WYSIWYG visualization question...

[woofII]

Hello,

as we are considering buying an old ("used") version/licence for WYSIWYG (I guess for v12) I'm know taking a look at the v15-demo and well, I have some questions (some stupid questions indeed):

 

Well, I've created a simple plot consisting of some PAR birdies, PAR 46, PAR 64 and also two 2,5kW Daylight HMI. I really like the how to plot the whole thing, how the paperwork is done automatically (mostly) but now I've taken a look at the "Live" View. And wow, it looks as if WYSIWYG is displaying and rendering every fixture at the same intensity/output level (or ground intensity) - the birdies/46/64 and the HMI have the same intensity when taken at Full . And yeah, I guess this shouldn't be (in fact, there ARE some differencies between a birdie and an HMI :D The birdie should be at about 10% of an HMI when coming to light output?

 

I've searched in the manual, searched in the settings but as it seems I can't find an answer to this question - it's wicked... do I have to input some photometric details for the fixture by myself?

 

And then, we are using also the grandMA 3D-application connected to a Light Commander and with gMA 3D you can also simulate Truss movements (e.g. simulating the truss lift or a stage wagon...), but I haven't found an option for this in the WYSIWYG "Live". How can I simulate this (it's essential I think when doing Cueing right in WYSIWYG)...

 

and can I also make some demonstration videos like in gMA 3D? Also I haven't found a tool for this, have I use a screen capturing software? Is anyone having experience with this?

 

I hope anyone can help me figuring the whole thing out or at least give me some hints.... or do I have a wrong understanding about this WYSIWYG-software?

 

sincerely

thomas

 

btw is there a forum only for WYSIWYG or 3D-software-related questions?

[Flyingwysiwyg]

I've taken a look at the "Live" View. And wow, it looks as if WYSIWYG is displaying and rendering every fixture at the same intensity/output level (or ground intensity) - the birdies/46/64 and the HMI have the same intensity when taken at Full . And yeah, I guess this shouldn't be (in fact, there ARE some differencies between a birdie and an HMI :D The birdie should be at about 10% of an HMI when coming to light output?

 

Hi woofII,

 

In Live view, you won't see correct differences in intensity as far as I know, but I stand to be corrected, however if you render a lighting look with presence options, you should see these differences:-

 

 

"Presence: Use the Presence slider to change the relative brightness of fixture beams. When set to Subtle, WYSIWYG accounts for all variations in lamp output, including gel transmission, color temperature, fixture efficiency, and lamp. When set to Bold, all fixture beams are rendered at the same general intensity."

 

And then, we are using also the grandMA 3D-application connected to a Light Commander and with gMA 3D you can also simulate Truss movements (e.g. simulating the truss lift or a stage wagon...), but I haven't found an option for this in the WYSIWYG "Live". How can I simulate this (it's essential I think when doing Cueing right in WYSIWYG)...

 

I believe the latest version of WYSIWYG will support moving scenery. Have a look at http://www.cast-soft.com/cast/ViewArticle....&ARTICLEID=2055

 

I hope this helps. Andy at AC will be able to give you more information.

 

F - Wyg

[woofII]

In Live view, you won't see correct differences in intensity as far as I know, but I stand to be corrected, however if you render a lighting look with presence options, you should see these differences:-

 

 

"Presence: Use the Presence slider to change the relative brightness of fixture beams. When set to Subtle, WYSIWYG accounts for all variations in lamp output, including gel transmission, color temperature, fixture efficiency, and lamp. When set to Bold, all fixture beams are rendered at the same general intensity."

 

but then, how would I be able to do a design "offline" when I won't get the correct output and intensities and I have to render an image to see if anything looks fine. This doesn't make any sense to me :D

 

So I'm a lil bit confused

[Flyingwysiwyg]

I tend to use WYSIWYG to plot my design and pre - program pallettes, chases, states and moves using the LIVE facility and then update intensities and pallettes on site. To be fair, the intesity shown is good enough to allow a rough plot of intensities, and I have found very few problems taking a WYSIWYG pre - programmed show on site.

 

If we took it to the enth degree we would have to ask WYSIWYG to take into account lamp hours, dirt on lenses and mirrors, grease on glass gobos etc etc.

 

In my personal opinion, you would never get away without doing a bit of editing on site.

 

F - Wyg

[tuxlux]

but then, how would I be able to do a design "offline" when I won't get the correct output and intensities and I have to render an image to see if anything looks fine. This doesn't make any sense to me

 

short of running on a machine approaching a supercomputer, its not possible to render that well in real time. Instead, you can just get a rough idea of where things are pointing, then once that's done, you can wait while it renders, to check what it will really look like.

[woofII]

I tend to use WYSIWYG to plot my design and pre - program pallettes, chases, states and moves using the LIVE facility and then update intensities and pallettes on site. To be fair, the intesity shown is good enough to allow a rough plot of intensities, and I have found very few problems taking a WYSIWYG pre - programmed show on site.

 

yeah, that's true, that's true.. I've now figured out how we can use this software in a helpful way for, as you've said, pre-focusing, pre-coloring and paperwork (it's really great for this), but definetely NOT for doing the whole design (the stage becomes so bright when taking all these birdies at full )....

 

but thx for all your replies

thomas

[Tomo]

short of running on a machine approaching a supercomputer, its not possible to render that well in real time.

Actually, it almost is. Current graphics cards allow custom Vertex and Pixel shaders, and you can do extremely complex things with them - there's even a full ray-tracing pixel shader for anything newer than a GeForce 6200, provided with the SDK, although it only works for spheres.

 

You have to use floating-point textures rather than the normal 8-bits each for R,G,B,A, as otherwise you get a ceiling at brightness 255 which isn't very accurate, but these are perfectly possible.

 

I believe the reason WYSIWYG, Capture and the like don't is because high levels of accuracy need very powerful graphics cards, and the majority of their customers aren't likely to go out and buy a pair of nVidia GeForce 7800s and put them in SLI mode.

While you can get much closer to reality with something like a GeForce 5200, doing this requires many different sets of pixel and vertex shaders, each written and adapted for the grades of card expected. (Thankfully DirectX 9 compiles them for you at run time)

 

It takes a long time to get one vertex shader working correctly - it took me nearly two months to get a reasonably good haze simulation that works on a Radeon 9600 and a GeForce 5200 - and the code to use them is considerably more complex than using the normal fixed-function pipelines that the simulators currently employ.

 

I'm still trying to work out a better way to simulate gobos - I want to be able to pass any bitmap to the shader and use it as the gobo without adding a silly amount of geometry. Matrix maths and space transformations are damn hard to wrap your head around!