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Thread: Mamba Manual

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    Sheepsville, Wales, UK
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    Default Mamba Manual

    to all Mamba basic and black users.
    Im sure you will agree that the Mamba manual leave a lot to be desired. I have thought several times about putting together my own idiots guide to this application but though I can use it pretty well Im sure there are others out there who have knowledge that I dont.
    So after a conversation with Jem following the LV training course I have decided to take it upon myself to try and complie a manual. With a bit of luck it will be comprehensive as well as giving people hints and tips that may have been discovered by us users as we have gone along - basically a means to impart the knowledge we have amongst the group that will benefit new users and existing users alike
    I have made a start but am relying on other existing users to help me help other group members, so anyone who uses Mamba if you have any gems to impart or demon tricks to do stuff, drop me a line and we can include it.
    you can pm me or mail me at rob <at> stanwax <dot> co <dot> uk

    Cheers

    Rob

  2. #2
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    Default

    As I said at the time Rob, It's a brilliant idea. I only wish I knew enough about the program to be able to give you some input, but, alas, i'm a new user who is only just starting to get to grips with Mamba.

    If there's any way I can help please let me know. If you require anything in hard print I may be able to help out as I have a finger in the pie of a small printing company.

    Cheers

    Jem

  3. #3
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    Default

    Cheers M8 for the offer. It would be good to print but in the first instance I would like to just be able to post a pdf that people can download and print themselves if they wanna read it in bed at night


    One other thing to ALL mamba users - are there any gripes (i know I have a few) or wishes that people have (I have a few of these too), and maybe we as a force of users can approach Medialas and get some things improved and tailored to suit what we as the users might find useful.

    My current wish list (though not complete here) includes

    editing tools for flip and rotate (peter mayer agreed with me on this)
    A grid with snap to for frame editing - I have a BMP that I display but its only a guide.
    A way of defining a custom colour palette that can load by default on startup or be saved and then loaded as part of a show.
    Currently when you click a scene it does not select - the mouse needs to be very near the start of the scene before it responds, it would be good if it selected wherever ir was clicked - is this a fault or a wish??

    Anyway if you have any other ideas let me know.

    Rob

  4. #4
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    How about a 'speed' slider that would allow you to either globally speed up or slow down a show as it was playing?

    I've tried a few of the demo shows that would fit other music if they were just a bit faster or slower.

    Just a thought.

    Jem

  5. #5
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    Default

    all suggestions welcome

    maybe this need to be a re time show parameter either as you suggest with a slider or by means of a box to enter a number into 1.5x speed 0.75x speed or something like....

    R

  6. #6
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    I would like an improvement of the timeline parts, with a better control of copy/paste of the scenes (it often doesn't work), a better legibility and so..

    Also I have problems with the Change Color of a scene (maybe I don't understand right the functionality). I don't find it very convenient.

    A better way to do animations with frames changing a little between each...

    Possibility to drive some TTL outputs of the card, from the timeline

    Possibility to start the show from the position of the cursor on the timeline, without doing "pause, play, move the cursor and pause again"

    I don't remember all that I was thinking

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
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    98

    Thumbs up

    Some of the things mentioned are already on my todo list, the snap-to feature (grid) is already partly integrated - not yet for all the different objects and operations, but I'm working on it. I still haven't found a convenient way to display support lines so the grid itself is still invisible but moving and resizing objects while holding the CTRL key will make them jump from grid section to grid section. And the best thing is: I added an option to adjust the grid width in the general options dialog And before somebody asks about the release date: It's "when it's done."

    I'll add the other suggestions to my todo list and see if I can write up some explanations about the features that work in strange ways (Some of them will definitely be changed to become more user-friendly, you can quote me on that )

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
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    NL
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    Default

    Okay, we continue here...

    A small part of my list of wishes:

    1.
    I spent a lot of time writing shows with Mamba. My laptop is right next to the laser box and when I want to beam a show, its very irritating to see the bright light of my laptop display. Is it possible to implement a button to switch off the display completely for a while? (like in Popelscan and HE-Laserscan)

    2.
    When I write scenes and drag & drop them to the timeline, the scenes are not 'magnetic' so that they stick together. In this way the playback of the track is more smooth and not filled with blanks. I know the setting 'No Scene Overlap', but you still have to find out if two scenes are with no space next to each other. It would be nice if scenes becomes magnetic, so with no blanks between them.

    3.
    The text for the box below the function 'Adjust Automaictally' is not written in the output settings window.

    4.
    When I have a few scenes on the timeline with a total length of let say 30 seconds, its a lot of work to make this total time shorter. Now I have to make every scene shorter, fit them together, and see what the new total length is. Would it be more nice that there is a feather to make the total length shorter or longer by move a slider or something. Example:
    4 scenes, 10 seconds long each. Total length is 40 seconds.
    To move the slider to 20 seconds, each scene will be then 5 seconds long.
    In this way it is easier to fit a track into a song.

    5.
    Is it possible to implement the stand alone programs VST and the SMS-to-laser program into Mamba Black? In this way Mamba will become more powerful and can compete better with other laser software.

    6.
    The buttons 'P' and 'L' in Liveplayer are not drawn as buttons but as text. This is a little bit confusing. Only moving the mouse to this function will change the style of the button.

    7.
    If there are still people who are using Mamba with the Popelscan DAC, they can use the checkbox Popelscan in the Parallel Port Settings.
    Doing this, it is still possible to fill in other settings of this window. Would it be better to disable all other funcions of the window when checking the Popelscan box?

    8.
    Is it possible to implement a full screen function after clicking the preview window?

    9.
    Under the timeline we can rightclick and set Set Begin Maker and Set End Marker. (And ctrl-space to clear both)
    It could be handy to use not the End Maker, only the Begin Maker. For example, to playback a part of the song till the end.
    Maybe it would be nice to have a third option Clear End Marker.

    10.
    Files with the extention '.ild' are not automatically linked
    to a program that can read this file. I know that I can link this to a program, using right click mouse and use 'Open with..' and select a program like Mamba. Is it possible to link a .ild file automatically to Mamba during the installation of Mamba?
    In this way we simply have to double click a .ild file and Mamba is starting up automatically.


  9. #9
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    Oh and just a simple question : what the hell is "Can't save dongled show" with Mamba 2004? When it happens I can just quit Mamba without saving and re-open the show, so I loose all the work I did after the last good saving...

  10. #10
    Join Date
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    For those who don't understand how the "color change" is working, here is a tip :

    - Select the scene you'll work with, in the timeline
    - Change the color of the scene (with Pick color). Take the blue for this example.
    - With the upper left color wheel, turn clockwise the wheel until you see a change in scene the preview (this will happens around when the wheel's color matching the scene color). Set the wheel just after this change happens.

    Now you can see that during the scene preview, the color will do a complete color loop (from blue to red). Now, to change the color range :
    - With the lower right color wheel, turn it clockwise until you reach the green.

    Now you can see that the color will change progressively from blue to green.
    If you turn further the wheel (to pink for example), the color will change from blue to violet, and so on

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