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TimFranklin

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Everything posted by TimFranklin

  1. Hi all, how do you start a project file with a certain layer condition enabled? Ideally I could have a shortcut for each condition my setup will use.
  2. Thanks for taking a look! Just pushed version 1.03 which resolves the macOS symbol issue. -Tim
  3. Hi all, I’d like to share my realtime LTC Timecode Generator Application that allows you to create cue lists containing named timecode ranges. It's meant for synchronizing multiple devices. The main benefit here is you won't have to export and manage timecode files, but rather LTC is generated in real time. It is built in Touchdesigner so you will need to install that first, but no touchdesigner experience needed as this opens just like a standalone application. I've only tested it on PC, but Touchdesigner runs well on mac as well so there shouldn't be issues. All features are available in the free non-commercial license so you can evaluate it. https://github.com/franklin113/LTC-Timecode-Generator The repo's readme has a full feature list and instructions on how to use it. Keep in mind this is still beta, if you plan on using this in production, please test thoroughly and feel free to shoot me a message and I can assist you in implementing into your workflow. You can also put issues on the repo so I can track and resolve them. Thanks! -Tim
  4. Hello all, I've started a little Watchout tutorial series on Youtube and thought I'd post a link here in case anyone is interested. It's meant to supplement Dataton's own tutorials so I try not to simply recite what is already available, but rather provide techniques that I've found useful and additional information. If anyone is interested in a video on any specific topic, feel free to let me know. I only have 6 videos so far, but plan on doing more. Here's a link to the playlist of what is uploaded so far - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZVbpbkMpFQc0t4efEF5quFgvsou2HNZL Thanks! -Tim
  5. Did you have any opacity tweens on these cues? I had an issue similar to this and the solution was to give extra space between fade in / fade out opacity tween points. Gave it a second after the fade in and about .1 seconds before the fade out and totally fixed it. Make sure the pause cues are not exactly on top of any opacity tweens whatsoever.
  6. Can you provide the specs for the files? A screenshot from media info to get all the details would be best.
  7. Hi all, Does anyone have experience using Domprojection Projection Tools to map the outside of a sphere? Considering it's mainly used for the interior of domes, I'm curious if it would work for the outside of a sphere. We will be using 10 projectors and need very quick calibration. The sphere's diameter is 65'. Thanks, Tim
  8. Try this- create an input with a range greater than 188.5 and add the below expression to a media cue. Y >= 188.5 ? Y - 1 : 0
  9. After reading this I threw together a little UI in Touch Designer to toggle layer conditions via UDP. I've found that 1073741823 enables all conditions, 1073741824 disables all, and as stated above, 0 just goes to the default. I don't think it's overflowing the expected max amount because an error is thrown if you exceed a certain number. I did not experience any crashes throughout my testing either. Here's the github page - https://github.com/franklin113/Touch-Designer Keep in mind, this was merely a test to learn more about this and didn't do much real testing once I got it working. I'm very excited to check out your app once it's released, Mat.
  10. I've uploaded to github a small application that searches through aux timelines for filenames/keywords and prints that timeline's name if the file is found. It's basically just automating the approach I posted above using a gui app. Source code and an EXE are available. here's the link - https://github.com/franklin113/Find_Media_Cues.git
  11. I'm not releasing the source code publicly right now, but I probably will at some point. It's just stuck at 00:00:00.0 when you run a command? What version of windows? Ive tested it on three windows 10 PC's.
  12. Hi all, I've been developing a small application to externally control Watchout's aux timelines and to provide a few extra features that I've needed on recent shows. It controls the production machine only and runs on windows. It's a rather simple app.. Here are it's primary functions - retrieves all your aux timelines and populates a listbox automatically grabs the duration of each up to a control cue titled "!end". ( you place that in each timeline wherever you want the countdown to end) displays that duration for each provides a countdown timer for the task that's currently running. Basic playback controls - play, stop, go to 20, go to 10, ect It's mainly a personal project, but I think it could contribute to the community so I'm releasing the beta for free. If anyone is interested in testing it out, here's a link to the page - http://timsfranklin.com/taskmanager/ Feel free to offer feature requests. Thanks, Tim
  13. If it's a piece of media that I know is in a bunch of timelines and comps I just use notepad to sort it out. Copy all aux timelines and paste data into notepad. search the filename Once you find the file just scroll up/page up to the closest timeline to retrieve the name Filename Timeline name
  14. Hi Erik, I finally got a chance to test this and have discovered that it's the production machine that's causing the problem. When I use high quality previews with HAP codec I get the error. I rarely use best quality previews and have only recently needed to use it with a set of virtual displays to aid in alignment. Even after turning off Best Quality I continued to get the errors for a period of time. Here are some specs on the production machine- Watchout 6.1.1 Nvidia GeForce GT 610 Driver Version - 9.18.13.4752 Date: 02/05/15 Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.5Hz Windows 8.1 Hap Codec is not installed. I haven't been able to get the Watchout version up to date yet as we will be using this machine for a bunch of shows coming up in the next week. The production software will use it's own HAP decoder as well, correct? Thanks!
  15. I threw together a little example than can be downloaded here - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ugHC7CpZNV7Oz_p4QCaQnzZ-18uix8sm?usp=sharing It includes two files - a small server application that listens for Watchout responses and fires an aux if the "hitTest" command is returned true. The show file contains a solid that is "interactive" which means that Watchout will send a response as "true" if any part of the element crosses over that coordinate. I added two x and y inputs which you'll need to use to move the solid. What's cool about it is that Watchout knows the width and height of the cue even if you scale it. Keep in mind that you must release the mouse while sliding the input before Watchout sends the response. I'm only running this on a production machine. -Tim
  16. Thanks for the response, Erik. We haven't installed any extra codecs on either the production or display machine. For this project we are working with 1080p@29.976 standard hap codec files and almost always have the free running/looping checked. While testing HAP I've been able to playback about 25-30 of these until I hit a video memory error. I've seen the problem with at most 7 on one display machine and as little as 2. One setup I have in the project involves one video file spread across 5 virtual displays which I believe is the root of the problem. The cues are then just placed on regular 1080 displays. I couldn't really find much information on how virtual displays handle resources. How much more processing would this take vs 5 regular outputs? Is there by chance extra overhead in any way by simply having a lot of virtual displays in the project while not using them? I have about 15 virtual displays and 16 regular 1080 displays. I generally only use 5 virtuals at a time. I re-encoded the files I've gotten the error on and will test this Friday. I'll try and have our software upgraded as well. Thanks again!
  17. Hi all, Every so often I am getting a render error in Watchout 6.1.1 - From Video "Watchout Media/Footage/FOOTAGE LOOP HAP.mov" of Media Folder "Loops" of Media List, 2017-11-05 2:14:44 am Error: Unable to Render DS Video Some details - I first saw this when I created a few virtual displays in my project, but it happens now even if I'm not using them. I've also noticed that it happens around the time when I set the preview to high quality. It's happened with multiple HAP files. Some of the time the element won't display on the display machines until I remote in and actually delete it from the display server and update. Has anyone seen this? Thanks!
  18. I have seen the same problem with custom scripts if you don't put a timer on it. It seems to be unable to parse the commands fast enough and instead of just failing to parse it fails and sometimes selects one randomly. As for output cues in Watchout, one thing is when I use long string commands I only put a single $0D at the very end of entire list on a new line and have had no issues but I do try and break things up into smaller batches than what you have above. I haven't had any problems with this approach on long commands - run "THEME_BG1" run "THEME_BG2" run "THEME_BG3" run "THEME_BG4" $0D If the "$0D" change doesn't help I would break that command list into two separate cues. Then if you need them to start at the same time you could have BG1-15 media start at something like .5 seconds and the others at .25 to account for the delay.
  19. I have seen this issue as well on 6.0-6.02. It's even worse when using a matte layer. Overall, I've had to revert to multiple layers on the main timeline as I cannot rely on compositions for smooth fades even with compositions containing only one video cue and one still image. After switching to Hap codec from mp4/h.264 this problem has mostly gone away, but it's still not perfect in 6.02.
  20. The most likely culprits for the issue have already been mentioned, but control cues perform the same as media cues when it comes to conditional layers. I suppose that if you were briskly changing conditions via string commands and your control cues were accidentally placed on layers set to a different condition this could happen.. It doesn't sound likely at all, but you did say it was very rare and you didn't say how quickly you went back to replay the task. I learned this the hard way the other day when I rearranged some cues on a timeline from a previous show and a few of my control cues stopped working. After building the show I had fired a command to change conditions and they were disabled for a short period of time. (luckily on a build day) From what I've found, the user guide only states this enables or disables media cues so it was a bit of a surprise!
  21. On my systems I've had some disastrous issues using H.264's "Main" or "High" profiles due to the CABAC coding it introduces. From what I've read it requires more processing power compared to the Baseline profile's CAVLC coding. I've thoroughly tested this and while playing two otherwise identical files simultaneously on two separate display machines, stuttering occurred only on the file encoded using High profile.
  22. What codec are these video files encoded in? Maybe test using some other format or use a lower bitrate.
  23. I tested the quality slider in Adobe Media Encoder and there is a huge difference in encoding time when you adjust the slider. I've had consistent results with this and the 0 quality file always has a lower bitrate. - Video: 1920x1080 (1.0), 29.97 fps, Progressive, Quality 100, Hap, 00;00;20;00 - Encoding Time: 00:01:44 - (using Media Info) - overall bitrate - 217 - Video: 1920x1080 (1.0), 29.97 fps, Progressive, Quality 0, Hap, 00;00;20;00 - Encoding Time: 00:00:23 0verall bitrate - 210 I haven't tested the playback of these files in Watchout yet.
  24. I've attached a screenshot of a functional Max patch that works properly with input names that contain spaces. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8aHFFwB6M8Tc1BReUdPcm16ZzA/view?usp=sharing Watchout will receive this- setInput "test input" .2 Within Max the inner double quotes do need to be escaped using a backslash or the message will not be interpreted correctly and will get split apart into a list of strings.
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