nikolai

Hi Walter, thanks for getting back to me. Then I have missunderstood something. the way I thought it would work was like this: put any object on stage maybe a 2x2x2 meter cube. use this to align the projector. the 3d projector should now have the position angle etc of the real world projector, sitting in 3d space in WO. now i should be able to both replace the geometry or move it on stage. the obj file in watchout would need to move using x,y,z and rotation tweens. calibration is done once and as long as the projector stays put it should not have to change through the show. have i got this wrong?

Hi Walter, thank you for the reply, and sorry for the missing details. Both, there is one main frontal projector, doing the moving stage elements. One hanging projector (projecting on the floor from the roof) Two edge-blended projectors in the back doing a fixed stage element. So to break down the question. 1. is 3d Geometry going to work when moved around the stage. 2. how easy is it to combine the "old" mapping technique whit the 3d object technique. Could I have one 3d object for the most complex parts and then just map everything else the old way for instance? Nikolai

Hi So this fall I have a new project coming up and need some advice. It is a theatre piece, with a lot of video mapping. it has been put up before by another company, and they used Resolume. I could of course also do this, but would very much like to stay in Watchout, as Resolume has some very clear limitations when it comes to scripted shows. So the main challenge is 3-4 set pieces that move around on the stage from scene to scene. These are large structures that will need to be mapped on. So the old-school method would be to leave the geometry correction of the display 1-1, and do everything with corner tweens on the clips to make the content fit the objects. OR, I could create 3d-models of the sets and map on them using Watchouts 3d mapping features. I have used the 3d mapping before, but only on one object, and that object stayed put through the production. (it was a house/tent) So my main question, will it work to move 3d objects around in watchout to make the mapping fit the real world? CTRL+arrows are fine for moving, but what about rotation? typing in degrees, guessing the value ? How easy is this, mapping with corner pins is actually pretty fast. Also how precise is this mapping (given the model is accurate). How easy is it to combine the two? Can I use 3d mapping with OBJ files for some stuff, then use corner pins for others? What is the best way to calibrate the virtual projector on the stage? would it be a good idea to put out some test objects on different positions on the stage to ensure the calibration is accurate? Any input on the topic from people with experience would be great.

Thanks everyone, maybe the ETC app is the way to go.

Has anyone figured out how to send OSC from Watchout ? We can send raw UDP, so it should be possible in theory. (this is also a small feature request, hint,hint)

Hi we are planning un upgrading our 2012 machines, does anyone have a 2018 display computer spec?

Thanks I did not know about the preview setting of the VD. Only the one "global one" . Case closed

I have some issues with 3d mapping in Watchout. I'm doing some tests now and get some blury/lowres results. Maybe you can help me figure it out? Here is the setup: I have a 3ds model of the structure I want to project on. I have a 3d projector set up, and are watching the Preview -> View window. If I drag a texture on to the model it looks sharp an nice. BUT If I use a virtual display (same resolution as the texture) and then apply this display as the texture. The same image looks blury. The texture and virtual display are 3840 x 1467 I'm attaching some screen shots.

Hi How do I orbit/rotate the stage view? I can't seem to figure out how to move the view using the mouse like in any other 3d environment.

We use static IP on our WO computers. Now we have a watchpax and I'm wondering how IPs are supposed to be managed? Can I give it a static IP? I guess it will self assign an ip, but in what range?

Hi So we are about to upgrade our capture cards. We use cameras with HD-SDI outputs, 1080p 25/50/60 (what ever works) Number of inputs is not important to us, but more is always nice to have. Latency however is key, as we are trying to get close to lip-sync. After reading on the forum and talking to other users, we are going for Datapath cards. Now I have to choose between: VisionSC-SDI4 http://datapath.co.uk/video-capture-cards/visionsc-range/visionsc-sdi4 VisionSDI2 http://datapath.co.uk/video-capture-cards/vision-range/visionsdi2 So the SDI4 seems like a newer model and has more inputs, also it costs less. It needs more bandwith, no surprise with the extra inputs. However there are no mentions of it on this forum :/ Then there is the SDI2. The one thing this got going for it is that there are many users on this forum successfully using it. And datapath mentions Watchout on their webpage.. So which should I order? Any recommendations ?

You are right on all points jfk. So the way that other applications handle multichannel audio is to let the user select a number of devices/channels in the program it self. I have a feeling they'll get this sorted in v6 I dont know of any professional audio devices that present them self as a single multi channel device in windows.

Jonas, ok just to clear thing up. Well yes one AES/Signal is 2 channel but if you use something like RME HDSPe AES-32 you get 16 channels of audio. (Over 8 cables) As far as I can see, Watchout is using directsound (Standard windows audio) so WO only sees the devices as standard windows audio devices. A single hardware device (Like a madi card) will show up as mulitple devices in the windows control panel "Sound" window. If the actual audio device output Analog, digital, or smoke signals should not make a difference to WO. What matters is how WO uses multiple windows audio devices. So, Dataton, how does Watchout use multiple audio channels, how does it choose what devices to use? In v.6 I hope there is a dialog to let us choose MIDI devices and audio devices.

There are plenty of audio devices with digital output (?) We use RME cards, and you can choose to route to headphones or line out ,or MADI or AES. Dante is cool, but I guess you would need a separate Network card or Dante card.

We use an external app (running on the production machine) for exactly that. PM me if you are interested

We control WO from the lighting board via MSC. And yes some commands are dangerous It is "Go cue 0" (that simply fires the next cue) and some others that I don't remember. we have fixed it by simply putting in a filter: http://www.midisolutions.com/prodepp.htm

This post is getting veeery long and is clearly a hot topic. I would suggest that Dataton got them self an account at UserVoice.com or similar. That way it would be easier to see what the users really want/need. and we could vote on each others wishes and discuss each feature separately. Please check it out Dataton: http://feedback.uservoice.com/forums/1-general-feedback Back on topic: About the 3d import suggestions. Isn't that asking a bit too much? Maybe I'm thinking of this the wrong way or have a lack of imagination, but are you guys talking about realtime rendering of 3d graphics? Personally, to be honest, I think that that would bloat watchout. and that the performance/ reder-quality would never be good enough to rival pre-rendered clips I would be a party killer here and say please focus on making the user interface 2013 compatible and a lot faster to work with. Focus on improving what is already there and adding simple things like real time changes when moving objects and editing tweens. Simple filters like blur and vector masks. (see my previous posts)

yes! And to optionally view ALL tweaks realtime on the outputs. So we don't have to hit ctrl+d 10 000 times each day. In generall I would like to know more about where Dataton is planning on taking WO in the future.

Hi On our next production with live video on stage, we would like to run the cameras and WO through a video switcher in order to reduce latency. Now we have been looking at the BlackMagic ATEM swtichers but they don't seem to have any snapshot/preset feature so controlling anything other then basic switching from WO (or any other show control software) would be hard. Does anyone know of some similar devices that can store a series of setups and then recall them via some kind of open protocol? Must have SDI IO and preferably hdmi All other ideas on how to do this are also welcome. Regards Nikolai

Hi We use Watchout in our theatre productions; we have two stages and 10 computers. We are really happy with the system. It is easy to use, flexible and stable. Over the last years though the complexity of our productions has grown rapidly, and I have now created a list of features/improvements that we would hope to see in watchout as soon as possible. Forgive me if some of these things are already implemented, or planned. I know some of them are pretty common on the WO forum. The requests are based on the input of our staff, and of freelance video designers that are used to working competing systems. (And we would like WO to be the best ) I don’t see these features as fancy, special or even difficult to implement, most of them as far as I can see, don’t even require any new “technology” only small changes in the ui. I hope you will consider these requests and I’m sure they will help many other users also. Some kind of Auto update – mode. This is a result of the corner tween: when you are mapping elements to match something on stage it is a real pain to move a corner, hit ctrl+d, see the result, move the corner, hit ctrl + d etc. I have seen people working on other systems where they can do this in real time and it is a much smoother workflow. What I suggest as a quick fix is an auto update mode that can be turned on or off, you can then send the update command either on a 500ms timer or when the actual changes occur. The “Click jumps to time” function (under Timeline) Needs to remember the setting when I close and reopen the project. It is super annoying. Should be an easy fix. Auto save, this is a standard feature in most serious applications. It just saves the project on a timer Put in a new page under preferences with options to turn auto save on/off, and interval. Split a layer in two (including the tween tracks) You already have options for setting input and output times so this should be easy, make a copy of the clip that is to be split, move the new clip to the split point, set new in and out times for the two clips. Moving on to the harder parts: Blur-tween So many times I have needed to blur an image, or fade in and out from a blur. Yes I can get around this with creating a blured copy in photoshop, but let’s face it this is not elegant. I know this is a resource hungry filter, but I don’t need the best blur in the world, and It should be up to the end user how they want to spend their dsp anyway. Move to composition: The way compositions work now, they are not much use to us, cause you really have to plan a head and think “this would be smart to do in a comp” I would like to be able to select a bunch of clips in the main timeline, and click “Move to composition” (Or “Pre-compose” for you AE-folks) this would create a new comp, move the selected clips in to the comp at the exact same spot as they were in the main timeline. Vector masks Text layers was huge, now we want shapes. I know this is a big thing to ask but it would make masking SO much easier then fiddeling around with n-number of black bitmaps. So I add a shape, just like a text layer, then I can add points to the vector in the stage window. The shape enters “edit mode” when we double click it in the stage. I don’t need Bezier-curves and stuff but feather would be fantastic. I hope you would at least consider some of these features for one of your upcoming releases.

We have been doing this for a while now and can confirm that both AE and the Media Encoder seems to export just fine for Watchout