Tomo Posted March 5, 2004 Share Posted March 5, 2004 As part of my MSc I am creating a lighting design visualisation package. I'd like to know what features you would all like to see, especially those which are not yet available in other visualisers but you feel would be useful. Any comments and suggestions you have will be gratefully received. Many thanks! (I already have a list of ideas a mile long, but I want your initial reactions to the problem without any prompting.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlin24 Posted March 5, 2004 Share Posted March 5, 2004 Be Very Very careful you don't tread on anybody's toes, creating these packages is as volotile as the war of moving light companies. RegardsAndy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinw Posted March 5, 2004 Share Posted March 5, 2004 Be Very Very careful you don't tread on anybody's toes Please explain, I don't understand this comment? Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinw Posted March 5, 2004 Share Posted March 5, 2004 I've not used it, but Esp Studios in Las Vegas have created their own visualisation software, and the demo looks pretty impressive. The is an article in PLSN here. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted March 6, 2004 Author Share Posted March 6, 2004 Be Very Very careful you don't tread on anybody's toes, creating these packages is as volotile as the war of moving light companies.It's for a UNIVERSITY project. I am making very certain that the UI is very different and the calculations are scratchbuilt from first principles and public domain data to avoid accusations of IP stealage - I would fail instantly if I copied or decompiled anything anyway, so it wouldn't gain me anything. If IP protection isn't what you meant then you have already taken offence for no reason, legally or otherwise. And finally - Could someone answer my question? This board should be my best contact with real people in the business - my only alternatives are to either make up the answers or to ask friends and acquaintances, none of whom are professionals and all of whom will actually give me the answers I want, rather than what they really think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 I'd like to know what features you would all like to see, especially those which are not yet available in other visualisers but you feel would be useful. OK I'm not the best person to ask as I don't use visualisation software but as no-one else here has answered yet I'll give my thoughts on the subject for what it's worth. I am an occational proactitioner of lighting for amatuer groups. If I was to look at a visualisation package It would be nice if it was open source.. With binaries compiled for windows, OSx and linux. I would like to be able to import my set / venue plans built in autocad. I would like to be able to export scenes to maya, 3ds for high quality rendering. I would like it to be able to take an input from an external desk using any of the cheep DMX dongles available. Does that help at all James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.henderson Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 It would be great if you could link it to a host of OLE's. At the moment some desk OLE's come with there own visulisers but if you had a main visuliser that could connect to most OLE's that would be great! Sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted March 6, 2004 Author Share Posted March 6, 2004 Thanks! That's the kind of responses I'm looking for - Anyone else got ideas or requests? (I'm very limited as to being able to connect to other OLEs due to the proprietry nature of them unfortunately, although it is one aspect I will be looking into!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Buffham Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Here is something that I'd like to see which I know that some visualisers do, but some leading ones do not, at least not at the Live programming stage: - take into account relative fixture brightness, colour transmission, inverse square law, etc. when showing the beams. For example: Say in WYSIWYG you have half a dozen Cantata Fs backlighting the stage in Lee 120, and are putting open white gobo wash over that from VL3000s, say. The shaded view in particular gives you the impression that the VL3000s will be washed out by the blue backlight, which is obviously not the case. Another example is that if you have a Patt 23, a 26º 750W Source 4 and a VL3000 next to each other in WYG, they are all shown at exactly the same brightness during live visualisation. So to make the visualisation useful you need to continually interpret what it shows against what you know about the lights you are using. If you interpret it wrong then What You See Is NOT What You Get in real life! ;) To be fair to WYSIWYG it does have the option to take all this into account whilst rendering, so if you're concerned about a look you can check it on a render. Also there is a balance between detail of simulation and keeping up with processing live data for hundreds of fixtures in real time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlin24 Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 If IP protection isn't what you meant then you have already taken offence for no reason, legally or otherwise. And finally - Could someone answer my question?Why would I take offence.........? All I was doing was making sure you are aware that it is a very very sensitive area of copyright, and thats not just the software.Judging by the use of capitalization it is you who have ytaken offence.... But if you want to go there then somthng like Wysiwyg has taken years and years of development to get where it is today and it is still being built on every new release, thousands and thousands of dollars are put into development every single month I'm afraid building this sort of software DOESNT happen as part of a uni project. Rant over..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinw Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 As long as you don't steal someone else's source code, you can implement anything you like. Even if you were going to sell it, if you implement everything from scratch, there is no problem, even if the functionality is very similar. I don't think Cast Lighting (or anyone else for that matter) own any significant patents in this field. Good luck with your project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Buffham Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Something else for your list (and CAST's as well, probably) How about some ability to simulate edge of moving lights? I don't how easy this would be to do, and in reality every light seems to behave slightly differently anyway, but an approximation would be good. At least it would remind you when pre-plotting to keep applying your Edge Presets on each cue so that when you get to the venue you only need to update a handful of Presets and your gobos are nicely focussed throughout the show. Its easy to get used to seeing sharp gobos in WYG, say, and forgetting that they probably won't look anything like that in real life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellis Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 ... I don't think Cast Lighting (or anyone else for that matter) own any significant patents in this field...In Europe only processes are patentable, software I not. In the US, however it is a different matter. As for 'look and feel' Micro$oft and apple got the courts to settle than one years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.