Running LTC within the Sequence

[Aurbo99]

Been poking around some more at TimW's LTC program and running it within a Sequence.

Most of you know that using Launcher plugin and setting the Program executable path to the ltc.exe file location and creating a Parameters file (.txt file) that will run the LTC program.

Then set a trigger level to run a specific parameter file from within the Sequence using the cell intensity level.


Here's a new one for all of you..

Create the following .bat file;

@echo off
cd /
Taskkill /f /t /im ltc.exe

I saved all my LTC related .txt files within the c:\LTC directory, so I saved this bat fill there as well naming it KILL_LTC.bat

Now go back to Launcher and Add New, under program executable path type "c:\LTC\KILL_LTC.bat <no parameter> and I used trigger level 99%


Now on each Sequence at the .5 second mark I set the cell intensity of my Triks channel to 99% which kills all current Ledtriks displays.

At the 1 second mark I then use my predefined cell intensity % to start the Triks for the current sequence.


By using this, you can ensure the Triks panel and LTC are off at the beginning of each Sequence.


**this will NOT "blank" the tricks panel, only kill the current execution, so you may have an image or text remain on the panel for a 1/2 second while it shuts off the ltc program and the sequence starts a new one.

[chalker]

This is a great idea! Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm constantly having problems with the timing getting messed up. For some strange reason the timing seems to change on a random basis. For example, I have a short 'countdown' sequence of a couple frames with a large #FDL600 set. Most of the time it takes ~14 secs to run. But occasionally it takes far longer (e.g. 60+ secs). Rebooting the computer doesn't seem to affect it, nor deleting and reseting the triksc.dat file. There are no other programs running and the computer has virtually no processor usage nor memory usage. Has anyone else run into this problem? Any other suggestions?

[T.D.Sutton]

Hi Steve,

That is brilliant, I have been pondering the possibility of attempting to kill LTC prior to a new start, as two instances into one will not work :-) I will be doing as you suggest, very simple to implement and a great way to "cover one's tail" should the timing go "Awol".

Cheers,

Terry

[prof]

Thanks for sharing.

Added it to my sequences before tonights show and it has done its job already.
I too was suffering (every night) from a few totally random lockups of the LTC program and I could never track down the cause.

Prof

[Aurbo99]

Here is another one for you; Vixen.bat

 @echo off  rem Vixen watchdog by Aurbo99 rem rem change "C:\Vixen 2.1\" in :NotRunning section to match your directory rem rem case sensitive filename for Vixen.exe  set Program=Vixen.exe    tasklist | findstr "%Program%"  if %errorlevel% EQU 1 (GOTO NotRunning) else GOTO KillX  GOTO End    :KillX   echo.  echo.  echo An instance of Vixen has been found echo. choice /m "          Do you want to kill %Program%?"  if %errorlevel% GTR 1 GOTO CancelledX  taskkill /f /im %Program%  GOTO END    :NotRunning  cd /d "C:\Vixen 2.1\" Start %Program% GOTO END    :CancelledX   echo.  echo.  echo          Operation cancelled by the USER...  GOTO END    :END 

Toss this bat file on your desktop and use it to run Vixen, it checks for current "hidden" instances of Vixen and alerts you to them prior to running a new instance of Vixen. If no current instance is running, Vixen will start normally. If an instance is found, it gives you a choice to kill it or keep it. an option to have Vixen start immediately after a KillX would be to add

 cd /d "C:\Vixen 2.1\" Start %Program%

immediately after

 taskkill /f /im %Program%

but this will only allow for a single instance of Vixen to be killed
** AFTER FURTHER TESTING, ALL INSTANCE OF VIXEN WILL BE TERMINATED


, ***WIN7 and Vista you need to run as Administrator to function correctly.