The LSX tutorials thread!

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Originally Posted by maxcady

i havent tried inspecting my ground, but it makes all kinds of stock shows and abstracts perfectly smoothly. i sent a video to swamidog and he said it looks smooth like it should. does the point repeat being 6 and 15 mean anything?

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OK, well if everything else is smooth, I would first ask what galvos are in your projector. Some galvos have problems making small-step moves accurately. I have several examples in my environment that I can demonstrate by drawing a small rectangle on a bounce mirror from 50 feet away. The number of repeats are another potential candidate. Having long repeats (e.g.15) while projecting wide means the galvos come to a complete stop at a point, repeat that point for a while and then are jerked to the next point to repeat the same thing. Depending on the galvos and PSU, this could cause some wobble. Personally, I'd reduce the repeats down significantly to see how it looks. Finally, I'd do some testing with your optimization settings in LSX. Those ~15 options all mean something and its a good education to test with your galvos at the speed and optical deflection (size) that you wanted to achieve. I'd also ask what projection speed are you using? You may be exceeding the capabilities of the galvos for the 'size' you are attempting to scan. Last, but not least, there may be some issue with the DAC. We don't have a lot of testing with it yet, although I've been happy with the Helios that I have based on my limited usage to date.

Sorry to play 20 questions, but these things are complicated . .

-David

[QUOTE=dkumpula;341130]OK, well if everything else is smooth, I would first ask what galvos are in your projector.

x-laser mirage and skywriter, both look identical. both look flawless with all other shows and programs. i think it might just be the sfx loop called "123" in LSX, can anyone verify that?

--- Having long repeats (e.g.15) while projecting wide means the galvos come to a complete stop at a point, repeat that point for a while and then are jerked to the next point to repeat the same thing. Depending on the galvos and PSU, this could cause some wobble.

I'm doing the exact same thing in the "advanced expressions" CMB tutorial, he doesnt change the repeat numbers in his demo, and he also has 15 in his repeat points..

is it possible to assign this to a midi slider? i cant figure it out. i was able to assign some master beam sliders to my midi sliders though. id love to control this "color" parameter with midi for the cat eye abstract preset if its possible

Attachment 53260

If you are pointing to the color speed. I think you can double click the speed button to open the expression window. You would then want to choose expression from the drop down list. In the expression bar enter Midi(48) or what ever midi slider input. Make sure that the range at the top of the screen is from 0 to 1. I'm at work right now so I can't screen shot for you. If you still have issue I can provide some pictures tonight.

Now if you are pointing to the number of points. I am also interested in how to make that input attach to a midi slider. It would be quite useful to change points number in real time.

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Originally Posted by maxcady

is it possible to assign this to a midi slider? i cant figure it out. i was able to assign some master beam sliders to my midi sliders though. id love to control this "color" parameter with midi for the cat eye abstract preset if its possible

Attachment 53260

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In my experience I have had to change the repeats. The repeats is basically saying how many points you want laid on top of each other. When you first make the pattern you are layering 200 points on top of each other. All of those points need to be of the same brightness. To achieve this all repeat numbers should be the same. You can even change them both to 1 to reduce your overall point count. I am not sure why the tutorial shows something else I can only speak from my experience. I suspect that if you were to change all the repeats to 15 this issue would also go away.

I do not see any issues with your hardware from what you have described.

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Originally Posted by maxcady

im using LSX Basic. im doing coloredmirrorball advanced expressions tutorial video, any idea why my laser is all "dotted/kinked" compared to his?

after i took this photo, i turned "repeat" in the point inspector to "1" on all points. one was set to 6 and one was set to 15 when i had originally selected the two points and copied/pasted them 200 times. after i changed the "repeat" to 1, the line looked a lot smoother. but CMB doesnt do any of that in his demo video, you can see they are set to 6 and 15 as well, and it looks like a smooth line with no kinks in his video. im a bit confused.. is it a hidden edit in the tutorial video? i doubt that..

also, when i first launch lsx, and open the SFX browser, the first thing that pops up is a line that traces around the screen, and that one is "kinky" too. i mention that because that can be achieved without following the tutorial at all, which makes me wonder whats causing this. i tried all the sliders in the optimization settings and nothing came remotely close to solving the kinky lines.

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i'd love for coloredmirrorball to chime on on the repeats thing, becasue in his demo video it looks like he has different repeat rates and his lines are smooth, i dont get it.

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Originally Posted by SaltyRobot

In my experience I have had to change the repeats. The repeats is basically saying how many points you want laid on top of each other. When you first make the pattern you are layering 200 points on top of each other. All of those points need to be of the same brightness. To achieve this all repeat numbers should be the same. You can even change them both to 1 to reduce your overall point count. I am not sure why the tutorial shows something else I can only speak from my experience. I suspect that if you were to change all the repeats to 15 this issue would also go away.

I do not see any issues with your hardware from what you have described.

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In the old days we referred to "repeats as "point dwell time" but still translates to how long you want an XY point to be repeated before moving the scan to the next coordinate point. For any given frame rate, an increase in the repeats or point dwell would tend to make the point coordinate look like a hot spot the more repeats or with fewer repeats like a smoother line segment, but in maxcady's screenshot it looks more like RLC ringing effect at each coordinate point of a closed-loop, position feedback scanner that is slightly out of tune.

I'd sure be interested to know if this is solely a LSX artifact and not scan tuning related. Keeps us updated maxcady.

Could this be a scan amp tuning issue?

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Originally Posted by maxcady

im using LSX Basic. im doing coloredmirrorball advanced expressions tutorial video, any idea why my laser is all "dotted/kinked" compared to his?

after i took this photo, i turned "repeat" in the point inspector to "1" on all points. one was set to 6 and one was set to 15 when i had originally selected the two points and copied/pasted them 200 times. after i changed the "repeat" to 1, the line looked a lot smoother. but CMB doesnt do any of that in his demo video, you can see they are set to 6 and 15 as well, and it looks like a smooth line with no kinks in his video. im a bit confused.. is it a hidden edit in the tutorial video? i doubt that..

also, when i first launch lsx, and open the SFX browser, the first thing that pops up is a line that traces around the screen, and that one is "kinky" too. i mention that because that can be achieved without following the tutorial at all, which makes me wonder whats causing this. i tried all the sliders in the optimization settings and nothing came remotely close to solving the kinky lines.

Attachment 53253

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I have run through this tutorial and I have seen this before... Now can I remember how I fixed it? As other people have mentioned, turning the point count down... but have you made sure to remove the blanking points? I am pretty sure that if you have blanking points in your frame that you are manipulating it will create more dwell time because LSX has special user adjustable behaviours for blanking points. What the base frame? A line or the stack of points?

-Sal

Is it possible to change realtime speed of animation / show?

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Originally Posted by Yarkus

Is it possible to change realtime speed of animation / show?

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I'm not sure what you are asking, but if you are asking if an effect speed can be speeded up or slowed down then yes, there are several ways to do it. The most common approach is simply by adjusting the length of the effect / animation you wanted to change.

-David