Anzahl Events in einer Timeline

[funny_laser]

Hallo,

ist grad Samstagabend, und da dachte ich, kannst ja ein bischen an deiner ersten Show weitermachen. Und da: Ich kann keine weiteren Events auf der Timeline mehr hinzufügen. So ca. bei 155 ist Feierabend. In den Helpfiles habe ich keinen Hinweis in der Richtung gefunden.
Heißt das, jetzt alles nochmal von vorne ?
Ich hab mich bis jetzt darum gedrückt, die Show in Module zu zerlegen bzw. mit mehreren Szenen zu arbeiten. Wahrscheinlich ist das aber der einzige Ausweg.

Oder ?

Gruß,

Winfried

[dieter]

Auch Hallo,

seit Showtime Version 2.11 stehen max.

100 (64) Module / Show
100 (64) Scenes / Module
600 (450) Timeline Events / Scene
8 Transitions / Effect
8 Actions / Transition

zur Verfügung.

Gleichzeitig können max. 2000 (1500) Show-Elemente (Module, Scenes, Effects) geladen sein.

In Klammern ist die max. Anzahl vor Version 2.11 angegeben.

Gruß

Dieter Burkard

[funny_laser]

Hallo Dieter,
danke für die präzise Antwort.

Da werde ich wohl die Show neu strukturieren.

Gruß,

Winfried

[patrick]

@Dieter: Da möchte ICH jetzt mal ganz doof fragen: Was um alles in der Welt machen diese Einschränkungen für einen Sinn? Das wäre ja wie wenn man bei Microsoft Word nur Briefe mit maximal 2000 Buchstaben schreiben dürfte oder mit Adobe Photoshop nur Bilder mit maximal 100.000 Pixeln erstellen dürfte!

Würde mich interessieren warum (und ob) das so sein muss.

Gruß Patrick

[dieter]

Hallo Patrick,

Deine Frage ist gar nicht doof, legt aber eine Gegenfrage nahe, die eher philosophischer Natur ist: Handelt es sich wirklich um eine "Beschränkung", wenn man durch sie keine Nachteile hat ? Es wurden schon sehr viele aufwändige und lange Shows erstellt, bei denen die Programmierer von den "Beschränkungen" nichts gemerkt haben, weil diese nicht erreicht wurden.

Die Anzahl der möglichen Strukturen kann bei Bedarf problemlos erhöht werden, so wie es auch bei der Version 2.11 geschehen und im HELP-file dokumentiert ist.

Zum Grund der Beschränkungen: Auf der QM2000-Karte steht nur "begrenzeter" Speicher zur Verfügung. Früher wurden 32 MB standardmäßig geliefert, heute sind es 128 MB. Seit einiger Zeit ist es möglich, diesen bis 1 GB RAM aufzurüsten. Da das Betriebssystem, die Farbpaletten, die Show-Strukturen und nicht zuletzt auch die Grafiken Speicherplkatz benötigen, muss man überlegen, wie der Speicher aufgeteilt wird, ohne Anwender mit nur 32 MB RAM auf der Karte zu benachteiligen. Momentan ist es so, dass größerer Speicher der Aufnahme von mehr Frames (bis 64.000) dient. Der Bedarf nach einer größeren Anzahl Frames entstand, nachdem einige wirklich große Shows mit LC MAX erstellt wurden, die 45 Minuten oder länger laufen. Wenn eines Tages eine größere Anzahl von Timeline-Events benötigt werden sollte, stellt dies auch kein Problem dar.

Gruß
Dieter Burkard

[pangolinlaser]

Hello Winfried and Patrick,

As Dieter indicated, the limitations that we place on the software are there for "practical reasons". One example is our limit of 6000 points per frame. This is placed because it is not really practical to show a frame with more than 6000 points because it would flicker too badly. Likewise, there are other limits that we place for practical reasons. Some of these reasons have to do with computer memory, others with speed, and yet others for user interface reasons.

Regarding your specific show, we designed Showtime to be used with a Show-Module-Scene paradigm. For users who use this paradigm, this is an optimal way to work for several reasons. Showtime is the only timeline (as far as I know) that uses this paradigm and allows for this kind of "re-use" of show components. You can make a show with Showtime using only one single scene, but this is not really the optimal way to work. Also, if you ever do run out of events, you can easily "split" a scene into multiple scenes and continue from there.

If you "do the math" on the total number of scene-level events possible within a show, you will find that you can do a show with up to 6 million events!! Sure, there aren't 6 million in one scene, but to use Patrick's "document" metaphor, nobody would write a document with one paragraph and 6 million characters... Documents are best written with paragraphs, chapters, etc.

If anybody would like some help or advice in cutting a single scene into multiple scenes, please send email to lasers@pangolin.com and, I will be glad to help you.

Bill

[patrick]

...but...

-IF- I want to write ONE page in Word containing 10000 words I really shouldn't run into any limitations. It should be up to the user how he structures his show programming and the software shouldn't put any unnecessary limitations onto that. That is my opinion.

Of course I am sure there are good reasons for this limitation. Therefore I asked for them to be fair. But the reasons given don't seem too relevant in today's technology anymore.

I think that a 5 minute standard show containing an average maximum of events should not be a problem for one module to hold. But of course this is only my opinion and perhaps this is not possible for some reason. It is just what I believe would make sense and give the user more freedom.

The reason for my question is that during the last Pangolin seminar we had a discussion about if it is likely to run into this limitation. And all attendants who did programming stated that they unexpectedly ran into this limit once or twice in the past and would like to see it changed in the future if possible.

Also, many people conceive the module based programming system more complex that using only one module for a simple standard show.

In fact, I myself think that making a show that contains only one module makes the same amount of sense as making a show of multiple modules: It really depends on the kind of show. So really both should be possible.

Patrick

[dieter]

@Patrick: Wie war denn eigentlich das Seminar ? Ich habe hier im Forum nach der Mitteilung des Anmeldeschlusses nichts mehr gelesen.

Dieter

[pangolinlaser]

Hi Patrick,

In the past, particularly with the LD/QM32 system, users would regularly report bumping up against our limitations of number of events per scene or whatever. When this would happen, users would contact me and then I would examine their particular show. Sometimes I would make changes to the software to alleviate the limitation and sometimes I would educate the user on how to use the system more effectively.

Since we released the LD2000 system, I increased the number of events by a large number and since then, I have not heard of anyone bumping up against limitations. To me, the lesson is that the current limitation on the number of events is a reasonable limitation. Indeed, the fact that this has not come up in this forum until now is evidence that the limitation on events is a reasonable one.

As far as why the limitations are there, there are many reasons. But one thing to remember is that EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD HAS LIMITATIONS!!!

As I said, some of the limitations are "artificial" in nature and have to do with software standards for user interface design and other factors. Some are true hardware limitations, such as our ability to load files from disk at a certain maximum rate, or our ability to process points at a certain maximum rate. And sometimes limitations are there because of the tradeoffs between conflicting requirements.

Sure, I can bump up the number of events in a scene, but this will take more memory and will slow down network and even native PC access. And note that this "more memory required" and "slow down" will occur to all users -- even the vast majority who seem to not be having any problems.

When we get a report on a limitation causing problems, we examine the tradeoffs involved. In this case, here are the tradeoffs as I see them:

On one side of the scale, we have a tradeoff of every single one of our users requiring more memory and experiencing lower performance. On the other side of the scale, we have what appears to be a few users who bump up against a limitation on number of events -- a limitation that they themselves can easily avoid if they only used the program like we intended to begin with.

So unless I am mistaken and that this "limitation on the number of events" problem is much more serious or rampid, I would vote to keep things the way they are -- leaving our current speedy performance for all users, and merely educating the one or two people who bump up against the limitation.

As far as average shows, yes, there are lots of "average shows" that use one huge scene for all show content. There are shows within our show library that do just this -- including some surprisingly visually complicated ones.

Anyway, I guess the bottom line is that I will gladly examine this in more depth if there are really a number of users who have a problem. But so far, Winfried is the only one who has reported this since we have introduced the LD2000 system. If there are more, let's hear it!!! I will want to examine your shows as well to see where the problems are.

Best regards,

William Benner
Pangolin Laser Systems

[patrick]

@Dieter: Das ist in diesem Thread etwas off-topic. Deshalb mache ich hier mal Schluss...

Gruß
Patrick