Junior Member
Pangolin Beyond vs LSX
Hello everyone,
I m a just born baby in the laser arena. I just join in the forum. I m bit confused regarding softwares of laser show. I would like to konw which is the best software for laser show (basically animated graphics). I checked on Internet about pangolin beyond and LSX have the same features but price are far different. Why? pls. advice.
Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
you're going to open up a bit of a religious war...Originally Posted by kishiplo
they are both very capable problems. I prefer LSX for abstracts, and Beyond has excellent 3d capabilities.
they are both tools and "better" is hard to quantify. LSX is considerably cheaper, but Beyond has a larger user base and better support. maybe if you told us more about your needs, we could provide more information.
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.
Senior Member
The 3D capabilities of Beyond are unnecessary for purely preprogrammed shows because you can use a 3D program like Blender to export a stream of dxf files and convert them to ilda. Of course that doesn't work for live shows. I do not have Beyond so I can't compare any further but so far I haven't seen any effect I couldn't recreate in LSX (with or without a lot of effort).
Senior Member
There is no such thing as "better". I will say, I have both LSX and Beyond; the one I use all the time... Beyond. As Swami said, they are both extremely capable pieces of software.
I find that Beyond has a wonderfully easy learning curve. What I mean by that is, you can start projecting, right out of the box with a ton of preprogrammed effects/features with little or no work. It also has a very large library of frames and animations to use until you create your own. As you get more advanced with it, you can start programming your own effect/features using Beyond's own built-in scripting language. Pangolin also pushes out free updates to Beyond very often and their customer support equally sells the product.
When it comes to LSX, I will leave it to Swami or CMB to tell you more specific features as this is the exclusive software they use. The biggest problem with LSX, and it isn't even a problem with the software, is that one person sells it and that person is not very active on these forums. He takes FOREVER to ship the product and customer support/software updates are next to nil. He used to be very active but within that last year or two, not so much. One person on here waited for about 6 months or so before getting the product. That kind of customer support is just unacceptable.
Last edited by absolom7691; 02-06-2015 at 14:14.
If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.
Senior Member
I'm not quite sure the descriptions above are correct that Beyond is not more advanced than LSX. There are a lot of more advanced things in Beyond such as the Universe, video capabilities, emulaser, 3D drawing program, the advanced colour tuning, etc etc. that don't have equivalents in LSX
That said it's horses for courses and for abstracts many prefer LSX (I would suggest the real difference here is not that LSX is better for abstracts per se as Beyond has plenty of abstract generation tools, just that LSX comes with a large library of base shapes to create abstracts from when making "shape" based abstracts (abstracts where you take a shape and apply effects rather than use an abstract generator), whereas Beyond only comes with 1/2 a dozen base shapes but banks of powerful abstract generators). By contrast, for graphics and beams, Beyond's library consists of several thousand stock cues and a disc containing award winning shows. I don't believe LSX comes with many cues at all by compairson. (Beyond is also due to get a Workspace / Cue upgrade with the next release - I believe the workspace will be free to existing users).
So it comes down to what you want to spend and what your intended usage is. But, Pangolin products are the defacto industry standard, hold their value well, are easy to use (at least the main features), and their customer service is 2nd to non. LSX is a capable program at a lower price but you lose some features and arguably some ease of use.
Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
i find the color tuning/delay controls in LSX to be easier and quicker to dial in than in Beyond. Could be just me.
In LSX just about anything can be used as the base for an abstract. points, lines, arbitrary shapes, frame sequences, and even real time frame morphs. there's also a classic style lissajous editor, and mathematical expressions editors for generating complex and weird organic shapes and motions. there's a lot of power available because you can use the output of these techniques as the input to other abstracts. for example, i can take a eye melty lissajous animation, and then clone it an arbitrary number of times on the x, y, or z axis and then apply transforms/color/intensity effects. it's pretty easy to get beautiful and amazing things..
LSX does come with a number of canned effects/animations. in the pangolin world, they're referred to as cues, in LSX they're called SFX (script effects) modules. both programs come with some cues that are awesome and some that are embarrassing. controversially, i feel that including too many canned cues can have a detrimental effect on the quality of shows. many user created pangolin shows are just clip art sequences set to music, and they tend to all look the same over time. this is not pangolin's fault. it's show programmers being lazy.
LSX pro comes with ~125 shows. mostly european style beam shows. personally, i think the shows available via the plftp repository and pangolin's show space tend to be better with the bundled shows from either package.
no laser show package has "make awesome eye melty content" button. i wish they did, it would save me countless hundreds of hours of show creation time.
at the end of the day, it's about your skills as an artist and not a magic bit of code that will make your shows outstanding.
Last edited by swamidog; 02-07-2015 at 11:43.
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.
Senior Member
Please get my nuance about preprogrammed shows. You don't need video or emulaser or whatever live inputs for that. LSX has advanced colour tuning. If other programs are allowed in the comparision Blender is much more capable at 3D than Beyond.
Swami is right with his correct tool for the job. There is no right answer. I've done things in LSX that I'm sure are impossible in Beyond. But I've also done things in IldaViewer that are impossible in LSX.
Shows made in both software packages have won awards.
If Beyond's abstract generator uses "banks" or oscillators with parameters it's already limited, since you are limited to those oscillators. With expressions LSX has total freedom. There are no preset base shapes in LSX, just frames where you apply modifiers to. You make pretty patterns with them if you want abstracts or just simple effects if you want beams.
Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
johnyayas,
that's a fair question. i have no actual business affiliation with innolasers. i like and use LSX/lasercam/ildsos, allow innolasers to use recordings of my shows to promote the product, and do some unpaid beta testing. i do not receive any money from them, nor am i a part of the company.
i also have/use Quickshow, LDS, and Beyond, but my primary time sink is LSX.
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.
Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
absolutely! full disclosure is important.
i would feel bad if i steered a user to a product that didn't meet their needs/expectations. no matter what the product/vendor is. i know pangolin and innolasers feel the same way.
Last edited by swamidog; 02-06-2015 at 19:43.
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.
Senior Member
A bit OT
Sadly, that is what is stopping me from creating shows I would like to make (oh and time too)! I'm hoping pre-programmed cue manipulation will be my friend (I have Quickshow which can be upgraded to Beyond should I ever feel the need).
Last edited by WolfMax; 02-07-2015 at 02:15.
Cheers
Colin.
Anyone wanting to be a politician, should automatically be excluded from being one!
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