Dec 28, 2016
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Gerald said:
Hi

Newbie here from across the pond in the UK, just getting into this hobby and making some progress, although for an oldie like myself its challenging , but thanks to a lot of you "experts" out there its going OK so far.
I am trying to get the Talking trees sequence to work using a GE singing tree model , however it seems that the elements for the faces don,t exactly match up , do you know if there is a way to do this ?
Apreciate any help with this
Click to expand...
Yeah it's a bit fiddly as Logan had a custom prop assigned to the other tree from memory. Just have a look at the original files in xlights, you just need to pull the dialog over and the talking face bit. The colouring I assigned to my tree outline. I played with mine a bit so if you get stuck PM and and I'll send you my versions.
 
Gerald

Gerald

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Jan 5, 2022
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Hey,
Thanks , I have now managed to get most of the face working and the sequences don,t look to bad, have to wait for the respnse latter this year, that is if I manage to source all of the bits needed , just starting out is a big uphill climb with all of these worlds shortages etc,.anyway live in hope !
 
merryoncherry

merryoncherry

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@Gerald, you weren't very specific about what doesn't match up. The first thing to do is make sure the xLights model matches the prop. Sometimes your wiring doesn't match the wiring the other guy used. The second thing to check is that the submodels and face elements are correct... that the right pixels are marked as eyes, various mouth, etc. I used a few GE props last year and mostly they were right, but I got some singing pixels with corrupt submodels and was tearing my hair out because they were not remotely right, and even made the other props act weird due to channel overlapping.

Then you figure out if the sequence is correct. Some of the GE models are better if you tweak the face data, some have more than one set, so you have to go tweak the effects to make good selections, if you want the outline to light up always or during singing, what to do with the eyes, which face to use if there is more than one, and so on.

I guess there must be standard ways of figuring out what needs adjusted. First would be, does the think look good in xLights preview and not good IRL, or does it need adjusted in xLights?
 
Gerald

Gerald

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Hi
It is the mouth movements which do not operate correctly , I am using a GE large singing tree and it works correctly with my other sequences, As Dreamin said in his reply Logan used a bespoke model for this routine and I have only managed to map some of the available parts to my model.
As I am a beginner to this art node mapping etc is difficult to grasp, but I keep on learning all the time
 
merryoncherry

merryoncherry

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I successfully did this once for a Clark Griswold, though there is more than one thing you can do, and more than one way to do each of those.

I got a "grumpy tree" cutout to play the role of Clark. It did not come with everything I wanted so I did customize it.

First, I created multiple sets of faces:
FaceDef1.png

Then I changed the shape and color of the eyes, mouths, etc.
FaceDef2.png

Finally, when I edited the sequence, I assigned a different face to different parts of the lyric track, so as the track goes on he switches from normal, to a bit annoyed, to full on angry.
FaceSeq.png

Which GE do you have? I have custom models for the GE grumpy tree, and the GE Nash tree, that are better than the ones GE gave me.
 
Gerald

Gerald

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Jan 5, 2022
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Hi
I have the large GE singing tree and use the model from the xlights database (x model attached)
  • This is a 217 node Singing Xmas Tree designed for 12mm bullet pixels
    • Eyes - 48 nodes
    • Mouth - 75 nodes
    • Outline - 94 nodes
  • Measures approx 47 inches tall
 

Attachments

  • GE Singing Xmas Tree.xmodel
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  • singing-xmas-tree.jpg
    singing-xmas-tree.jpg
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merryoncherry

merryoncherry

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Cherry St., Hudson MA USA
OK, that's a pretty simplistic, no surprise that it works on basic stuff just fine. So the fundamentals are in order.
Would have to see the sequence and know which part didn't work to give you any real help beyond that.
 
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