v3 surfaces

[wbdreynolds]

hi all - a quick v3 question about the new surfaces:

can i send the same video cue out to several surfaces at once (ie to map a projection across a non-flat screen using several surfaces all hooked up to the same projector)? or can you only patch a cue to a single surface?

alternatively - can a surface be grid/mesh deformed, or only corner-pinned?

OR - does anyone have a suggestion for mapping a single projector across a non-flat screen (several angles rather than curved [i'm projecting onto a bay window]) using quartz patches? i'd almost got something working when i discovered that my patches (i was using the kineme grid_warp patch) throw up a load of errors when i open them on a lion computer (i'm still running snow leopard on my macbook). i was thinking about using several of the 1024_perspective renderers but wasnt quite sure how to split the image across them all in one patch, and also worried that using several 

many thanks for a quick response - i thought i had this mapping issue covered before i got to the theatre and we start tech on monday... am hoping that a quick upgrade to 10.8 and v3 will fix my problems!

w

[Sam Kusnetz]

W-

You can only send a cue to a single surface, but I can picture several potential solutions to your problem.

1. Pipe your video out of QLab with Syphon and use MadMapper for surface mapping. Not free, but very powerful.

2. Set up separate surfaces for each section of the screen and run multiple copies of the cue simultaneously, each carefully cropped. Might work better than you expect.

3. If the total number of sections is four or fewer, QLab has the capacity to divide an output into halves, thirds, or quarters (called Partial Screens). These can be individually cornerpinned and could combine to give you what you need.

Good luck!

Cheerio
Sam

[Michael Long]

2. Set up separate surfaces for each section of the screen and run multiple copies of the cue simultaneously, each carefully cropped. Might work better than you expect.

I can recommend this option. We're doing this right now for a show. We only have two walls, so it's not nearly as complex as a bay window, but it is working very well for us.

--
Michael Long
Video Designer - Philadelphia

[wbdreynolds]

thanks for the response all

sadly without it being a quick and easy fix i can't persuade the theatre to splash out for v3 yet!

the ability to split an output into 2/3/4 and corner pin each sounds really useful for the future though - just to clarify that would all be done from running a single instance of the cue? i need 

i've managed to cobble together several 1024_perspective warp patches and crop sections of the main image onto each one in quartz composer and continue using Qlab2 for now (which the producer is very happy about!) hopefully it wont be a massive performance hit for the mac mini!

i've used the mouse interaction from the 1024 example to make it easy to adjust the cornerpins while setting up, but the only way i can find to get the patch to store the corner's positions is to then disconnect all of the x/y position connections in the patch - has anybody come up with a better way to do that as it's a bit of an ugly hack (and is a pain to reconnect and start the set up from scratch if it ever needs changing).

am happy to share my patch if it helps anyone else.

will

[Christopher Ashworth]

On May 22, 2013, at 5:40 PM, wbdreynolds <wbdre...@gmail.com> wrote:

> thanks for the response all
> sadly without it being a quick and easy fix i can't persuade the theatre to splash out for v3 yet!

I risk sounding like a salesman, and honestly do not wish to push you to spend money unless you want to; but just to chime in a bit:

In terms of "quick and easy", I think you may find that using the "multiple cues to multiple surfaces" may be easier and quicker than you're guessing. Worth playing with some time when you have the time.

> the ability to split an output into 2/3/4 and corner pin each sounds really useful for the future though - just to clarify that would all be done from running a single instance of the cue?

Yes; the single cue can be assigned to this one surface — that happens to contain split pieces of a single output screen.

> i've managed to cobble together several 1024_perspective warp patches and crop sections of the main image onto each one in quartz composer and continue using Qlab2 for now (which the producer is very happy about!)

Sounds good.

> hopefully it wont be a massive performance hit for the mac mini!

It might; proceed with caution.

Best,
Chris

[Kelly Schmidt]

Qlab 3 -> Syphon Output -> MadMapper = A Dream come true
Demo it all for free. You'll want to buy both instantly.

[Christopher Ashworth]

Jack,

It's correct that guaranteed sync is always on in v3. The mechanism for syncing is very different from v2.

The behavior described is expected if the computer wasn't able to provide the audio data fast enough; not really a bug. First thing to check would be that the system is optimized for playback (speed of hard drive, hard drive set to not go to sleep, etc)

Best,
Chris

On May 23, 2013, at 10:50 AM, jack Booth <jack.b...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi Chris,
>
> Just had a bug with v3 playing an audio file, triggered the cue but Qlab failed to buffer in time and the start of the track was not played, Qlab fought up and resumed the track part way in. In v2 we solved this by turning off garenteed sync but seems not to be an option in v3
>
> Thanks,
> Jack

[jack Booth]

Thanks Chris will check and let you know how it goes

Thanks