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Thread: ILDA software, Windows 10 and more.

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    Yes, multiple ILDA show award winning laserists have naturally more demanding needs.
    that's true! but i have seen some very good QS shows.

    i do think what there are many QS users that depend too heavily on the canned effects resulting in many shows having a sort of sameness about them. this is not a fault with QS.
    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.

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    I fully agree. I did a long post about that awhile back. Since it IS so easy to make shows, new people using it often get excited at their first efforts and think they're great and upload them to the Pangolin show site. That's great that they're excited and you don't want to curtail enthusiasm but, once you start watching some of them, and once they themselves get more proficient, those stock cues get awfully repetitive. (Guilty as charged... I did it with my first show too.)
    PM Sent...

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    I fully agree. I did a long post about that awhile back. Since it IS so easy to make shows, new people using it often get excited at their first efforts and think they're great and upload them to the Pangolin show site. That's great that they're excited and you don't want to curtail enthusiasm but, once you start watching some of them, and once they themselves get more proficient, those stock cues get awfully repetitive. (Guilty as charged... I did it with my first show too.)
    i think we're all probably guilty of matching clip art to song lyrics in our early shows.
    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.

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    Wow, thanks for all the replies, really! I've rarely found somebody so helpful in the "industry".

    I know lasers are an expensive hobby, given we really call it just like this.
    I've working for a while on the analog side of the thing, doing shows in pair with a musician friend and using analog synthesizers to to both play music and control the laser.
    But now I want to expand some other projects and it's time to step into the digital thing too.

    I will never be 100% sure about what I will need from a software, probably doing live beam shows would be way less frequent than doing graphics stuff, mapping and so on, but I can't totally exclude them.
    Ideally, the best solution would be having more than just one at hand to compensate the lacks of the others, but I have a finite budget and have to make the best use of it.
    But, if I were to name two or three things essential to me these would probably be interoperability/open architecture, good multi-projector handling, mapping tools and an easy-to-use graphics editing environment.

    As far as I can understand LSX, though it may have quite a steep learning curve, offers some form of freedom for creating graphics content, also in terms of importing/converting other files formats and animations.
    Does it come with any mapping functions [like, I can program one show and then assign to each projector a single portion of it?] or will I have to create a single timeline for each projector? Sorry if it's a dumb question, but in the raster world this is possible, and to me sounds possible with lasers too...
    I've seen then people here have successfully imported vector animations created in Blender and looks like 3DS Max file can be turned into ILDA animations too, right?
    I've sent some questions to Innolasers, will I ever get a response?

    I'm messing around with the QS demo and can feel it's somehow limited, but maybe it's just an impression that comes from not having an interface to actually try it.
    And of course it won't work with an Etherdream, right?

    Thanks again!

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    To answer your question sam, QS won't work with an Etherdream. Only its respective FB3/FB4 components. LSX is an overall good software to do most things and is compotabile with a number of different DACs. It and can import/export ILDA which is useful. It also works well with multiple projectors each having their own timeline respectively. In terms of creating graphics with LSX I'm not as familiar when it comes to using flash animations etc which is why I use LaserCam with it ;D. I think LSX would be a good starting point for you, and if in the future you need to get something more expensive such as BEYOND then at least you will be more familiar with timeline organization, creating your own frames and animating them with effects etc, instead of buying a really expensive software and find you don't understand it/like it.

    As far as raster images go, I know you can import images/png/jpeg etc and are able to raster them in LSX, I've only touched it a handful of times, because I think it was in beta when I was using it, however it is entirely possible.

    Hope this helps.

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    LSX does have a steeper learning curve than QS. No doubt about it. I do mostly abstract shows and have not felt that the learning curve has interfered with my ability to make pretty light. All my shows are pre-sequenced. I'm more interested in generating content than doing live performances. LSX has frame editors, lissajous (abstract) editors, and comes with a fairly large collection of stock frames. It also includes a number of beam shows. I think the beam shows are pretty weak, but they've never been my favorite.

    LSX has very good ILDA (the laser frame interchange format) import and export capabilities. QuickShow has import, but not export.

    Laser projectors are really not ideal for raster projection. A video projector would serve you better. Having said that, I don't think there's an automated way to split a projection across multiple projectors. If you're doing show programming, you can create multiple timelines within a show and assign each timeline to a different projector, but I don't think you can just map a projection across an arbitrary number of projectors. LSX Pro will support up to 8 projector / timelines per show.

    ILDSOS will convert dxf and svg files to ILDA. There is a Blender plugin (I think there's a link to it on this forum) for a rendering shader that works well for laser conversion. I've played with it just a little bit and it works well.

    Innolasers is slow with response and support. It's basically a one man operation. However, the quality of the products is good and the value can't be beat.

    There are a number of us LSX users that lurk in the photonlexicon chat. Come in and ask us questions. We're happy to help and like to get paid in lattes.

    here's one of my LSX abstract shows.



    Quote Originally Posted by sam View Post
    Wow, thanks for all the replies, really! I've rarely found somebody so helpful in the "industry".

    I know lasers are an expensive hobby, given we really call it just like this.
    I've working for a while on the analog side of the thing, doing shows in pair with a musician friend and using analog synthesizers to to both play music and control the laser.
    But now I want to expand some other projects and it's time to step into the digital thing too.

    I will never be 100% sure about what I will need from a software, probably doing live beam shows would be way less frequent than doing graphics stuff, mapping and so on, but I can't totally exclude them.
    Ideally, the best solution would be having more than just one at hand to compensate the lacks of the others, but I have a finite budget and have to make the best use of it.
    But, if I were to name two or three things essential to me these would probably be interoperability/open architecture, good multi-projector handling, mapping tools and an easy-to-use graphics editing environment.

    As far as I can understand LSX, though it may have quite a steep learning curve, offers some form of freedom for creating graphics content, also in terms of importing/converting other files formats and animations.
    Does it come with any mapping functions [like, I can program one show and then assign to each projector a single portion of it?] or will I have to create a single timeline for each projector? Sorry if it's a dumb question, but in the raster world this is possible, and to me sounds possible with lasers too...
    I've seen then people here have successfully imported vector animations created in Blender and looks like 3DS Max file can be turned into ILDA animations too, right?
    I've sent some questions to Innolasers, will I ever get a response?

    I'm messing around with the QS demo and can feel it's somehow limited, but maybe it's just an impression that comes from not having an interface to actually try it.
    And of course it won't work with an Etherdream, right?

    Thanks again!
    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.

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by discothefunkyhippo View Post
    Grix, does LasershowGen work on Windows 10?

    -Sal
    Yes it does

    (needs minimum 15 characters to post)

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by sam View Post
    But, if I were to name two or three things essential to me these would probably be interoperability/open architecture, good multi-projector handling, mapping tools and an easy-to-use graphics editing environment.

    As far as I can understand LSX, though it may have quite a steep learning curve, offers some form of freedom for creating graphics content, also in terms of importing/converting other files formats and animations.
    Does it come with any mapping functions [like, I can program one show and then assign to each projector a single portion of it?] or will I have to create a single timeline for each projector? Sorry if it's a dumb question, but in the raster world this is possible, and to me sounds possible with lasers too...
    This is a great question, actually. I've spent a lot of time converting single projector shows written in LSX and Mamba into 6 to 8 projector shows (in LSX). Its easy and rewarding. You can take two approaches. The first (and better option in my opinion) is to copy portions of the show to different timelines. Most shows are quite complicated and you can cut/copy and paste portions so that the activity is divided and/or duplicated across several projectors. If you'd like, you can easily apply various affects to one or more of the timelines such as mirroring the X output, modify the colors or anything else you'd like to do. As Swamidog said, LSX limits you to apply one DAC per timeline (each DAC could have multiple projectors attached to it, though). But you can copy between timelines till you are blue in the face. I actually did a quick tutorial on making single projector shows more interesting with these techniques at SELEM in August, but I have yet to publish it.

    The other approach to watching a single projector show across multiple projectors is to limit / clip-out a portion of the show. So you could take one single timeline, copy the whole thing to three other timelines and then tell LSX to only display the upper right quarter for one projector, only the lower right quarter for another and so-on. You then have to align the projectors (either physically or in the software zone settings) to get have things come together properly 'in the air'. It works, but IMO, isn't as rewarding as a show adjusted with the prior technique.

    A few words about Medialas's MIII as it hasn't been covered yet in this thread. I started with Medialas' software 15 years ago and followed it to the current version. The current environment is stable and has a short learning curve. It can't do the detailed stuff that Beyond, LSX or Phoenix can do, but it is relatively cheap and has no limitations on the number of DACs it can control, albeit they have to be Medialas DACs. (Note that those Medialas DACs can also be used in LSX.) The mapping of DACs to MIII timelines is ultra-flexible. Any timeline can be assigned to any DACs you'd like (or left unassigned if you choose). Like LSX, MIII allows you to import/export in ILDA format making your work transferable to other software whenever you'd like. I found this particularly useful when I migrated to LSX ~5 years ago and was able to bring all my MIII shows into LSX.

    Good luck with your purchase no matter what direction you choose. You may even find that two packages may be the solution to your needs. (e.g. Quickshow for live shows and LSX for beams/graphics). There is certainly no limit on how much you can spend on this hobby, but your research will help you maximize your bang-for-the-buck.

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by dkumpula View Post

    I started with Medialas' software 15 years ago and followed it to the current version..... but it is relatively cheap.....
    David, what does it typically run? That's one of the few I don't have and have thought about adding it to the collection at some point.

    There is certainly no limit on how much you can spend on this hobby...
    TRUTH! And yes, I agree in the end you may find you're using more than one program. I'd venture to say most of us own more than one although, we may tend to use a certain one a lot more than others. I pull out Fiesta, Moncha and Showeditor just to watch some shows created in them. I don't use them to create or play live. I tend to create and play live in Quickshow but actually run the shows in Beyond. But I'm weird like that. LSX I open from time to time, have my eyes glaze over in confusion, and shut it down. But again, I'm weird like that.
    PM Sent...

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    David, what does it typically run? That's one of the few I don't have and have thought about adding it to the collection at some point.
    I tried to bring up the site but couldn't get pricing to come up. I think the price was in the $150-200 for the software alone, but in the $300 range including a DAC. In any case, it is a mere drop in the bucket compared to what you've spent on software to date, Brad!
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

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