|
|
 |
LivePro |
|
|
||
|
OVERVIEW MONITOR TRANSITIONS PLAYING SPEEDS SIZE, SCAN RATE, AND BRIGHTNESS Position and Rotation COLOR WHEEL AND SLIDERS BEAM & TTL CHASERS AUDIO EFFECTS CUES LIVE AUDIO FUNCTIONS ASSIGNING CUES TO BEAT DETECTION CUES HAVE JUMP TO AUDIO TRIGGERING KEY EFFECTS EDITOR EFFECT EDITOR COLOR EDITOR LIVE TEXT KEY WORD, ANIMATED AND SCROLLING PROGRAMMING CUES MIDI TRIGGERING RECORDING NETWORK CAPABILITIES MORE INFORMATION
|
OVERVIEWPangolin Laser Systems has released our latest breakthrough; a new professional level "live" software package has been created as an "add-on" to the current LD2000 software. Currently, Showtime's "live" software is a simple but effective program that is powerful and easy to use, although for professional level "live" operators, there has been some need for a more complex interactive package. The answer is Pangolin's new "LivePro" set to take live laser shows to a new level, allowing users to "manipulate" a collage of layering effects that adds a whole new dimension to the show. The visual workspace for the software includes an array of powerful controls that are at hand and fully color coded. What makes this software so unique is most live software packages are setup as a "one cue at a time" format, whereas LivePro is made up of a 4-track platform, up to 4 cues can be simultaneously, and independently controlled, which overcomes the problem of a "one cue at a time" format, allowing multiple layering of beam effects, mirror chases and scrim animations!
|
|
MONITORThe "monitor" tab is a visual display of the 4 track output system,
which displays the images, effects and colors of each track live,
the mouse can be put into any one of the 4 windows and control live
rotation or position effects. In addition, each track can be
individually selected or deselected, then additional live effects
can be applied to only the "active" tracks, you can see in this
picture that only track 2 is currently selected. Each 4 options per
track can also be deleted, and replaced with a different option,
this allows the output to be flexible by manipulation of the 4
layers live.
|
||
TRANSITIONSThis live "cue to cue" transition control includes such transitions as morph, cross cut and fades zooms etc, the user can also program their own transition effects. The transition duration can set by the slider and can be set to any duration that the user selects. Note: this transition control is only a live option, each cue can also have its own transitions.
|
||
PLAYING SPEEDSThere are also 5 speed sliders in the "playing speed" tab. They are color coded to match what is in the monitor window, therefore a user can activate the tracks they wish to adjust, then move the sliders to suit the desired speed for animations, effect, key effect and color scrolling. Each slider can also have a multiplication applied to its maximum speed to achieve faster or slower speeds. Also, the sliders can be linked together by using the "lock" buttons, you can see in this image that the first and 3rd sliders are locked together. There is also a master slider, so all speed sliders can be adjusted together.
|
||
SIZE, SCAN RATE, AND BRIGHTNESS
|
||
POSITION AND ROTATION
|
||
COLOR WHEEL AND SLIDERSThe color wheel allows quick access to the desired color and intensity, AND there is a slider, which allows fading between the selected color and the frames initial color or color scrolling effect!
|
||
BEAM & TTL CHASERSThese live chasers can be programmed to output any sequence of beam
or TTL chasers that the user wishes, and can be speed adjusted. The
beam chaser is designed for mirror bounce chases and can output up
to 64 mirrors at any one time. The TTL chaser is designed for beam
table systems that utilize diffraction gratings, color flags, lumia
wheels etc, or can be used to control outboard effects such as
rotating mirrors fog machines, pin spots etc.
|
||
AUDIO EFFECTSThis live audio control allows audio signals to affect the size, position or brightness of the output.
|
||
CUESThe cue grid is made up of 12 cues by 8 rows per page, there is a total of 9 pages in each "set" and there is a total of 2 sets, this allows a total of 1728 cues! Each cue can have any or all of the 4 assignments, an image, an effect, a key effect and a color scrolling effect. With 2 effects, this allows double layering, the key effect is the most powerful and is setup as a timeline effect, and the simple effect allows general effects but is designed as a continuous effect (non-timed) to allow for the 2 combined effects to continuously generate alternating manipulations. With these 4 options the software can be setup in such a way that colors and simple effects can be layered onto any image desired, as seen in the image on the right, every second row is made-up of "color only" cues and "simple effect only" cues, and the remaining cues are images with key effects. With this format each image cue can have anyone of the color cues or effect cues applied to it live. Cues also have 2 extra options, they are TTL flash or static
outputs and/or flash or static beam targeting for mirror bounces.
|
||
LIVE AUDIO FUNCTIONSThere are 3 levels of audio triggering; they are manual, audio and timer. Manual triggering allows the user to tap in the beat, as it's needed. Audio triggering allows a CD, MP3 or input signal to control the cues entirely to the beat through a plugin from Winamp! Timer triggering allows the user to tap the audio beat in the system and it will average the taps to generate a BPM rate that the system will lock to, there is also a synchronize hot key.
|
||
ASSIGNING CUES TO BEAT DETECTIONEach cue has 2 states, beat active and beat inactive. In addition, there are 2 beat detection levels per cue, they are beat active/inactive for the frame animation, and beat active / inactive for the key effect. In the animation settings as seen on the right, when the beat is active the animation jumps to the next frame on every beat, when the beat is inactive, the animation is a time based animation, there are more options in the drop down menus to select from, this is just an example of one. In the key effect, there are also beat active and beat inactive
settings, but this gets more exciting. Each cues key effect can be
setup to react to a variety of beat options, for example, the key
effect can "restart on beat" with a beat bar setting such as
1,2,4,8,16 or 32 beats.
|
||
CUES HAVE "JUMP TO" AUDIO TRIGGERINGThis is the beauty of LivePro, with this "jump to" option LivePro can simply run like a song without interaction with an operator, this allow the operator to spend more time having fun with the layering of effects such as color and rotations. As seen on the right, the cue layout has 2 icons per row, they are "next on beat" (top icon with 3 red arrows) and "random on beat" (bottom icon with colored arrows). Each row has the ability to "jump to" the next or randomly selected cue to the beat, or it can jump to the next or randomly selected cue on every 1,2,4,8,16 or 32nd beats. With this format, track 1 can "jump to" every 1 beat, track 2 can
"jump to" every 8 beats, track 3 can "jump to" every 16 beats and
track 4 can "jump to" every 32nd beats. Basically the software runs
the laser like a song! In addition, the remaining 4 rows can be
setup with color or effects only cues, and "they" can be set to jump
to every say 8 beats, so in addition to the images on all 4 tracks
jumping to, the colors and effects can jump to also, so the show
will never be the same especially if random is added to the
equation.
|
||
KEY EFFECTS EDITORThis is the heart of LivePro, this editor is VERY powerful with amazing 3 dimensional effects such as a 3D wave. And has many powerful tools to apply to each effect, such as interpolation levels as well as the usual accelerate and decelerate.
|
||
EFFECT EDITORThis effect editor is a basic effect editor but designed as continuous, rather than a timeline editor. When these effects are layered onto key effects the output becomes a constantly changing value.
|
||
COLOR EDITORThe color editor allows either fixed colors, full frame color changes, multiple colours, gradient fading colours and also allows for multiple layers of each to be applied at once, they are called "brushes". The width of each brush can also be altered to suit the desired effect.
|
||
LIVE TEXTLive text allows text to be typed in on the spot and displayed quickly with scrolling speeds, colors and font styles at hand.
|
||
KEY WORD, ANIMATED AND SCROLLING"Live Pro" also has 3 "animated" text editors in addition to live text, they are "key word", "animated", and "scrolling text". Each text editor is powerful in its own way, for instance, the animated text editor allows text animations to be created at a fraction of the time by applying only one effect, then offsetting / delaying the effect to each letter!
|
||
TRANSITION EDITORThe software also contains the transition editor for the cues and live transitions. You can see in this image, that the first frame is programmed to pan down while the new frame is panning in from left.
|
||
PROGRAMMING CUESLivePro has been designed for quick, easy setup of cues. This is due to a browser that you can view images, effects and colors and simply drag and drop them onto the cue you wish, in addition, each cue can be easily dragged and dropped by means of copied or moved onto any other cue on any page. Or multiple cues can be selected and globally edited or moved.
|
||
MIDI TRIGGERINGLivePro also has MIDI input/output capabilities to allow the software to run from a MIDI triggering device or MIDI keyboard.
|
||
RECORDING
|
||
NETWORK CAPABILITIESLivePro can also network between computers to allow multiple control and synchronization capabilities.
|
||
MORE INFORMATIONIn addition, as LivePro is such powerful "live" software, all its functions cannot be listed. These are only the main functions of "LivePro", there are other amazing underlying operational features, and are best seen in real life.
|
||
This page last updated: Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:00 AM
Tech Support
