Topic: Coolest LaserBoy EVER! (almost)

[James]

There is no reason LaserBoy couldn't have it's own file format as well.

Well... If you have ever had a chance to speak to any of "The Masters" of the format (people who have actually worked on the written ILDA file spec) you will come to realize that just about every individual interpretation of the file spec is a new variation that is not exactly what "they" had in mind.

I have ALWAYS looked at it from the same perspective. It is a binary data structure. It has its own intrinsic and inescapable limitations. Exploring the possibilities within those restrictions can be very enlightening. That is the beauty of math! It lets us use our own simple, narrow view of what we can imagine to construct a set of rules that give us a very clear map of all possibility.

The idea of putting restrictions on a data structure regarding "intended use" is a lot like telling people it is illegal to cross the street at a green light.

So what?

Don't tell math how to work!

Let math tell you how everything works.

That is the only way you will ever find the most amazing things you were never even looking for.

James. 

[James]

Happy Halloween! 

http://akrobiz.com/laserboy/code/LaserBoy_2009_10_31.zip

This version has better progress metering, including metering of wave file functions found in menu 'b'.

Also, when you create a new wave, this version can automatically apply sample offsets, right after it generates it for you, and it reports the LaserBoy wave header information when it's done.

DUH! I should have thought of that a long time ago! 

James. 

[James]

Oops!

I just found another bug! 

I just recently changed the function prototypes for frame effects and frame set effects to return bool instead of void.

I had forgotten to put return statements at the end of some of the function definitions. So they never got changed from return; to return true;

For some strange reason, Dev-C++ does not complain about the lack of a bool return type, it just assumes false!

So when you go to apply certain frame or frame set effects, LaserBoy says that it is not a registered LaserBoy effect; even though it might have worked just fine and the result is sitting on your hard drive.

Oh well.

It's fixed now!

James. 

[meandean]

Also, when you create a new wave, this version can automatically apply sample offsets, right after it generates it for you, and it reports the LaserBoy wave header information when it's done.

  It's about time!!!

  I ran into an issue with wav files larger than 2GB- the progress indicator yields
negative numbers; the same is true is true when looking at wave stats. Since you have
the luxury of unsigned integers, it should be an easy fix. I can't believe I'm even
talking about files so large- it wasn't that long ago that HD's couldn't even hold
that! Now, I carry 8GB on my keychain like it was nothing...

  Folks, if you really want to blow away space like there's no tomorrow, consider
8ch 16bit wave @ 48K- it only costs about 44MB/min; an album-length presentation
can easily burn up more than 2GB, just like good-old ADAT...

[James]

OK. Good find. LaserBoy_wave_header.num_samples is now an unsigned int! 

Thanks!

Anything else before I release it again? 

James. 

[meandean]

  Yes, the ability to 'overwrite' offsets and polarity of an unformatted 8ch wave.

[James]

Yeah yeah.....

I started on that. There is more to it than you think. You have to know the polarity of the wave, what is in the 6th channel, whether to write eof marks, etc...

It's a lot easier to use LaserBoy to splice together a bunch of prepared stereo and / or mono waves. It does all that stuff in the process.

James. 

[meandean]

  Yeah, but there's this thing you found called Audacity that can easily edit multi-ch wav without having to split things up. LW copes with it easily.

[James]

New version for November!

http://akrobiz.com/laserboy/code/LaserBoy_2009_11_01.zip

This one has added frame and frame set effects called move_l2r and move_t2b.

I also upped the palette blend number of colors to 7 (just for Alec). 

Fixed the frame and frame set effects that did not return true and changed num_samples from an int to a u_int.

As usual, if it makes your computer explode, don't blame me!

James. 

PS. Tomorrow, I think I will actually fire up the laser and take some photos and video clips.

PSS. CRAP! I just found a glitch in the new effects! I'm uploading a new zip right now!  Done.

I just tried the move_l2r and move_t2b effect on the gears animation and it looks awesome! It looks like it is rolling on the big green gear! 

[James]

Alec, I'd sure like to know where that origin vector went! I've been looking at that for hours. I still don't get it.

When you add a new frame to the set from menu 'j' it is supposed to contain exactly two vertices, forming a blank vector at the origin.

For some reason it just disappeared!

You can get one by tapping the '.' in menu 'k', so you can start drawing just like before.

I still can't figure out how I can see the code that stuffs two empty vertices into the segment and yet I get nothing on the screen.

James. 

[James]

Yep. I got it.

I thought so.

I went upstairs and just before I fell aspleep I realized what it must be.

Each frame has section header data so that it can easily be saved as ILDA and I forgot to update

quantity = size();

So the dots were actually there but when LaserBoy went to draw them it saw quantity == 0;

FIXED!

Hmmmm. I wonder why that just popped up?

Freakin' Gremlins! 

James. 

[meandean]

I started on that. There is more to it than you think. You have to know the polarity of the wave, what is in the 6th channel, whether to write eof marks, etc...

  Oh crap! How hard is it to read PCM from a plain multi-ch wav and manually slap on an LB header with user specified values?
Were're talking about an unformatted wave, so there are no frame marks to worry about. As it is, if I have stereo pairs with
known inter-ch timings and overall polarity, all I do is enter the timing values in the offsets selection screen and then sew
the pairs together. LB asks for the names of the individual files, and whether the thing is inverted- done!

  I'm just asking for the same functionality for a plain m-ch wav. OK, if you want to be thorough, you could ask if ch6 is Z,
but Z or grayscale on 6 are LWave options- find me an ADAT tape that uses these things. You could even apply color threshold
values if you really wanted to get fancy, other than that the PCM just gets passed through.   

[James]

I said I started on it.

Geeeeeeeeeeeeez!

I just cleaned my mirrors and realigned everything on my projecor. It looks much better.

I looked at some of my new effects and tweeked the code a bit.

That countdown looks really cool!  

James.  

[meandean]

  Well, that's just gay...  

[James]

This one:

http://akrobiz.com/laserboy/code/LaserBoy_2009_11_04.zip

has some improvements in the new frame and frame set effects wipe, angle_wipe, radial_wipe, move_l2r & move_t2b.

Now, instead of blanking the vertices they are changed to lit-black. This makes it possible to maintain a steady brightness even though the number of lit vertices is changing a lot.

If you choose a frame set effect that requires selected frames and you forgot to select frames, it tells you now!

If you escape out of any of the file save as [type] menus, you will return to the select output type menu, instead of the main menu.

Also added 'y' go to frame and 'z' 'Z' +-100 frames to make it easier to get around in frame sets that number in the thousands. This only works from the main menu!

I know I have more stuff to do. I'm getting back to it right now!

James.