ebrady
New elf
Below is a repost of the announcement message recently posted on the DIY Christmas sites.
--------------------------------------------------------
The Vixen 3 team has been hard at work for the past several months. We've sorted out a lot of the performance issues that many experienced last season. We've also been busy adding many features both big and small, and enhancing usability along the way. There are some very highly requested features included in this release.
We're now in the final testing stages of this exciting new release and so long as no major issues pop up, we plan to release it by the end of August.
Just to get your excited, here's a brief summary of the new features in Vixen 3.1.0
New Features
Main Application
• Profile Zip Wizard. This tool allows the user to select a profile, and all of the selected data and zip it in a file to the user’s choice destination folder.
Sequence Editor
• Sequence export to FPP and CSV
• Lip Sync Feature. This tool allows lighted animation elements to be described and sequenced by the user.
o Supports single String, Pixel String, and Pixel Matrix Animations
o Import existing Papagayo sequences
o Lyric to Phoneme conversion tool - understands over 125,000 words.
o User dictionary to allow user to define words not understood by Lyric converter.
o Mark Manager / Tapper support for automatic phoneme sizing.
o Export/Import facial bitmaps for use on pixel matrices.
o Facial animations can be quickly remapped from string, to pixels, to Matrices and vice-versa.
• Auto save
• Added Preset Library. This provides quick access to your favorite colors, curves and gradients. Also adds drag and drop ability of these presets directly to effects on the timeline
• New Edit/Draw Mode.
o Draw Mode allows you to simply click on an effect in the effect library and draw the effects into the timeline by clicking where you want it to start and dragging it to the point where you want it to stop.
o Edit mode is the new name for the old mode where mouse clicks on the timeline effects will select them for editing.
• Edit Mode Improvements
o Control-Drag to duplicate effects
o Shift click to select multiple effects.
o Improvements to Drag Selection box:
? You can now use shift+drag to select additional "grouped" effects.
? You can now use the selection box to select individual stacked elements on the same row.
o New Drag Box Filter. You can now specify which types of effects will be selected by the drag box.
o Improvements to Effect Snap
o Effect distribution alignment helper
o Multi Effect Editor - Changing only the intended values when editing multiple effects
o Improvements to Add multiple effects dialog
o New Indicator line when moving and resizing effects, makes it easier to line up the selected effect with other effects above and below it by adding a vertical line at the end that is being resized or both ends when moving an effect.
• Curve and Gradient Improvements
o New Color Collections for assigning random/sequential colors to effects
o Curve editor and Gradient editor are now accessible from the tool menu instead of only in the effects.
o When items in the curve or gradient library are edited, the new settings update linked effects in the timeline right away without having to reopen the sequence.
o Curve editor enhancements. Ability to invert or flip a curve and edit the point values directly. Handles for the curve points are more prominent and mouse pointer changes when over them.
• Mark Collections can now be exported
• Improvements to Undo / Redo
• Screen size and placement settings are now saved and restored when the editor is closed and reopened.
Execution Engine
• Significant performance improvements, especially when playing and sequencing in the editor.
• Unnecessary engine processes are skipped when the controllers are turned off to provide a better experience while sequencing.
• Live Context is only started when the Web Server is active and stopped when deactivated to save polling it if it is not in use.
• General memory consumption reductions.
Display Setup
• When selecting Ok, the updated configuration is saved in the background rather than making the user wait at a hung UI.
• Stopping the controllers now actually stops them without a restart.
Preview
• New Smart Objects
o Icicles
o Multi String
o StarBurst
• New Distribute tools and property matching to the preview.
• New Alignment tools
• Zoom. You can now zoom your preview.
• Setup Previews Configuration pane saving happens in the background now instead of locking UI.
Performance
• Editor should open significantly faster now especially for those with larger sequences.
• Editor Effect rendering speed has been improved for those with multi-core processors.
• Reduction of memory and CPU usage by the editor.
• Reduction of scheduled show startup time with faster pre-rendering on multi-core machines.
Fixes of bugs in previous Development Builds (3.0.11.xx)
• Arches are back.
• Editing a Nutcracker Grid Effect caused crash.
• Snap points have been fixed and adjustable strength multiplier has been added.
• Snap points Enable / disable works correctly now.
• Undo Redo has been greatly improved.
• Fixed bug that pasting effects when the editor is playing or paused would not work.
• Reduced the gap between loops when the editor is playing in loop mode. Allow pausing in loop mode.
• Element hover tool tip odd behaviors fixed.
• Fix the ability to set an intensity level in the alternating effect for the static colors.
• Fix to clean up orphaned filters that are left un-configured in the graphical editor.
--------------------------------------------------------
The Vixen 3 team has been hard at work for the past several months. We've sorted out a lot of the performance issues that many experienced last season. We've also been busy adding many features both big and small, and enhancing usability along the way. There are some very highly requested features included in this release.
We're now in the final testing stages of this exciting new release and so long as no major issues pop up, we plan to release it by the end of August.
Just to get your excited, here's a brief summary of the new features in Vixen 3.1.0
New Features
Main Application
• Profile Zip Wizard. This tool allows the user to select a profile, and all of the selected data and zip it in a file to the user’s choice destination folder.
Sequence Editor
• Sequence export to FPP and CSV
• Lip Sync Feature. This tool allows lighted animation elements to be described and sequenced by the user.
o Supports single String, Pixel String, and Pixel Matrix Animations
o Import existing Papagayo sequences
o Lyric to Phoneme conversion tool - understands over 125,000 words.
o User dictionary to allow user to define words not understood by Lyric converter.
o Mark Manager / Tapper support for automatic phoneme sizing.
o Export/Import facial bitmaps for use on pixel matrices.
o Facial animations can be quickly remapped from string, to pixels, to Matrices and vice-versa.
• Auto save
• Added Preset Library. This provides quick access to your favorite colors, curves and gradients. Also adds drag and drop ability of these presets directly to effects on the timeline
• New Edit/Draw Mode.
o Draw Mode allows you to simply click on an effect in the effect library and draw the effects into the timeline by clicking where you want it to start and dragging it to the point where you want it to stop.
o Edit mode is the new name for the old mode where mouse clicks on the timeline effects will select them for editing.
• Edit Mode Improvements
o Control-Drag to duplicate effects
o Shift click to select multiple effects.
o Improvements to Drag Selection box:
? You can now use shift+drag to select additional "grouped" effects.
? You can now use the selection box to select individual stacked elements on the same row.
o New Drag Box Filter. You can now specify which types of effects will be selected by the drag box.
o Improvements to Effect Snap
o Effect distribution alignment helper
o Multi Effect Editor - Changing only the intended values when editing multiple effects
o Improvements to Add multiple effects dialog
o New Indicator line when moving and resizing effects, makes it easier to line up the selected effect with other effects above and below it by adding a vertical line at the end that is being resized or both ends when moving an effect.
• Curve and Gradient Improvements
o New Color Collections for assigning random/sequential colors to effects
o Curve editor and Gradient editor are now accessible from the tool menu instead of only in the effects.
o When items in the curve or gradient library are edited, the new settings update linked effects in the timeline right away without having to reopen the sequence.
o Curve editor enhancements. Ability to invert or flip a curve and edit the point values directly. Handles for the curve points are more prominent and mouse pointer changes when over them.
• Mark Collections can now be exported
• Improvements to Undo / Redo
• Screen size and placement settings are now saved and restored when the editor is closed and reopened.
Execution Engine
• Significant performance improvements, especially when playing and sequencing in the editor.
• Unnecessary engine processes are skipped when the controllers are turned off to provide a better experience while sequencing.
• Live Context is only started when the Web Server is active and stopped when deactivated to save polling it if it is not in use.
• General memory consumption reductions.
Display Setup
• When selecting Ok, the updated configuration is saved in the background rather than making the user wait at a hung UI.
• Stopping the controllers now actually stops them without a restart.
Preview
• New Smart Objects
o Icicles
o Multi String
o StarBurst
• New Distribute tools and property matching to the preview.
• New Alignment tools
• Zoom. You can now zoom your preview.
• Setup Previews Configuration pane saving happens in the background now instead of locking UI.
Performance
• Editor should open significantly faster now especially for those with larger sequences.
• Editor Effect rendering speed has been improved for those with multi-core processors.
• Reduction of memory and CPU usage by the editor.
• Reduction of scheduled show startup time with faster pre-rendering on multi-core machines.
Fixes of bugs in previous Development Builds (3.0.11.xx)
• Arches are back.
• Editing a Nutcracker Grid Effect caused crash.
• Snap points have been fixed and adjustable strength multiplier has been added.
• Snap points Enable / disable works correctly now.
• Undo Redo has been greatly improved.
• Fixed bug that pasting effects when the editor is playing or paused would not work.
• Reduced the gap between loops when the editor is playing in loop mode. Allow pausing in loop mode.
• Element hover tool tip odd behaviors fixed.
• Fix the ability to set an intensity level in the alternating effect for the static colors.
• Fix to clean up orphaned filters that are left un-configured in the graphical editor.