ORBIS fly - Visualisation in AI =============================== Idea by Sebastian Beutel and Christoph Muessener s.beutel@avolites.de cmuessener@audio-visual-network.com All rights reserved. You may freely use or alter this project. However, we kindly ask you to mention the original authors if you use this professionally. Please know that this is only some data which needs to be used in conjunction with other software (in particular: AI server, by Avolitesmedia Ltd.). Thus, other licenses and copyrights may apply. Copyrights and Trademarks (e.g.: AI, Avolitesmedia, Orbis, Apple, Quicktime, and others) are recognized. Contents -------- ai_cubes_2_h264.mov - a quicktime movie of the final result AI_Project_ColourCubes.zip - zipped AI project Avo_Titan_Show_orbis [QuickSave] [24].zip - zipped Avolites Titan Show Kinetic LED System_Orbis Fly.d4 - Avolites Titan personality for Orbis Fly Orbis_Fly.pdf - German sketch/plan and DMX description of this demo project (courtesy of C. Muessener) Purpose ------- ORBIS Fly is a system of (a) DMX/Artnet controlled winches, and (b) spheres which are hung from these winches. The spheres are lit with LED, which are again controlled via Artnet/DMX. Together, winches and spheres may be combined to a 3D structure which can move and change its light/colour. All further information regarding this system is available from www.audio-visual-network.com The challenge with a system like this is to prepare and pre-programm shows, contents, patterns and other stuff. Hence, the idea appeared to use a freely configurable virtual 3D video system - like AI server - to pre-visualise such a setup. This way, pre-programming can be done without anything being set up in reality, saving lots of time, money, manpower, and efforts in general. Prerequisites ------------- An installation of AI server. I recommend a proper workstation computer for this. For any other question regarding AI, please see www.avolitesmedia.com. In the video, I used Avolies Titan Simulator - a virtual lighting controller software - to program the movements and colour effects. See www.avolites.com for more details about the Titan Simulator. Installation ------------ - Download and unzip AI_Project_ColourCubes.zip. This contains the file ColourCubes.scb which is an AI project. - Easiest way: copy his file to C:\program files\Avolites\AI\Distrib\Projects on the AI computer - start AI, and on the project browser page, select this project. - you may need to adjust your network settings. In order to do this, select 'System Settings' in the AI root window (the small window with 'ColourCubes.scb' in its title bar). In the system settings window (which now opens), you can select the Artnet Adapter, which needs to be the network adapter you are using for Artnet. In order to use the Titan Show, download and unzip Avo_Titan_Show_orbis [QuickSave] [24].zip, and load it into Titan Simulator (via the Disk Menu). If you want to create your own Titan Show, you may find the personality Kinetic LED System_Orbis Fly.d4 useful. Some AI details --------------- - the entire project was done by 'classic' AI patching in the stage patch. I used the most current version 8.0.2.199 While it's possible that this project runs in older AI versions, too, I cannot give any warranty for this. - the saved project opens with four windows: - left is the AI GUI where all the rendering is done. I recommend opening he performance page (the way how the project opens: bottom-right, the 'keyboard' icon). You may press # (the 'hash') to toggle the media banks on/off, and press : (the 'colon' - only on English keyboard layout) to toggle media tiles on/off. The mouse's scroll wheel zooms in/out, Shift+click/drag rotates, Alt+click/drag pans the view. - bottom-right is a small window with 'ColourCubes.scb' in its title bar. This it AI's root window, with options to open other windows: the AI Interface (the GUI, see above), the Stage Patch (see below), and the 'System Settings' window (see above 'Installation'). - middle/right is a window with just colours. This is a representation of the colours which are computed from the Artnet RGB values. If you close this window, the visualisation will not work any more, since AI requires a full render path for many modules to work. - top-right is the StagePatch window. Essentially, there is a big grey rectangle with 'all lines' as title and with some input fields (described below). Another rectangle is named 'window' and has only a toggle button. This is to enable the aforementioned colour window - please keep it enabled! - most of the settings which you can do are just the input fields on the 'all lines' subpatch: - X_0, Y_0, Z_0 are the coordinates of the rendered structur in 3D space. - X_Offset is the left-right spacing of the rendered elements. - Y_Travel is the max vertical travel for 100% = DMX255. It is -6 meters for standard Orbis Fly. - Z_Offset is the front-back spacing of the rendered elements. - Scale is the size per element (e.g. 0.2 or 0.3 if you choose metric values). - Texture: some value AI needs. I suggest to leave it at 420. - Tex_X, Tex_Y: start coordinates for the rendered colours window. - Tex_Width, Tex_Height: width and height (in px) per field of the rendered colours window. 20 is good starting point: our installation comprises of 16 x 20 elements (spheres/cubes), and hence this would result in 320 x 400px for the rendered colours window. - if you want to have a look at the actual patch: double-click somewhere within the grey area of the 'all lines' rectangle, or right-click and select 'Expand Patch'. But please be warned: any changes will have immediate effect, and might even render the entire project inoperable. - the only reason you might have to go into that patch is to change the Artnet universes, depending from your very control infrastructure. You'll see 20 bigger grey rectangles, each one with the title '1 line.scb', representing a horizontal line of 16 elements in the final rendering. Directly above each such rectangle is a smaller rectangle with the title 'Universe', a blue triangle, and an input field. This defines the Artnet universe for each line. The universes are set to 0, 2, 4, ...., 36, 38. You may alter this according to your needs and control means. Programming, testing, and the video were done on a notebook computer with an Intel i7, 8 GB RAM, and an NVidia GeForce 540M. The final rendering yields framerates of 5...15 fps - not perfect, but okay for pre-visualisation and pre-programming. I am confident you'll acchieve better results on a proper workstation. I am happy to learn about your results - please write to s.beutel@avolites.de Again, we are greatly looking forward to any feedback. Have fun. July 2015 C. Muessener/S. Beutel