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Thread: The LSX tutorials thread!

  1. #571
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    I think we covered this somewhere in the 569 prior posts . . somewhere. In short, using the morph function in the animation/trick-film requires the same number of points between the two frames to have it go smoothly. Point 1 of frame 1 becomes point 1 of frame 2, point 2 becomes point 2 and so on. What I've done in the past to make for a smooth morph using this function is to copy your first frame to the next in Quickpicedit and manually drag out the points one by one into your destination shape and so on if you have multiple morphs planned.

    If you aren't artistic, there are a number of tricks you can employ to make subsequent frames look like you want including copying the desired picture on top of the copy of your first frame. E.g. if you wanted to morph a circle with 50 points into a square, copy that circle to the second frame, then draw a square (or copy one from another frame and paste it on top of the copied circle in frame 2. Then drag the circle's points out on top of the square that you just pasted in (or drew manually). When everything is lined up, delete all points after the first 50 using the Active Point Editor or manually selecting them and hitting delete.

    Another approach is to use bitmaps sitting in the background of PicEdit (which comes with the Basic and Pro versions) and manually dragging a copy of your points from the first frame into the desired shape of the second frame. The trick is to make sure you have a more than adequate point count in the first frame to accommodate the second, third, etc. frames that you want to morph into.

    All of this said, this approach isn't how Swamidog or other 'abstractionists' typically morph between shapes in a show. Even after years of in depth show creation, there isn't a single one of us that knows everything about LSX. This will sound cumbersome, but if you haven't already, I would suggest reading the entire LSX manual and associated PicEdit manuals that came with the program from beginning to end . . two or three times. I would also read the LSX Living Manual, watching all of CMB's LSX tutorials and the LSX tutorials recorded at SELEM which are available on my Youtube site such as this one. This thread is also great reading although very long. Oh, and have fun playing!

    -David
    Last edited by dkumpula; 01-31-2017 at 06:30.
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

  2. #572
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    if you specify which dot morphing effect you're referring to, i'll tell you how i made it

    Quote Originally Posted by LightFox View Post
    Thanks to all so far. DMX and saving SFX are now working!
    Going through the tutorials I came now to this point: trying to reproduce Swamidogs dot morphing, I got issues with the morphing effect in the animation loop. I made two circles with different amounts of dots. Set a morph between them. But due to their different dot indexes I think, i can get no smooth morphing, but only a wild swarm of dots, trying to find their new places at the end of the loop. But not only there, I tried the morphing effect before with different pics and got the same result. Is there a solution to get the dots matching in two different frames, so that I can predict there movement during the process ?
    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.

  3. #573
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    @dkumpula: Thanks for the hints you gave me. Loading a background picture is a good idea.
    @swamidog: I ment this one: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...664#post223664
    It seems to me you morphed between two circles with different amounts of dots...
    I`m still reading manuals and watching your videos, learning a lot. But sometimes i`m stuck and can`t reproduce the desired result. Therefore I think, there must be some overseen button that will do the magic,
    and will ask the forum... But that`s why i decided for this software: Its huge amount of nuts and bolts. Every day I discover a new trick that will do a nice effect.

  4. #574
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    Quote Originally Posted by LightFox View Post
    @dkumpula: Thanks for the hints you gave me. Loading a background picture is a good idea.
    @swamidog: I ment this one: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...664#post223664
    It seems to me you morphed between two circles with different amounts of dots...
    I`m still reading manuals and watching your videos, learning a lot. But sometimes i`m stuck and can`t reproduce the desired result. Therefore I think, there must be some overseen button that will do the magic,
    and will ask the forum... But that`s why i decided for this software: Its huge amount of nuts and bolts. Every day I discover a new trick that will do a nice effect.
    all the instructions are right there. the trick is you need two fairly high point count dot circles with differing numbers of points.
    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.

  5. #575
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    One of the few things I am still missing is some kinda strobe effect. I`m doing it by now by drawing some rectangular signals in the intensity curves event. Wouldn`t it be nice to have a special event where to set a frequency and pulsewith for turning on and of the lasers ?

  6. #576
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    I don't have the program in front of me but in the animation event there is a tab called sparkle or twinkle. See if that is your desired effect. I use it for graphics when I am trying to make points flicker like stars in the sky.

    Quote Originally Posted by LightFox View Post
    One of the few things I am still missing is some kinda strobe effect. I`m doing it by now by drawing some rectangular signals in the intensity curves event. Wouldn`t it be nice to have a special event where to set a frequency and pulsewith for turning on and of the lasers ?
    Watching Lasers Since 1981

  7. #577
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    why not use a square wave in the intensity effect?

    Quote Originally Posted by LightFox View Post
    One of the few things I am still missing is some kinda strobe effect. I`m doing it by now by drawing some rectangular signals in the intensity curves event. Wouldn`t it be nice to have a special event where to set a frequency and pulsewith for turning on and of the lasers ?
    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.

  8. #578
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    You might be able to use this expression in either the intensity event or in the color mod intensity. Which is also a square

    sqr2((etime*20*pi),0)*.5+.5

    I love that LSX has many ways to accomplish the same thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by swamidog View Post
    why not use a square wave in the intensity effect?
    Watching Lasers Since 1981

  9. #579
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    Quote Originally Posted by SaltyRobot View Post
    I love that LSX has many ways to accomplish the same thing.
    In that spirit, here are a couple other ways of accomplishing a strobe effect: First is to put a blank frame right after your chosen "on" frame that you want to strobe. Then in your animation event choose the on frame as the start and the blank frame as the last frame. Then change repeat animation to the number of times you want it to strobe.

    Another variation is to add multiple blank frames after the desired strobed on frame. This results in a strobe with a longer wait before it flashes again, rather than an even number of on and off cycles. This could also be accomplished by setting "picture animator" to "curve" and then defining a square wave-ish curve by selecting the curve button. You can manually adjust the on/off times any way you like this way.

    Finally, and similar to the above, you can use the Curve Intensity function and manually draw your wave and then set the number of repeats.

    LSX may not always be obvious, but there is almost nothing that you can't do with it (usually a dozen different ways), in my experience.

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

  10. #580
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    Thanks to you all. Surely, there is little which can`t be done with LSX this or that way. I now managed to get this strobe effect by my own, but wouldn`t it be nicer to have an explicit event which does all the brainwork for you ? The issue in most of this solutions is, when you change the duration of the Event in the timeline, the frequency of flashing will change proportionally. (Just a suggestion to drlava, if he intends to improve his program in (hopefully) next updates...)

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