Nutcracker: enhancement, make_lor and make_vixen

[smeighan]

I have added a visualizer to the make_lor.php and make_vixen.php programs

I did this to help debug effects. So , dont be surprised when you see it.

Here is an effect for butterfly

http://meighan.net/nutcracker/effects/workspaces/2/AA+FLY_0_0.gif

and here is what it looks like in the nutcracker channel preview
http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/make_vixen_fly.png

The reason i did this is a user reported that scrolling text looks weird in LOR.

this effect
http://meighan.net/nutcracker/effects/workspaces/2/AA+TEXT1.gif

looks like this

http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/make_lor_text.png


What the heck?

I apparently filtered the trxt when making the gif but dont filter it when creating the animation file. Anyways, this is the reason for this new ability. To check the quality of the animation sequences.

thanks

[jaywalk101]

yeah, it seems like the text is mirrored backwards when I try to do a text effect. However I see part of your visualizer shows the text properly.. What values should I be putting in the text effect for it to work properly? Thanks!

[smeighan]

yeah, it seems like the text is mirrored backwards when I try to do a text effect. However I see part of your visualizer shows the text properly.. What values should I be putting in the text effect for it to work properly? Thanks!

The visualizer shows what is in the sequence file i am getting ready to send to vixen/LOR. What this tells me is i have a bug in Nutcracker. It shows correctly in the gif animation. The inverted text is because the target model was a 8x100 string that is folded. So pixels 1-50 go up, 51-100 go down. I only show pixels if i created something so y can see some pixels missing.

The issue is why the text pixels look off by 1.

thanks

[smeighan]

New release , changed channel preview so that it shows all channels of your string.



PM sent with the model effect info.

For those following this thread:
My model is two 128 node strings each folded 8 times making 16 strands of 16 pixels.

The effect is garlands/circle


I released a new version make_vixen and make_lor that has a channel preview that shows all channels. My logic before was to only show channels if i ever created a pixel. Now, i show all pixels and all strings.

What this preview shows is that i am stopping generating a sequence when i come to the bottom of a strand.

In your case gary, 2 strings, each 128 pixels folded 8 times. This means first strand is 1-16 (16 being top of tree), next strand 17-32 (17 being top of tree).
Notice on the first strand i am missing pixels 1,2,3 (Strand 1, bottom of strand). On the second strand i am missing pixels 31,32 (Strand 2, bottom of strand).

So what this shows me is i am not finishing sequencing the botoom pixels on a strand. This is a bug and i will fix it.

Here is what the channel preview shows of your model

http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/make_vixen_fly_apr16.png

[smeighan]

Ok, i found the bug that was causing some pixels not to be sequenced. I have released a new version. The bug was actually in the target generator.

You should now see all the pixels are being sequenced.

Note: You MUST go back and resubmit each of your targets so that they get a clean rewrite of the target.dat file. You only have to do this once.

http://meighan.net/nutcracker/images/make_vixen_fly_apr16b.png

[stenersonj]

Question- I created a target tree that has 16 strings of 42 pixels each, no folds. I believe this should be 672 pixels * 3 = 2016 channels. When I build an effect and then create my vixen files it only creates 1134 channels. what am I doing wrong?

thanks

[smeighan]

Question- I created a target tree that has 16 strings of 42 pixels each, no folds. I believe this should be 672 pixels * 3 = 2016 channels. When I build an effect and then create my vixen files it only creates 1134 channels. what am I doing wrong?

thanks
Currently the effects dont always do all channels, for example a meteor may not start at the very top pixel but instead start at the second from the top. When i create an output file i only show you the channels where there is at least one non zero pixel.

I will be scrubinng all effects looking for these "holes" and fixing them. now that there is a channel preview, it becomes obvious if i am missing a pixel here and there. For example i notice a few "holes" in the spiral effect. 95% is not 100%. I will fix them before the June Beta release.

You are not doing anything wrong.