Spaghetti update

[carmangary]

I finally got some motivation to continue with this thing. I have been working on my Morph effect and I am close to having it complete. I have also added DrLavas soundcard driver so that one of the available DACs in the configuration settings is "Sound Card".

Next up on the agenda will be to:
- optimize the loading of the directories with a a large number of ILDA files
- add ability to add markers for music synchronization
- support for time based projects (no music file specified)
- quicker preview for development

Feel free to add to the list!

I had a helper working on a drawing program but he seems to have abandoned me. But, with all of the tools for creating ILDA files I don't know how much sense it makes for me to create a drawing tool. I'd rather just stay focused on what to do with the files after they have been created with something else. What do you think?

[Onge]

I had a helper working on a drawing program but he seems to have abandoned me. But, with all of the tools for creating ILDA files I don't know how much sense it makes for me to create a drawing tool. I'd rather just stay focused on what to do with the files after they have been created with something else. What do you think?

Hi Carmangary,

Thanks for the update and glad you have the inspiration again to continue.

Get what you want to do with Spaghetti done first, then at a later date the drawing functions can be added if that is what is wanted.

I personally would prefer to work in just one package, so the ability to do everything would be most appreciated. If the final outcome is that it can produce fully fledged ilda files to be played by whatever method regardless if Spaghetti is running or not would be a real acheivement.

Good luck,

André

[carmangary]

Drumroll please! After a long time of doing nothing I finally have released version 1.4.0.0 of Spaghetti. It now has a Morph effect and support for sound card DACs. I should say something about both:

- Morph: To do a morph, just drag an ILDA file onto the timeline and then click on it and move and/or stretch it to the length you want. Then select the Morph radio button and then drag another ILDA file onto the ILDA box on the right. If the ILDA files have multiple frames you can select the start and end frame you want with the up/down controls. That's all there is to it! I plan on adding a different type of morph later that will allow morphing between each frame in a file.

- Sound card driver: I added DrLavas sound card driver and I think it works. It makes sound at least. But I don't have a soundcard DAC to test with. RIght now the INI file is not editable and it is set the same as how he sends it in his ZIP file. Actually, you can edit it if you can find it! I need to add a way to set that up from the GUI and will get to that if I hear of anyone actually wanting to use the sound card driver and the default settings dont work for you.

This release hasn't been tested a whole lot so there may be issues. Let me know if you find any.

[smogthemog]

Will it ever have Medialas DAC support?

Thanks

Jim

[carmangary]

The reason it doesn't have MediaLas DAC support now is because I don't know much about the MediaLas DAC. I haven't seen a direct API for it. Someone pointed me to a Mamba driver for it at one time but I'd rather not have to jump through the Mamba API layer in order to support it.

If you want to get MediaLas DAC support going for it you can help me out by seeing if you can find any info for writing a driver for it. Maybe send MediaLas an email requesting it? Maybe OldGrumpy on here knows? If you can do that then it will speed things up. If I can get ahold of the info for writing the driver I will do it quickly after that. If all else fails I can probably use the Mamba driver but I would rather not do that. Do you know if any other software supports it? Is there even a website for it? I honestly have no clue about that DAC.

[carmangary]

I added a new morph effect today. With this effect you can morph between each frame within a single ILDA file as it is being played. This is different than the previous morph effect that only allowed you to select a start frame and an end frame.

It's very simple to use. Just drag an ILDA file onto the timeline and stretch it out as long as you want and/or repeat it as many times as you want. Then select the Morph (Multi) radio button on the ILDA Source configuration panel.

What other kinds of effects are useful? Right now I have:
Rotate, Move, Scale, Morph(single), Morph(multi), Color change

[DZ]

Hmm, masking is always a neat effect. Where one frame on one track appears to be in front of another frame on another track. It adds a nice touch.

[carmangary]

Masking does sound like a cool effect. I am not sure how I would implement it off the top of my head. I am not even sure there is a foolproof way of doing it. For example, if you had a donut (2 circles) and you wanted it to overlap another frame it would be impossible to tell which part of the donut was the "solid" part and which part was the hole. Do you know of any other laser show packages that have this feature? I'm be interested to know how they handle that problem.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a good one.

[James Lehman]

Masking does sound like a cool effect. I am not sure how I would implement it off the top of my head. I am not even sure there is a foolproof way of doing it. For example, if you had a donut (2 circles) and you wanted it to overlap another frame it would be impossible to tell which part of the donut was the "solid" part and which part was the hole. Do you know of any other laser show packages that have this feature? I'm be interested to know how they handle that problem.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a good one.

Take a look at 2D pixel flood fill algorythms. Loot at true type fonts!

My guess is that the one piece of information that you need is where to dump the bucket of "opaque" paint!

BTW Nice new avatar. You always seem to come up with something that gets attention.

James.

[carmangary]

I am pretty sure that truetype fonts have information embedded within them to allow determing which parts are opaque. As you well know, ILDA files have nothing like that in them. There is only the notion of colored segments. There is just no way of knowing from an ILDA file if a circle within a circle represents a donut or a bullseye. One has a hole in the middle. One doesn't.

I suppose I could just take a stand and consider anything within an outer shape to be solid and that would be work OK for most cases. So, then the problem simplifies down to just determing what the outer shapes are and then figuring out how to clip the lines of underlying frames to keep them from entering those shapes. It makes my brain hurt a little to think about it.