3.x Vixen 3.1.0 Coming Soon

ebrady

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Dec 26, 2010
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Delaware, OH
Below is a repost of the announcement message recently posted on the DIY Christmas sites.
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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.
 

davrus

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smartalec said:
Big question..
Will we ever get the VU meter effects back that i loved with vixen2 ?


May I suggest that you go and enter that as a Feature Request.
It is not on the horizon, at this time (and to be honest, I am guessing at what it might do, as I never used Vixen 2).
One of the Developers who does Effects, asked recently for any new ideas, I think he had some spare time, because we got the new Multi-String element (which actually is a multi segment string) a day later. So ask quickly, and it might even get into 3.1.0
 

SmartAlecLights

Im a SmartAlec what can i say!
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davrus said:
smartalec said:
Big question..
Will we ever get the VU meter effects back that i loved with vixen2 ?


May I suggest that you go and enter that as a Feature Request.
It is not on the horizon, at this time (and to be honest, I am guessing at what it might do, as I never used Vixen 2).
One of the Developers who does Effects, asked recently for any new ideas, I think he had some spare time, because we got the new Multi-String element (which actually is a multi segment string) a day later. So ask quickly, and it might even get into 3.1.0

do you have a link
 

davrus

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smartalec said:
davrus said:
smartalec said:
Big question..
Will we ever get the VU meter effects back that i loved with vixen2 ?


May I suggest that you go and enter that as a Feature Request.
It is not on the horizon, at this time (and to be honest, I am guessing at what it might do, as I never used Vixen 2).
One of the Developers who does Effects, asked recently for any new ideas, I think he had some spare time, because we got the new Multi-String element (which actually is a multi segment string) a day later. So ask quickly, and it might even get into 3.1.0

do you have a link


Here's the link .... if you like, I can do it for you, and link it to your post here.


http://bugs.vixenlights.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa
 

SmartAlecLights

Im a SmartAlec what can i say!
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that would be great if you could submit it..
you seem to have alot of swing with the developers

the VU meter effect is ---> "Waveform"
i also like the eq spectrum effect as well ---> "Frequency Spectrum"

Ive included the vixen 2 name to help
 

sck1ng

Apprentice elf
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Oct 23, 2013
Messages
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FPP export is all I was waiting for.. Now I am just waiting for my new PC to come in (I am a Mac user) so I can run it.. Great work!
 

AAH

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How soon is soon as it's taken a long time to get from 3.0 to 3.1? If 3.1 can now export to FPP and with the improvements that Adski showed in Adelaide it may finally be worth having a serious play with Vixen.
 

battle79

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Chirnside Park, Victoria, AU
Just watched all the videos of the new capabilities and am really impressed with the additions.

Because they haven't been posted here, I present bolwires post as posted on doityourselfchristmas.com:-

I am working on a series of short demo videos which will highlight my work in Vixen 3, I will edit this post and add links as a I get the videos made and uploaded.

I am excited about these, as well as all of the other features and work of the team this year. I am proud to be a member of the team, and would like to thank
everyone else for their time and contributions to such an excellent product.

Draw Mode overview: http://youtu.be/evvbWt79chk
-Not in video, if you want to deselect the effect you are drawing with, just click it again.

Color Collections for Random/Sequential assignment: http://youtu.be/qJDYneZnhuo

Drag Box filter: http://youtu.be/fId77rmOnTk

Preset Library & Drag Clone: http://youtu.be/eGYCUuzBvsQ

Add Multiple effects dialog:

Editing Multiple Effects: http://youtu.be/Ou64Y8s39jA



As always, we welcome any questions or other feedback from the community.

James

Cheers,
Rowan
 

davrus

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AAH said:
How soon is soon as it's taken a long time to get from 3.0 to 3.1? If 3.1 can now export to FPP and with the improvements that Adski showed in Adelaide it may finally be worth having a serious play with Vixen.


In his post, Jon mentions "before the end of August" (he doesn't say what year, but the target is August 2014 ! ).


There has been a lot of component testing of the various new features (especially of the Lip Sync and Export modules). Final integration testing is happening right now.


Have a look at Ed's videos, which show Editor and Sequencer new features which arrived after Adelaide. This is some powerful bit of software (and it is a lot faster now as well).


Instead of talking about days or weeks to sequence one song, I think you can now talk about how many new sequences you can do in one week (maybe even in one day).
 

sck1ng

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Oct 23, 2013
Messages
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Got my new computer in today.. ready for its release.. Now I am just waiting for my order from Ray and I also have an FM transmitter on the way.. Ready to start putting things together


blogger-image-191935257.jpg
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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I installed Vixen-20.0.0.0-Setup-32bit-DevBuild.exe on my Windows XP SP3 lappy which is my LOR sequencing machine after having tried Vixen 2, a couple of earlier Vixen 3 builds with the most recent being 3.0.7. All the the previous versions have worked with the obvious known bugs/limitations. This latest build which I was told tonight is the pre-cursor to the upcoming 3.1.0 was a complete and utter failure. 3 times at installing it with reboots and removals in between and I still haven't got the program to open up as far as the splash screen yet. In task manager it shows the VixenApplication running for a few seconds and then it fails.
My lappy is running XP SP3, has 3G RAM and is a T5670 @ 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo. As I'm not on whatever forum it is that vixen uses for bug reports or whatever so this is it :)
 

davrus

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Whitianga
That is the first report I have seen of a failure to start.
If you like, I can create a Bug report for you, but I will need a zipped file of your profile.
Or we can just wait for the developers to see your message. I don't know how often they check in here, as most bug reporting, etc happens in the DIY Christmas Forum (and official bug reporting is on the Vixen web site).


Did you try a total clean install ? Or were you re-installing over your old version.


If your previous version was 3.0.7, that may be a contributing factor, but I've only been around here since 3.0.10, and i do not know what happened between the 7 and the 10 releases. (I just know that there were big changes).


If it is a clean install that failed, then that is very strange.
If you were updating from 3.0.7, then I think the developers will have to find out what happened, as you will probably not be the only one in that situation.


Oh ... one question .... is your sound card and driver active? (But that bug should have been fixed)
 
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