For Fred's questions:

1. Always the same number of monitors connected, one control and one stage, and reconnecting them as needed on the desktop.  On the original laptop, there's the laptop's built-in screen for control and an external monitor for stage.

2. Except for the one sentence about task manager and resource monitor in the original post, all the percentages and usage stats so far are from Isadora's load meter.
Going with GPU-Z, the results are interesting in different ways.  When on the RTX, GPU-Z GPU Load roughly matches Isadora load, at around 30% on average with my test shows.  When on Intel, GPU-Z GPU load is about 10x the Isadora load, averaging 15% and 1.5% respectively.

3. I'll try that test hopefully towards the end of this week.

4. Real world performance difference.  The original reason was because of an actual problem - my TD was doing all the things we'd assumed worked when running a show and it was stuttering to a freeze.  Since these laptops I'd spec'd should handle shows even better than the desktops from 6 years ago, that was weird.  Then discovering that forcing Isadora to the integrated graphics - against the advice of one of the Isadora troubleshooting articles - made it run essentially perfectly, made me think that more experienced users might have some insight as to what we were doing wrong.
At this point knowing that the numbers we're seeing are normal and finding out the best way to set up our hardware for the future is the goal.

Now that DusX has confirmed my numbers I'm feeling more confident about what I'm seeing.  And once I'm able to test both your theories by throwing a lot of layers and effects at the cards I'll have a good idea of which numbers are telling the truth.

@tr742

Personally, I'd always go the route of shortening my Scene Names and squishing my Scenes thinner rather than splitting the show between separate files.

@tr742

Please take a look at my answer to this post. I think you may be experiencing the same problem: https://community.troikatronix.com/topic/9126/answered-urgent-help-needed-can-t-add-more-than-290-scenes/4

@konrad

You can use the search bar found above the Toolbin to search for all 'midi' actors, or double-click in the scene editor to open a quick-search to find required actors directly in the scene editor.

@chris122

This is a known issue that has not yet been fixed because there were more frequently occurring issues, (this cosmetic issue only comes into play when people have projects with hundreds of Scenes, which is not super common), and because there is a workaround for this.

To understand the workaround, you need to understand the root of the issue: The Scene list has a max horizontal pixel limit, so when you create enough Scenes you go over this limit and the additional Scenes past this limit in the Scene List no longer visually show up in the Scene List (though they do still exist and function properly otherwise).

Workaround: If you hold down cmd (macOS)/control (Windows) then click and drag the right edge of a Scene in the Scene List (the little horizontal bar of “tombstones” below the Scene Editor with the Scene Names), you can resize the Scenes to make them less wide. For every Scene you make thinner, you make the sum total of the horizontal size of your Scenes a bit smaller, meaning you free up additional pixels to show additional Scenes in the Scene List. 

Here's a gif of that in action: https://jmp.sh/wHggJeLk

Depending on your project:

- You may just be able to eliminate blank space on either side of some of your Scene Names

- In more extreme cases you may need to try to make your Scene Names as short as possible to minimize Scene width while still being able to read the Scene Names to tell the Scenes apart

- In the most extreme cases (and/or cases where you don’t care about being able to read the Scene Names in the Scene List) you can make the Scenes the minimum width (which will result in not being able to read the Scene Names) but in these cases you can still use the Scene Select control to see the Scene Names of previous, current, and upcoming Scenes as well as to navigate the Scene List. 

@jmellin these are two (old) patches of mine that are built around OpenNI that may make the process of data-wrangling easier or clearer:

kinect-example-alpha-mask.izz

openni-tracking-and-gesture-demo-v2.izz

There's also the official TroikaTronix OpenNI Tutorial file: https://troikatronix.com/add-ons/openni-tracker/

@woland Thanks

Thanks as ever for your prompt and thorough feedback!  Read Text from File works fine for what I need. I'll get into the other two patches in the next days and see what they're about. All the best from Montana

@citizenjoe

Thanks Hugh for highlighting that: really fascinating.

Future events and recordings of past ones are here:

https://dac.siggraph.org/spark...

@woland @jfg I appear to get stable results by using Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Monitor 3G units in conjunction with its accompanying Desktop Video Setup: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-13

Mac (Isadora Stage) ➔ Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Monitor 3G ➔ Projector / Screen

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Simon

@smoon

No problem :)

@smoon

As I wrote on the other post, the OpenNI Tutorial can be found here: https://troikatronix.com/add-ons/tutorial-openni-tracker/

It makes this puppet with the "Puppet Two Segments" User Actors shown in your screenshot. Double-click them to go inside and I believe you'll be able to find the 3D actor inside it responsible for rendering each segment's location using a specific 3d model, and you can then change the 3D Model being used by that User Actor by changing it in that User Actor and then closing the user actor and choosing "Save and Update All".

More about how to use User Actors (in general) can be found here: https://support.troikatronix.com/support/solutions/articles/13000091626-isadora-101-tutorial-11-creating-user-actors

Here's another 3d line puppet by the ever-fabulous @bonemap : https://troikatronix.com/add-ons/line-puppet/

@smoon said:

I am essentially trying to understand :

- how I get this sort of 3D visual from the visualiser 

- how to alter the aesthetic of this 

The Skeleton Visualizer actor can be used for a very basic form of this like so:

The aesthetic is changed by adding video effects like Motion Blur or Shimmer in the video actor chain (after the Skeleton Visualizer, but before the Projector actor): 

Alternatively, you could send all this to a Virtual Stage and use the Get Stage Image actor to pull it back in, then apply effects to it, then send it to a regular Stage via another Projector actor. (This would be useful if you wanted to get multiple skeleton sources all together in one place before you apply the effects):

More about using Stage Setup to create a Virtual Stage can be found here: https://support.troikatronix.com/support/solutions/articles/13000064618-isadora-3-quick-start-with-stage-setup

It could be scaling but it could also be projector antialiassing. Curves don't really exist in a digital world - only blocks of pixels. And if there are not enough pixels you get "steps".

@dusx said:

 I'll add it to my to build list. I hope to offer up a number of python powered goodies soon.

^^^

@jfg That's why I mentioned Python. It summons Ryan. 

 

@jhoepffner Always right on the spot, Jacques !

@konrad said:

But now I'm missing the sound in the recorded stage video. Is there a way to get a stage video with sound?

Stages have no connection to sound, they are purely for video output.

If you want to capture audio and video output at the same time you could use OBS. You will need:

The free software OBS.This OSC-for-OBS User Actor of mine to start and stop the recording.The free software OSC-for-OBS. The free obs-websocket plugin for OBS (required for using the OSC-for-OBS software). 

(My notes on this are a few years old, but that's how I've done this before.)

@dusx

Hi Ryan,

The choice of delimiter was a bit arbitrary—I think I was just trying a few line break options to see what would happen.

Best Wishes,

Russell 

@morfin_mafer

Please outline your audio routing (virtual cables, loops etc..)

And let us know how it is being recorded? To a file via record stage? Or something else.

@juriaan

The issue with Smart home devices is that all devices are speaking a different language; ZigBee / Matter / Infrared / Bluetooth LE to just name a few. And all those devices have their own app / or their own way of 'working'.

What I did in my own house, is I used a 'in between' product that allows me to use a mixture of different devices. Some people are using HomeAssistant for this; others will utilize a Raspberry Pi or a Cloud based solution.

I use a Homey Pro for that purpose, which is the 'heart' of the operation. Within that I have flows, to control all the machinery / lights / blinds / etc in my home.

Since we now have one interface, and one machine to control it becomes 'easier' to trigger those operations, by using their SDK / Web API. Which can be a great solution for the idea that you have.. Just takes a hot sec to setup / verify before you enter the rehearsal space.

Oh and please, a theater is very different than a 'home', there can be much more signals in the air / or other factors causing things to fail. Smart Home products were never meant for the theater, and require a lot of testing. Please do not use them as 100% fail-safe operations for a practical effect in theater, or an important scene where something 100% has to work. If that is the case, use the products that were designed for that purpose / and the protocols that were designed for it.