Starting to be a little disheartened with Pangolin Quick Show

[swamidog]

i'm basing my statement from the chart on the showtacle website. perhaps ilda export is disabled in the demo version of fiesta,

It says they play ILDA. Not mention of outputting it.

Certainly my demo copy of Fiesta.net only appears to allow the proprietary export format:



You can import ILD into Pangolin just not export it.

[Stuka]

Tom -

I don't know if you have a smoke machine or not, but other than that you already have EVERYTHING you need to make and/or show GREAT beamshows, and a LOT of ready-made shows are just a few mouse clicks away!

Just aim the projector overhead, restrict the projection zone size so the beams stay in the designated target area, blow some smoke, and enjoy the experience!!
As a safety factor, spray-paint a small piece of sheet metal or foil flat black, and attach it (tape is fine) to the outside of the projector aperture just below the beams.

Truthfully, for most beam shows, you DO NOT need a scrim - it's the beams in the air you want to see, not the pattern they make when they strike a surface!

Works great, and it's something you can do RIGHT AWAY with the gear you have.

Even if you don't have the music available for a particular show, you might be surpised how cool it is to just "freeform" and select cues on the fly with whatever music you're playing (which is kind of what the main functionality of QuickShow is really designed for...)

Try it - you'll probably like it

This batch of photos includes some multi-projector some beamshows from SELEM (and to be truthful, really doesn't do the beam shots justice; cameras tend to miss the whole 3D effect that comes with seeing the beams live):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanotoole/7820757510

[james]

pretty sure the reason most of these apps don't export to ILD files is the ILD format kind of sucks

Yes. Unfortunately it sucks by design or mal-design!

In one form or another, this issue has come up on this forum several times before.

The reason the ILDA format is not supported is so that people cannot export any of the large number of licensed shows that are available for this device.

And, as it has been mentioned before as well, this won't stop anyone who really wants to do it.

James.

[tsteele93]

Hmmm, maybe one more tiny reason -

3) Protecting licensed content that the company paid for, or that it user's plan to create and sell...

But as is so often the case, you also restrict the honest joe who wants to create his own, or work from legal-to-use-and-modify shows. Most attempts to protect licensed content end up irritating the honest users, whilst not really stopping the determined dishonest user.

I am always amazed that I am forced to sit through (can't even skip it) the FBI warnings on every DVD we own while our young kids are getting antsy waiting for the movie to start so that we can be reminded that stealing this movie would have been a crime.

Meanwhile a friend of my wife rips all her DVDs from somewhere or another and doesn't pay for any of them and they skip all of the previews, all of the FBI warnings and start immediately. I know this because she gave one to my wife and I told my wife we weren't going to be using it because I don't believe in stealing movies.

But I would be interested in having her take all of my legally purchased movies (basically everything animated that has ever been released to DVD!) and making them start immediately! Of course that would actually be illegal!

Gotta love it.

Tom

[tsteele93]

Yes. Unfortunately it sucks by design or mal-design!

In one form or another, this issue has come up on this forum several times before.

The reason the ILDA format is not supported is so that people cannot export any of the large number of licensed shows that are available for this device.

And, as it has been mentioned before as well, this won't stop anyone who really wants to do it.

James.

James, I asked this on your forum as well - do you have a "Get started quickly and easily" resource anywhere? For instance, is there a list of known soundcards that work well with laserboy and are there PCB gerbers or eagle cad files to get started from - or even schematics? How do I get up and running with a sound card DAC easily?

I come from LPF and we use and abuse Osh Park (formerly dorkbot) and I'm not afraid of designing a PCB and even maybe trying to help you set up a kit with PCB's and parts to get people started with low cost (hopefully) sound card dacs and get them up and running with laserboy. I think it would be a lot of fun actually. But I'd rather not re-invent the wheel since you have obviously made a few of these things now.

Let me know!

You can e-mail me at google with my screen name here preceding it or PM me or send me a letter, I don't care! I enjoy your "happy go lucky, stir up the pot and sit back and watch the arguments go" attitude and I'd like to learn more about sound card dacs and laserboy.



Tom

[james]

Check the LaserBoy Forum.

You have a reply. I'll continue the conversation there.

This isn't exactly a new idea. As far as kits go, been there. Done that.

I already have a nice one sided copper layout, if you want to copy that. It could use an update or two.

I enjoy your "happy go lucky, stir up the pot and sit back and watch the arguments go" attitude

Yeah! That earned me a real fan club here and elsewhere.

James.

[mixedgas]

So dissing a 1990s format designed for the limited computational and storage devices of the day is Glorious now?
Even though it was designed by committee?

Think 8 bit floppy disk storage devices, not USB sticks.

Steve

[james]

There's really nothing wrong with the file format so to speak.

It does what it needs to do.

It doesn't record accurate frame timing, optimizations or synchronization to any external temporal events like music or DMX.

The size of it's data elements is irrelevant to the era in which it is used. It is exactly what it needs to be, of a sort.

The "designed by committee" part is the problem. Its documentation and upkeep are in the hands of people who stand the least to benefit from its existence and use, as demonstrated by the example in this thread of it not being used.

It's greatest value is to hobbiest software developers and those who use their wares.

James.

[JohnYayas]

I think the ILDA format is perfectly fine for what it is intended for. It is still entirely adequate for sharing laser frames. Points are points. Of course, even I have my own native drawing format that is more efficient and lossless than ILDA but since no one else uses my format it is pretty worthless as far as sharing frames goes. But in order to send those frames to a DAC they MUST be converted to points. And since they can be converted to points for a DAC then then there is absolutely no reason that they can't be exported to an ILDA file with the exact same quality. And, I do support that. There is absolutely no reason, other than greed, that any laser show software shouldn't export frames to ILDA. They all import them just fine but don't export them. Where do they expect these ILDA files to come from anyway and why are they suitable for reading but not writing.

Now, all that said, one of the reasons I started my crusade is because there is no standard "show" format. Years later, I have a little more understanding of it all but there certainly is no reason why there couldn't be such a format. It only needs to be an ILDA file plus music file plus frame rate at the minimum (and possibly some DMX or extra info). I'd probably want to optimize/extend it to make it more efficient and to have additional metadata like in an MP3 file but otherwise it would be easy. Any laser show software company/person is welcome to contact me to create such a format.

[james]

A wave file has the whole show in frozen real-time.

It is fully optimized, timed at a specific frame rate and can have an SMTPE time track or DMX signal and stereo audio.

It is absolutely a decent storage format for vector art as well because it can be read just as easily as it was written.

James.