WYSIWYG

[Stu]

<Previous quotes snipped to prevent pyramid>

 

Would it really be worth Zero 88s while tho? Lets face it the Frog series is mostly aimed at a user(s) who have no need for WYSIWYG so I really don't think it'd be a good use of the Z88 teams resources.

 

Of course there might be one or two who want too, but I think they are greatly outnumbered by all the schools, small theatres etc out there

 

Just my ?0.02

 

Stu

This is the point that has been made in the frog forum by Z88. It does not seem woth there while to support WYSIWYG. However there was talk of there own vis program that they would sell but nothing seems to oh happened about it. Probably because it wasent demed cost effective.

Well I'm glad they've seen sense - lets face it if you owned a Frog chances are your going for a budget option desk because of the very fact you have a budget, therefore your hardly going to blow that tiny amount on a copy of WYSIWYG Design / Perform etc!

 

Stu

[sam.henderson]

Well I'm glad they've seen sense - lets face it if you owned a Frog chances are your going for a budget option desk because of the very fact you have a budget, therefore your hardly going to blow that tiny amount on a copy of WYSIWYG Design / Perform etc!

 

Stu

You hold a valid point however I think some visuliser program for the Frog would be good!

 

Maybe adding a visuliser would make the desk appeal to more markets and more peope

 

Sam

 

 

Edit:Removed quote pyramid

[Stu]

Well I'm glad they've seen sense - lets face it if you owned a Frog chances are your going for a budget option desk because of the very fact you have a budget, therefore your hardly going to blow that tiny amount on a copy of WYSIWYG Design / Perform etc!

You hold a valid point however I think some visuliser program for the Frog would be good! Maybe adding a visuliser would make the desk appeal to more markets and more people.

Hmmm I don't think a visualiser of any sort would make the desk anymore attractive to a market that it hasn't already cracked - the Frog, while a good desk, really isn't suited for the pro area that utilises existing visualisers - for instance, for me, a lack of a command line makes it a pain in the neck.

 

An introduction of a visualiser would probably only help to confuse the userbase the Frog already has, and possibly confuse the market over it's intended selling point.

 

Zero 88 have a professional desk for professional people, which is the Illusion 500. Might be worth looking into...

 

Stu

[kalmatthew]

I must say as much as I like our frog at school and in AmDram. If I ever had a serious show to do with many movers or even a large ammount of generics. I would not spec the Frog. As Stu says it is not really a pro desk. I would agree that 90% of Frog users would probably be confused by a vis, and that most wouldnt pay for it. Z88 need to make a profit out of this.

[Tom Baldwin]

If I can just interrupt, and drag this thread off in yet another direction ;) , does anybody know how detailed WYSIWYG is, in a CAD sense? My specific question:

 

I add a 10' piece of (say) Litestructures MiniBeam, and try to put 6 VL2000s on it. That's going to be pretty tight, since the hang spacing on those is 19", and I've only got 120" to play with. Does WYSIWYG have enough detail in its information to work out the relationship between the clamps on the VLs, and all the bracing on the truss, and place them in exact positions that will actually work? Or will it just happily evenly distribute the fixtures and leave me to discover when I get to site that there's bracing in the way that stops me hanging the rig?

 

If it is that smart, then serious kudos, otherwise, there's something for Tomo to add to his visualiser wish list!

[Stu]

Does WYSIWYG have enough detail in its information to work out the relationship between the clamps on the VLs, and all the bracing on the truss, and place them in exact positions that will actually work? Or will it just happily evenly distribute the fixtures and leave me to discover when I get to site that there's bracing in the way that stops me hanging the rig?

Off the top of my head I'm pretty sure that WYSWIWYG won't let you hang lanterns/fixtures etc on pieces of truss that can't physical hold it.

 

I'll have to let someone else confirm this tho, but I'm about 80% sure.

 

Stu

[mac500]

WYSIWYG will not allow you to add fixtures if there isn't enough space on the bar. If you want to by the student version of WYSIWYG report then it is only £75 +VAT. The report edition allows you to do all your paperwork for your show on it but doesn't allow any form of rendering or visulisation on it. The Student edition of perform/design sets you back £300.

[Stu]

If you want to by the student version of WYSIWYG report then it is only £75 +VAT ... The Student edition of perform/design sets you back £300.

Tom isn't a student tho is he! The price Tom would have to pay would be considerably higher!

 

Stu

[gareth]

The Student edition of perform/design sets you back £300.

Just to clarify this point, as I understand it only Report and Design are available as educational editions - Perform is only available as the full-priced package. I'm sure Andy will correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe that's the case.

[Bryson]

WYSIWYG will not allow you to add fixtures if there isn't enough space on the bar.

 

But that's not the question. Tom's question was: Does WYSIWYG "know" where the cross-braces or the points where the pins go through on a piece of truss are? Or does it just say "that bit of truss is 2m long, so you can hang 2m width of lights on it anyway you like"? In the real world, 6 VL2000s won't actually fit on a 10' piece of truss. But simplified mathematics would imply that it does.

 

Edit: That could be a bad example, I've just realised, but you know what I mean..

[David Buffham]

Does WYSIWYG have enough detail in its information to work out the relationship between the clamps on the VLs, and all the bracing on the truss, and place them in exact positions that will actually work?

 

No. It will let you hang them anywhere on the truss:

 

http://www.london-light.com/clientfiles/wyg1.gif

 

In this case WYG shows you can hang 6 lights on 10' length of truss, but it allows you to hang them anywhere on the truss, so it is not considering whether the nodes are in the way. Also it only insists that the centre of the light is on the truss. In this case the VL2000s each have 2 clamps, so the outer ones probably wouldn't work in the position they are shown, but WYG doesn't care about that. You would also have some trouble plugging in your DMX in this situation!

 

Also WYG allows you to overlap the VL2000s to a certain extent. Here we have 10 VL2000s on a 10' length of truss...

 

http://www.london-light.com/clientfiles/wyg2.gif

 

 

However this is not a criticism of WYSIWYG, and in some ways highlights its strengths. WYSIWYG is a fantastic lighting design and visualisation TOOL, but you should never take what it tells you at face value! In both the cases above common-sense and/or experience should tell you that what WYSIWYG is showing is either impractical or impossible. It is giving you that visual opportunity to see that what you had thought about doing won't work in real life. i.e. you might want to fit 6 lights on that piece of truss, but by visualising it in WYG you can see quite clearly that you will only fit 5 on. The fact that WYG will allow you to hang 6 or 10 lights in that space is not relevant. As a professional designer or electrician you have to make the judgement based on the information you have; WYG will give you information to help make that judgment but it may not always directly tell you the answer.

[Tom Baldwin]

Thanks for the info, everyone. While I hear what David is saying, it would be nice to have an option to allow this level of detail to be checked.

 

I've got a WYSIWSG system on hire in the run up to a gig in a couple of weeks time (primarily for rendering looks and pre-programming), so I'll get the chance the experience its power then... stand by for a flurry of newbie questions!

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

 

P.S. Stu's right, I'm not a student, but of course, if anyone wants to donate a legit copy of WYG to me, I won't complain too loudly.... :-)

[TomLyall]

I guess I would rather have a program that would allow me to do that and use common sense to work it out, tahn to have a program which refuses to let me do what I want to do because it thinks im wrong... although some degree of error checking, especially the overlapping, would be good....

[David Buffham]

While I hear what David is saying, it would be nice to have an option to allow this level of detail to be checked.

 

That's a fair point - the only thing to say is that it would add another level of complexity into the system. For example how close a fixture can be rigged to the truss nodes would be dependant on the type and orientation of the hook clamps used. Now with VL2000s I believe that the hanging rails are supplied without hook clamps, so there is no standard clamp. VLPS use standard 2" hooks, so you could get them very close to a node, whereas other companies might use chunkier clamps which won't get nearly as close.

 

Therefore WYG would have to know details about every single hook clamp type in the world, and when you're rigging your lights in WYG you have to know and specify what type of hook clamp will be on the lights. Does anyone really want to get down to that level of detail? Though as you say maybe you should have the option to do that if you wanted.

 

I definately think that WYG should recognise that these fixtures have two hanging points and both must be on the truss, and also that you shouldn't be able to overlap fixtures.

 

I'll pass all these on to CAST Software and see what they think about them.