Topic: Back in the laserboy biz!

[dar303]

Hi,

I used LB a lot about a year ago and hassled James with questions and built and used a 6ch DAC but then my interests took a turn into building more powerful projectors so I left the software part for a while.
My "big" projector is not finished yet (400mW 532, 100mW 473, 500mW 405, 1W 650 + maybe 200mW 635, 30k scanners) but I decided to take my 400mW 532 + scanners out for a test-spin in two weeks.
I'm also "upgrading" my USB DAC to +/-10V outputs.

I'm one of the people behind a Swedish festival for alternative electronic music, www.norbergfestival.com that takes place in an old abandoned iron mine with huge concrete buildings.


I'm thinking of writing "NORBERGFESTIVAL" vertically with the letters on top of eachother on the big tower.
How do I create this with Laserboy, is it possible?
If it is i'm thinking of having them sit still for a while and then slowly rotate around its own vertical axis for added "WOW" effect. I think this will be nice promotion for LB!
If anyone wants to help me I'll be happy to pay back this favor in the form of help with electronics or optics, i'm better with those kind of things!

[James]

Piece O' Cake!

LaserBoy already has a bunch of effects for doing that kind of stuff.

I'll put something together for you.

And I'll try to explain how I did it so you can make some more of your own.

WOW! LaserBoy is going to the "Swedish festival for alternative electronic music" !!!

How cool is that?   

I wish I could go too! 

BTW, in my efforts to make your effect, I discovered some really neat ideas about rendering text and the whole blank vs. "lit black" issue. You just made LaserBoy a whole lot better!

James. 

[dar303]

Wow, thanks! You are as quick as usual James! My friends tell me I have a lot of energy but you seem to have even more!

[James]

Check this out!

http://www.akrobiz.com/laserboy/free_art/norbergfestival.rar

I have to upload a new version of LaserBoy so you can use the new features I just added to make this!

James. 

[James]

Here:

http://akrobiz.com/laserboy/code/LaserBoy_2009_07_21.zip

This version makes a lot more sense with text!

If you usually just copy the exe into your old LaserBoy directory, make sure you get the new versions of lucida.ild and courier_new.ild and put them into your active LaserBoy ild directory.

The big idea is that these font glyphs are now rendered with "lit black" lines connecting the individual parts of each vector drawing. The letter O, is two ovals, one inside the other. With lit black, these two parts are bonded together and can be "effected" as one.

In menu 'h', I added option 'b' convert blank to black, so that I could convert the whole font file all in one keystroke.

James. 

[dar303]

You are a sick man (in a good way)!
I'll try it tonight when I get home from work!

THANKS!

[dar303]

Wow, those wavy effects are amazing and also the exploding text!!!
You have really added a lot of functions to Laserboy since I tried it last time (November 2008), I get some of new stuff but not all, so many functions!

I need some tips how to customize these files:

I do not really get how to "program" the orbit.
Since I´m projecting on a tower I would like the vertical axis on set 01 set to be locked so that the text stays more or less in place on it, maybe with a slight tilt to accentuate the waves.

I would also like to make a set that just is stationary and then slowly revolves around its axis left to right

The exploding with bouncing letters is so cool, how can I get it to stay together for like 1 minute and then explode? Maybe limit its excursions to half or one third of the projection are to stay on the building?
I managed to reverse the fram order but I didn´t to make a blank frame in the beginning and then copy the unexploded frame there a few times.

This is so cool that I want instant gratification and propably miss a lot of obvious steps! aaargh!

A big thank you, James!
Hey, find a cheap flight to Stockholm next weekend and I´ll hook you up with transportation, a free ticket, tent and lots of beer!

[James]

LaserBoy has been able to do "those wavy effects" and "the exploding text" since way before it was ever released. That is what I wrote it for in the first place!

Check this out:

http://www.akrobiz.com/laserboy/free_art/norberg_05.zip

I like the floating letters to come together to form the word, then exploding apart again.

If you copy the one frame many times (and then copy the selection of copies) you can add enough frames to the end or the beginning of the frame set to hold the word still for however many seconds you want based on the setting of frames per second; option 'c' in the [Tab] system value settings.

There are a couple of things you can do about limiting the projection field.

If you get this file (tower_mask.bmp), you can use it to mask off the projection field. It won't stop the letters from flying off the edges, but they will fade out to black as they do.

In order to use this mask in LaserBoy, put it in the bmp directory. Then you can open it as a color mask.

The other thing involves creating a new boundary definition for LaserBoy. Then you could have the letters bounce off of the "walls" and they would all stay on your building. But that requires recompiling LaserBoy.

I think I will come up with a way for users to define LaserBoy space boundaries!

James. 

PS. Like this!

http://www.akrobiz.com/laserboy/free_art/norberg_06.zip

[dar303]

wow, that twisty style is totally new, never seen that! Wonder how my projector will handle that, poor chinese el-cheapo galvos...I sense another upgrade comning!

Is it possible to easily limit the "propeller"-turning of the letters and just have them turn and twist around their own vertical axis?

I´ll try the mask, I read about your colour masks a while ago but never got this use!



This might sound like i´m sucking up but you are an amazing person, customizing your software for a crazy guy halfway around the planet that wants to do a weird installation!

THANKS again!   

[James]

Thank you for giving me some new ideas for inspiration.

Did you see this?
http://www.akrobiz.com/laserboy/free_art/norberg_06.zip

I just added it as an edit to my previous post. (I do that a lot!) You might have missed it.

I'm not sure what you want with the rotating letters, but it is very easy for me to go into LaserBoy_frame_effects.cpp and copy / paste / modify any of the built in effects. The effect named "rotate" does some things and so does "around".

James. 

PS. The file norberg_06.ild uses a palette of grays (format 2), so don't expect it to open properly in just any old ILDA file reader.

[James]

I have to go somewhere right now, but I'll be back in an hour or two.

OK. I'm back.

See!

James. 

[James]

This might sound like i´m sucking up but you are an amazing person, customizing your software for a crazy guy halfway around the planet that wants to do a weird installation!

THANKS again!  

Someday, when I get my hips fixed again, I'd like to be able to travel. Hopefully I can make some nice connections with people in the places I would like to go!

I am an artist. LaserBoy is one of my most complex pieces of art. The code and the application that it makes is the art for me.

When someone else uses it is the exact moment that it becomes anything.

Thanks for taking the time to understand it and use it!

I'm waiting for the day when someone takes it seriously enough to actually want to contact me and REALLY learn how to use it.

I'm also hoping to meet someone who could open some doors for me into getting my other art seen and appreciated.

Plus there is the original motivation that I got as soon as I started working with the laser show stuff that was already out there.

I KNEW I could do a better job than that! 

And I knew I could do it by myself, using common, generic hardware, without copying anyone else's ideas or efforts.

As it turns out, I can change the way the whole world does it! 

And, as we all know, I've been richly rewarded for my efforts! 

It's a good thing this forum was put up when it was. 

It would mean nothing if it wasn't for all of the other members who hang out here.

Thanks to all of you!

James. 

[dar303]

I hope you get well soon and can travel to your mad deciples!

numner 06 where the letters fade out inteo black is very stylish!

I'll try to explain what I mean about the rotation:
I want the top letters to always point upwards and that the word rotates completely around its Y axis only.
Is is possible to limit rotation to only a few degrees in X?

I can get it when I push "l" and use only "orbit Y" but I can't get it to stay that way, when I push shift+0 it rotates anyway! I want to try maybe a slight orbit in X to accentuate the "wavyness".

I long for this Sunday when I can go to my lab and put together the USB-dac enclosure so I can try this!

I have a small bug-report too: If i write the wrong filename like "norbergfestival_1" the next load sometimes fails even though I spell it correctly. Solution: restart LB
No biggie but maybe good to know?

[James]

Hello again!

I'll be the first one to admit that LaserBoy is very complex and confusing!

If you use the number keys, '1', '2', '3', '4', you can "orbit" the drawing. Your view of the art is all that is changing; not the art itself! YOU are orbiting the art! If you want to "fix" that view of the art, you can go to menu 'v' and hit either 'o' or 'O' to make your current, rotated view the new front of the art (which will actually rotate the art and set your view to the front of LaserBoy space).

On the other hand.....
If you want to move all or any part of the art itself, you can go into menu 'l' (lower case L) and move the vertex selection cursors to select the portion of the art you want to move and then actually move it (move, rotate, or scale).

If you look at the [Tab] system value settings, you will see:

9 move vertices per key hit
0 rotate degrees per key hit
a scale percent per key hit

These values relate to move, rotate, or scale in menu 'l'.

So you can set your rotate degrees per key hit to 12, go to menu 'l', and use the 'u' key to incrementally select the letters in the word "NORBERGFESTIVAL", in order. To directly rotate the selected portions of your art around the Y axis, tap the 'g' key.

If you leave the first letter alone, give the second letter one key tap of 12 degrees of rotation, the third letter 2 taps of 12 degrees of rotation, the third letter 4 taps, and so on, you get the twisted word like in norberg_05.ild.

BTW I selected the whole word from norberg_01 and did some '9' scale in X around center, to make all of the letters wider.

I am aware of the problem with the file open failure. I think I fixed that. I will be releasing LB again soon. Thank you for pointing it out. I ALWAYS need that kind of help! 

James. 

PS. Try to get exactly 12 degrees of rotation or exactly 100 point coordinate change EVERY TIME with a mouse! 

[dar303]

Hi!

I got it to work finally!
I had forgotten that my soundcard was inverting so I had to find that setting and then I also modded the card for +/-15V power and doubled the input gain to get +/- 10V from the X & Y!

I have (yet) another question.
the output flickers, is there any way to increase the speed (PPS) to get a smoother animation? My galvos are supposed to be 30k so they should take some more abuse.