@gpeddino

@gpeddino

use one pulse generator. 

I'm working on a strobo-like effect for my lighting console project. I have three RGB values and each of them pass through a pulse generator that alternate them with 0, creating the blinking effect. But the three generators just won't keep in sync with each other, even when using the "reset" and triggering them at the same time.

Is this an issue with the actor itself? Is there a fix? Should I try a plan B? Thanks in advance.

@callie

You can convert the value using a Limit Scale Value module. For example this method can convert values (0~100) to values (-100~100) etc.

Best wishes

Russell

@callie

it does:

Best regards, 

Jean-François

@woland

Thanks for your advice on this. I have looked into what kind of investment would be required to go with a single  computer solution or Datapath FX4’s but the reality is the MacMini M4 is a much better value proposition at this time. With 3 x MacMini I am provided a total of 9 potential discrete video outputs and greater long term flexibility, while remaining well under the current price point of Datapath FX4. At this point It appears to me worth the extra fiddling around with Isadora programming. I do take the point about reducing the over all number of Movie Players, that is a great approach!

Best wishes

Russell

 Does the broadcaster actor accept negative values?

I attached 3 listener actors into the RGB values of the colorizer actor (the original content is white, and I want to be able to change the color in different scenes). The broadcaster actor doesn't seem to accept negative values when typed in. I've tried float and integer, and neither works. Any suggestions?

@nic Hi - I have been having great success with Nintendo Switch Joycon controllers. They're pretty stable. There is no way to do Wiimotes anymore as all the software to make it work is now defunkt. I think switch joycons are a great alternative - they last a good while, have pretty accurate sensing and have a load of buttons. They also have lots of attachments to turn their form into other shapes, like guns. I've got a project at the minute with my students where we're using ninteno switch joycons in gun style cases to create a big screen shooter experience.

I've tried the VR path, Disguise does VR controllers really well, but it's not worth the effort in isadora, I havent found a way to connect them so far, and I'm a VR loon.

In terms of connecting Joycons to isadora, there are a few ways, there are lots of homebrew apps on git hub like joyOSCmapper which is great, but difficult to customise the parameters. I had much better success with Chataigne the other day. It's a timelining app for OSC messages (VERY useful) but also has native joycon support and you can map joycons to OSC values this way. It's very stable and actually applies some useful smoothing to the data so you get very smooth motion.

Hope that helps :)

(I bought a couple of joycons a few weeks ago at CEX (UK) and they cost about £32 each. Quite dear. you need a method to charge them too, so I had to buy a cheap dock as they only charge when attached to the switch itself..

Does anyone know if you can interface VR controllers with Isadora? I used to use Wii controllers via OSC back in the day, but am wondering if we can get more accurate 6Dof sensing. Note that I don't have a headset, and want to use the controllers directly, something like Oculus Touch.

thanks

@bonemap said:

Is the best option to hard sync through the ‘position’ input of each instance of the MoviePlayer? Or to sync trigger a start time and let each MoviePlayer do its thing before triggering a start time again on loop?

 I think you may see similar results with both of these methods, and both should prevent any noticeable amount of drift from occurring over a long period of time.

@bonemap said:

I have access to a Intel MacMini that could be used to send timecode as @juriaan has suggested.

If you go the timecode route you may want to check out the MTC Movie Locker actor, though with the Movie Player actors in timecode mode, you could probably just hook up an MTC Reader actor directly to the 'position' input of each Movie Player actor.

@bonemap said:

Keeping the eight video streams in sync for a seamless blend is going to be critical.

@bonemap said:

I am anticipating using the 3 of the same spec MacMini but two will have 3 heads and one will have two heads to make up the eight video outputs.

I'd also suggest merging the video files for each computer (you'd have two triple-wide and one double-wide) then using the Chopper actor to distribute them to the Stages. This gives you fewer videos to keep in synch as you'd only be keeping the different computers in synch and wouldn't have to worry about keeping videos on the same computer in synch. 

Honestly if you could get a single, beefy computer like a Mac Studio or a decent Windows machine and a couple Datapath fx4's or Matrox QuadHead2Gos, you could merge all 8 videos into a single octuple-wide video and use choppers to distribute the right pieces to the right displays. Since you'd only ever be playing a single video (and that video would be split up and sent to all 8 displays) your content would always be in synch so you wouldn't need any clever multi-computer method for synching them up. This would really be the ideal method for getting *perfect* synch across 8 outputs.