Topic: Coolest LaserBoy EVER! (almost)

[Fanny Pack]

It would be cooler if instead of a progress meter you simply played the Jeopardy song.

[James]

But then I would feel compelled to wager money before I applied any effects.

James. 

[meandean]

  Better yet, try the yodeling theme from the Mountain Climber game on The Price is Right.
If the program crashes and the climber falls off the edge, you get the buzzer complete with
Bob Barker saying 'Oh, I'm sorry!'

[James]

OK..... Now THIS is the coolest LaserBoy ever! 

http://akrobiz.com/laserboy/code/LaserBoy_2009_10_29.zip

Check it out!

The progress meter is written to the top of the bitmap so only the first 8 * font_size_factor lines need to be memcpy-ed and updated on the screen by SDL.

It seems like it's pretty fast.

I'm sure it costs quite a few CPU cycles, but an indication that the program is actually doing something is probably worth a tiny bit more calculation time.

Unfortunately, I have not yet come up with a progress meter for the functions in menu 'b' that effect wave files on the hard drive. These are done one sample at a time!

I'll think of something that will be reasonably fast.

I got rid of the "please wait........................................."

James. 

[meandean]

  The real goal is to write code that's fast enough on a decent machine so that no progress
indication is needed.

[James]

Who's "real goal" are you talking about?

James. 

[BlinkenLights]

  The real goal is to write code that's fast enough on a decent machine so that no progress
indication is needed.

Have you EVER tried to calculate that much data in a split second. sometimes im throwing effects over a few thousand frames.

thats alot of data..

no current system can do that in a under a minute.


The real goal is to write code thats STABLE and will continue to do its work no mater how much work you give it.. the progress meter just lets you know that its hasn't crashed yet

[James]

There is something else I should probably add. If a single frame is calculated and grows to more than the number of vertices that can be counted with an unsigned 16-bit integer, (65,536) you lose data. Not that it really matters, because that's a freaking ridiculous amount of points in one frame, but the program should tell you when it happens anyway.

Actually, it's a bit worse than that.... You don't really lose the data. It's still taking up space in the memory. You just can see it on the screen or write it to the hard drive!

Oh well.

James. 

[Fanny Pack]

Maybe if the size is exceeded create multiple files.  I moved away from the ILDA file for storing shows in Spaghetti.  That is one of the reasons.  I pretty much only include the size of the frame and the XYRGB data.  No header info, no intensity, no Z coordinate.  It just takes up space.

[James]

It's not a limitation of the total number of frames. It's a limitation of the total number of points in a single frame. I realize that the ILDA format (sort-of) implies that a file should not contain more than 65,536 frames, but that is not a hard limit like points-per-frame is. LaserBoy just kinda' plays along with the frame ID and total frames numbers in each ILDA section header. It does not rely on them in any way.

James. 

[Fanny Pack]

Ah, I see.  I didn't pay close enough attention to what you wrote.  Sorry.

[BlinkenLights]

i just created a frameset that contains 116115 frames.. no problem..

its a pretty crazy beamshow...

[meandean]

I moved away from the ILDA file for storing shows in Spaghetti.  That is one of the reasons.  I pretty much only include the size of the frame and the XYRGB data.  No header info, no intensity, no Z coordinate.  It just takes up space.

  That's good, but Spg format is proprietary...

Have you EVER tried to calculate that much data in a split second. sometimes im throwing effects over a few thousand frames.

  OK, maybe not in a split second, but I have written audio DSP apps that can perform tens of billions of calculations in under a minute on a six year old PC using dreadfully obsolete VB6. I guess I expect a high end C++ app to kick some more butt...

  If you want to learn how to write fast code, try being stuck on a long road trip with only a 98 vintage laptop in your hotel room...

[James]

Why is it good that he moved away from the only known generic standard that bridges the gap between (supposedly) all laser apps?

James.  

[Fanny Pack]

Why is it good that he moved away from the only known generic standard that bridges the gap between (supposedly) all laser apps?

James.  

There is no reason LaserBoy couldn't have it's own file format as well.  The important thing is that there is the ability to export to common formats.  The Spaghetti show format contains TTL and DMX cue information, multiple frame streams, offsets so that you can jump around in the show during playback with no delays, and is stripped down so you can share it with your friends and not waste 10MB on Z coordinates.  But, you can still export your project to ILDA files if you want.  If I was tied to using only ILDA files for shows there would be no good way to do the above.  I could create my own Format codes but there would be no point to it.

So, why is it good?  Because it lets you do a lot of cool things that you would not being able to do with the ILDA format alone.