Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
Bill, as your acting PR specialist for the next 3520 microseconds, get off this thread. It makes you seem like the uncaring, enraged, 1100 pound silverback guerilla er... Gorilla. End of 3520 microseconds.
I now return to servicing picosecond lasers in Wintery Montreal.
Steve
Last edited by mixedgas; 04-13-2013 at 04:30.
Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
When I still could have...
Senior Member
this is nothing new, it's possible with LSX as well, check out swami's video "Pump up the volume", very nice use of that effectOriginally Posted by White-Light
Senior Member
Is it possible live?this is nothing new, it's possible with LSX as well, check out swami's video "Pump up the volume", very nice use of that effect
Phoenix does it live you can even re-layer the objects during live play and they'll assume the correct 3D posture the moment they're re-layered. Either way, its a very nice effect rather than the usual merge effect you get with mulit-cueing (if I didn't make it clear above, the graphic above from Youtube is 2 separate cues played live). The way of working in Phoenix leaves a bit to be desired in my opinion, its not as slick as Pangolin, but with both products now in the same family, I'm guessing a lot is going to change.
Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
yes. totally possible live. you just assign elements to screens (layers) and everything is handled automagically. it doesn't just have to be graphical/text elements, it also works with abstracts and zero intensity objects (for clipping).
très cool.
suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.
Senior Member
I think I was able to do that on a TI99 4a way back when using sprites. Not a big deal. On the older software in laser it seemed the mask was a bit wide but that doesn't seem the case anymore especially when I render from 3dsmax.
Senior Member
Al, what you're talking about is "masking", something we've had since roughly 1998. This can be done in BEYOND as well. Even in Showtime:Live. There is some preparation involved in both of our programs to enable this. It's also been available in LivePRO since its inception in 2002. What I don't know (because I haven't looked) is if the Phoenix guys figured out a more clever way for users to work with this in a live environment. If they have, then certainly we'll adopt this idea into our other software as well.
I think on the whole Yayas was right. This won't affect anyone who is using other platforms and there are always other people who are innovating and doing things in a new way. The move only affects Pangolin and Phoenix users and we hope it will be positive for both. Just today (final day of Prolight) we were joined at our booth by two long-time Phoenix users. We had a great discussion with them on future directions. Great folks and it was very nice to hear their opinions of current Phoenix and where they'd like to see the cooperation go.
@Slick, please contact me by email and let me know what's going on. I'll see what's needed to get you a free upgrade to Phoenix 4 and then see if whatever problem you were having is solved. If not, we'll work to get it solved.
@Steve, I think it's important that I participate in this discussion. Already we've heard important points from users and non-users alike.
Bill
Good news announced, and PL members complain about it...
Wow, I'm honestly shocked at all the negative comments in this thread. Did everyone just wake up on the wrong side of the bed or what?
I wonder how many people who have something lousy to say about this deal have actually tried both Phoenix and Pangolin software? Speaking for myself, I have tried them both, and I prefer Pangolin hands down.
But even if I were a fan of Phoenix, I would still see this merger as a positive thing. Pangolin's customer service is superior, and unlike Phoenix, Pangolin is still growing rapidly in the marketplace. I'd much rather be using products from a company that is successful vs one that is having trouble.
And to everyone who thinks this is a bad move, why are you complaining to Bill? After all, Phoenix had to agree to the deal as well. Why isn't anyone complaining about their management's decision to sell out? Clearly the deal had to be beneficial to them as well, or they never would have accepted it. So how does that make it all Bill's fault?
Sheesh - with all the negative comments you would think that Bill had announced he was planning to kill the entire line or something. Instead, he's talking about free updates, and people are still bitching about that. I just don't get it...
The last time this happened (when Pangolin bought out LA Studio), it ended up being a huge plus for everyone. Pangolin users got an entirely new set of software tools (and shows) for free, and former LA Studio users (all 12 of them - ha!) finally got some decent customer support. Based on that example, plus Bill's outline for his future plans for the Phoenix line, I can't see where people are spinning these doomsday scenarios from...
Personally I welcome the idea of an expanded content library that I might one day be able to run on my existing Pangolin hardware. So congratulations to Bill, and to Pangolin, for expanding their product line.
Adam
Senior Member
I didn't know that as I haven't seen it in Beyond. The Phoenix video was a live demonstration at one of the trade shows so masking was happening in real time. The downside to Phoenix is that to make changes such as layer order, you have to edit the cue whilst you display it, even for other simple things. Unlike the Pangolin interface, live editing is really clumsy so I'd say the feature is well done but the interface implementation is poor. I can link you to the video, but I have no doubt it would probably be easier and quicker to get the developer to show you live at Prolight tomorrow. I also tried it myself in the demo version but can't remember the details other than it was exactly as in the video and required quite a few steps whilst the cue was live, not good. Anyway, if you want a link let me know an I'll try and search it out.
Seconded. I didn't expect everyone to be fans but it does seem overly negative for what will be a positive development for most people.
Senior Member
Hi Al,
You wrote:
Al, anytime someone has trouble with our software, we consider it to be our fault. Even if it's something like a driver that didn't get properly installed, or the fact that the client didn't press the "Enable Laser Output" button, what you'd hear me say at Pangolin is that it's our fault that the driver didn't get installed properly so we need to improve the installer, or our fault that we didn't make it clear enough to the user that a button should be pressed.
Right now, the biggest problem with BEYOND is a lack of documentation. So the reason why you didn't know that BEYOND had this feature is that we didn't adequately communicate this to you. In fact, this falls not only on Pangolin but on my own personal shoulders, since it is me who does help files and tutorial videos.
So Al, it's my fault that you didn't know about this feature.
Just to let you know, I am heavily steeped in development right now, and so development is where my mindset is at. For this reason, I've let documentation take a lower priority. My thinking is that once version 2.0 is finished, then I'll do all of the help file updates and new tutorial videos.
In the mean time, we don't want to leave people high and dry, so we offer the BEYOND forum, our Facebook page, and even Photon Lexicon where people can post questions and ask how things are done, and we'll answer. In fact, we love to get questions this way, because it helps us to understand where we really need to concentrate within the help files and tutorial videos.
(By the way, BEYOND even has a way where the laser can mask out sections of video and other media including bitmaps. Look for "Video masking" drop down on the timeline. It's totally cool!)
I certainly see the sentiment in some of the posts made in this thread, but I'd say if you do a histogram of the type of statements being made, most are actually positive. There was a tone of skepticism from Chad, but since he doesn't have either product, it would be easy for Chad to not know how we operate and to be skeptical and cynical. Really Chad's comments were quite helpful and informative because -- just like the help file and video comments made above, his comments illustrate where we need to concentrate in terms of communication and even behavior to show everyone who we really are. Likewise there were a few comments from Jon, but thanks to his comments, I have reached out to him privately to learn what he's talking about and see where we can go from here.
Sure Buffo, there are a few really snarky comments here from the peanut gallery, but it should be easy for all PL members to ignore the comments that are clearly wholly non-qualified, and get to the meat of the discussion.
I also meant what I wrote to Slick Lasers above. If anyone has problems with Phoenix 3 or Phoenix 4, please let me know those problems (preferably in private email, where I can forward it to the proper party or respond quickly myself). It will certainly be informative on our future developments to know what people are having problems with, and of course we would always want to help solve the problems -- by any means necessary.
Bill
Last edited by Pangolin; 04-13-2013 at 19:37.
Technically Still Banned
Please leave LaserBoy out of your conversation. Leave that to people who actually use it or at least understand it for what it is.
First of all, LaserBoy is one word with a capital L and a capital B. That makes it a bit easier to search for it in this forum and other places on the web.
I really don't think you have any idea of how it has helped people or the industry, in spite of your history of negative comments about it and me.
It is not and never has been about making me wealthy.
Perhaps your lack of success in the open source arena is due to the fact that your company is not known for open source offerings.
Open source code of all kinds has a very particular following that is distinctly different than people looking for commercial software.
It has been a very useful learning tool for many people all over the world.
James.
Last edited by james; 04-13-2013 at 21:41.
Creator of LaserBoy!
LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
Download LaserBoy!
YouTube Tutorials
Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.
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