I plead ignorance here, not quite understanding what the implications of doing something like this are.
If it means that users can have the ability to exchange config-making ideas within the accepted framework of config submissions policy, I'd be all for it (Acourse, I'd be the only person to have voted for that feature if the question before the committee were still available to be voted on. IOW, homey can't vote in an apparently closed poll ).
It would prolly be the best workaround to what I perceive as the continuing dilemma of whether or not to use this BB for config-related brainstorming.
There's lots of interesting and even good ideas flowing around here, and Andy has said that the new engine, 'coming out real soon', should be at least an order of magnitude faster than the current one, maybe several orders. Oooohh, yeah !!! Makes me feel like Tim Allen, makes me wanna grunt a couple times. BUT... be careful for just how much you request. Ya gotta remember that a Ferrari ain't gonna break 250 mph while towing a house trailer. Overhead kills! Your own budget... Fortune 500 companies... and software!
I'm sure Andy looks at this very closely every time he considers a new enhancement, but it is possible to get overloaded with requests for something and to throw caution and common sense to the wind and just go ahead and do it 'because everyone wants it!'. So think carefully before you ask. Is this necessary to me and my G-Force well being, or is it just a 'nice to have'? The biggest killer of good software is something a genius-level programmer with whom I once worked called 'creeping featurism', a little improvement here, another one there, this new bell, that new whistle, and all of a sudden, your software Ferrari has turned into a Yugo (or for those who don't remember the Yugo, a Subaru, an old, old, Subaru).
And now that I have finished my pontification, it's time for my requests... my very, very important requests that I will die without... wink, wink.
Since sprites were broken out from particles several releases ago, manual control of sprites, mainly background pictures, needs to put back in, similar to the Y-K-P-keys now just limited just to particles. I do love my purdy pichers and currently have about 1,600 of them that float in and out of G-Force. I would also like the length of time that the '"G-Force Snapshot nnn.bmp" saved.' message be made a pref-variable; I like to take lots of snapshots, and often have to waste a lot of time editing our the message from otherwise good shots; if I could drop it to 2 seconds, it would save me a lot of unnecessary work. And finally, please up the priority of porting Darkroom to the PC as soon as is reasonable; it could remove a lot of snapshot taking. And in your spare time, please get all your navy work done, develop a social life, read a good book, and start getting more than six hours of sleep a night. It WILL catch up with you and knock your (expletive deleted) in the dirt when you least expect it! Get a life, Bubba! You deserve it!
I understand all that you say, yes there is no room on a Formula One Ferrari for a Surround Sound multi-change CD system. But when the driver wants to change direction he doesn't have to rummage in his fire-proof overalls for his set of instrument screwdrivers and then start fiddling around under the fairing. It makes the true purpose of the vehicle fairly pointless. Likewise when I want to bring up a certain movie file to suit a certain song (on-the-go) I personally don't find it very user-friendly to go rummaging through folders to find the relevant file to start fiddling with.
What is more, to suggest that G-Force can only be used by those with the patience and proficiency that a relative few people have kind of smacks of elitism. The more usable it is the more people will use it. And the more people will pay for it.
andy55 wrote:What, if any, features should be added to G-Force?
Andy,
1. It there a possiblity to set a union field in a script ?
2. How do I change the Unions probability ? I understood that it is in the boot.txt file somewhere, but I only found the duration interval
As i'm a developer myself I do understand the C syntax but I just don't seem to find it there...
3. It would be nice to be able to start a union with a shortcut key as all other things. - Speaking of shortcuts, some are somewhat ackward for people with a keyboard other than qwerty, things like ´,[] or \ are very
hard to find, I could modify the boot.txt for this, but then I also have to modify the help file. And that's probably all a bit hard for the less experienced user ...
4. When pressing SHIFT-U would it be possible to sort on date-time of the files descendingly so the a newly written config is taken straight away ?
I'm with those who would like some user friendly controls for G-Force. I have Gold but would gladly pay for a pro "Platinum" version that was designed for performance purposes. Primarily this would involve some kind of GUI that allowed not only for manipulation of CMaps, FFields, and Waves but also gave you drag and drop or point and click access to specific presets or sprites.
The ability to direct the output of G-Force to multiple monitors or projectors is key. I can do it now by dragging a G-Force window to fill multiple screens but better yet would be to have the GUI on a "control" monitor and direct the visualizer to do its thing spanning monitors 2, 3, and 4 for example.
And to follow on my last post, the primary need right now is an OS X version.
I realize that the current Beta is being produced due to sheer market considerations but don't worry about perfecting it before getting an OS X beta going. The Mac community is well-known for its creativity and, no offense against PC users, but I think it would be a mistake to nail down features for a Pro version of G-Force before getting the input of those who are using visualization and DJ software in large theatrical and event applications where stability and ease of use are the primary considerations (I would NEVER risk using a Windows program in a live, large audience venue).
In looking at the interface screenshots so far, I would really like to see a much more full featured interface. A commercial version would probably be almost universally used with more than one monitor (in my case that would be with 3 outboard Sanyo XP46 LCD projectors). In such an application, the GUI can be both full screen and pro oriented (such as one might find in theatrical lighting or live broadcast software).
If the GUI is designed to fill a full screen it can have a primary window for:
-Slider or radio button controls accessing the current keyboard commands (plus others such as frequency input listening, color cycling, and additional variables not currently available in Gold).
-Cuelist of upcoming WS/FF/CMs with a way to smoothly dissolve from each cue to the next.
- Fade to Black.
Floating Pallets (ala OmniGraffle) available to perform editing functions on preset "looks" before being displayed to the "program" monitor(s).
- text editing,
- positioning and sequencing fore and background images and movies,
- building color maps on the fly (i.e. ColorMonger capability)
- preference settings
- bin picker of available WS/FF/CMs
- Preview monitoring
- Sequence presets
Good luck Andy, et. al. You've got some great days ahead!
beeblebrox wrote:And to follow on my last post, the primary need right now is an OS X version.
I realize that the current Beta is being produced due to sheer market considerations but don't worry about perfecting it before getting an OS X beta going. The Mac community is well-known for its creativity and, no offense against PC users, but I think it would be a mistake to nail down features for a Pro version of G-Force before getting the input of those who are using visualization and DJ software in large theatrical and event applications where stability and ease of use are the primary considerations (I would NEVER risk using a Windows program in a live, large audience venue).
In looking at the interface screenshots so far, I would really like to see a much more full featured interface. A commercial version would probably be almost universally used with more than one monitor (in my case that would be with 3 outboard Sanyo XP46 LCD projectors). In such an application, the GUI can be both full screen and pro oriented (such as one might find in theatrical lighting or live broadcast software).
If the GUI is designed to fill a full screen it can have a primary window for:
-Slider or radio button controls accessing the current keyboard commands (plus others such as frequency input listening, color cycling, and additional variables not currently available in Gold).
-Cuelist of upcoming WS/FF/CMs with a way to smoothly dissolve from each cue to the next.
- Fade to Black.
Floating Pallets (ala OmniGraffle) available to perform editing functions on preset "looks" before being displayed to the "program" monitor(s).
- text editing,
- positioning and sequencing fore and background images and movies,
- building color maps on the fly (i.e. ColorMonger capability)
- preference settings
- bin picker of available WS/FF/CMs
- Preview monitoring
- Sequence presets
Good luck Andy, et. al. You've got some great days ahead!
Cheers,
B
In responce for displaying it on multiple monitors, just fullscrene GF on one monitor and use a splitter to display it on the others.
Wolf wrote:
In responce for displaying it on multiple monitors, just fullscrene GF on one monitor and use a splitter to display it on the others.
Thanks Wolf for the suggestion but I think you misunderstand my requirement. All a splitter (or more appropriately, a distribution amplifier) will do is just mirror the 4:3 G-Force display on the other displays. I'm talking about projecting a single, wide aspect ratio, 3072x768 G-Force image across 3 outboard projectors which then are edge butted (in my application across a 42'x10.5' rear screen.)
Currently, this can only be done by stretching a non-fullscreen G-Force window out across said displays.
beeblebrox wrote:
Currently, this can only be done by stretching a non-fullscreen G-Force window out across said displays.
That works dosn't it?
Well, yes and no. a.) it's a kludge, and b.) it requires sizing the window a little wider than the three outboard displays so you can position the window to be centered vertically. So you have to have some of the G-Force window protruding into the 1st (or main) monitor in order to grab the edge of the window in order to move it. The problem with this is that this means that the center of the G-Force window is actually slightly off center.
Also, I'm not sure about this but I think G-Force would perform better running in full screen mode rather than windowed. Don't know for sure though.
GUI tweak: This is regarding the order of the configuration components in the Previous/Next/Slideshow hot keys list on the console vs. the order of the components in the current configuration displayed when you press the "L" key. That is:
Component Order in hot keys list: ColorMap, FlowField, WaveShape
Component Or. in Config Display: WaveShape, ColorMap, FlowField
It would be nice if the components in the Config Display were re-ordered to match the component order in the hot keys list. Then the keys, i.e., Q, A, Z, etc., and both lists of components would all have the same "descending order", if you will.
(Doesn't this bug anyone else while toggling through config components in "slideshow off" mode, or am I the only one with a terminally non-ambidextrous brain??)
In the windows xp media player version of G-Force, using the hot keys to navigate the console sorks fine, but only for a while. At some point (and I have to admit I have not pin-pointed exactly when), the hot keys functionality is simply no longer there, that is, the only way the console can be displayed is via the pop up menu selection for Quick Help, none of the hot keys work at all.
).
