Thread: My experiences.....Some good some bad

I'm fairly new to light animation on my house, in fact this past Christmas was my first year. I've used Vixen for all of my previous sequencing, but since I was expanding my display and adding RGB I decided to give LSP a shot.

To this point I have spent about 1 month experimenting with LSP, so I am nowhere near an expert. I have watched the tutorials a few times and picked up new things each time, but I've reached a point where I feel I need to use Vixen for part of my sequencing and LSP for other parts, and given my importing experience in LSP that is going to be a pain. So with that in mind I'm putting together this RANT and RAVE about LSP with hopes someone can tell me where I am going wrong with the tool or if the items it seems to be falling short on (in my opppinion) are on the roadmap to be addressed.

Here are the things I really like:
- The ability to group things together in Layers and apply transitions to layers across my yard. This had huge potential and allows for things to flow in my yard quickly.
- The RGB transitions. These are very creative and make for interesting things even with the little bit of RGB I am planning to add to my yard.
- The flexibiltiy with interval creation, including detecting frequencies in the song to place intervals.
- The preview capabilities are fantastic, it really gives you a flavor for how it is going to look on your house...people I've shown a sequence in Vixen and LSP said the LSP one was better even though they were the same sequence just the difference in the preview capabilities.

Here are the things I think need some work:
- The RGB color picker comes up everytime you do something with an RGB controller. This leads to lots of extra clicking. I think the color picker needs to be something you select once and that is applied to RGB controllers until you elect to change it.
- The lack of timing events on the layers section. Layers are fantastic, but lining things up with other things on the grid is a little bit of a challenge. Having the ability to see timing events on the layers section would make this much easier.
- Copy/Paste....I can't seem to figure this out. I copied a channel and pasted it into another channel and parts of it were off. I tried it with every conceivable option in the paste menu and it was still off by 1 interval in only certain places....This is very frustrating particulalrly when you are expanding your yard like I am. I want an option to take what is on one channel and put it exactly that way on another channel.'
- Interval creation...While layers is allowis us to begin to get away from the grid in certain places the grid is still necessary and not being able to quickly lay down a true grid (even spaced intervals across this area) is tough. Certainly you can start a new sequence and lay down your standard grid and then add intervals for other things, but in my case I am importing and LSP put the intervals all over the place so I need the ability to lay down something standard as well.
- Audio playing when I do something on the grid. I have to believe I'm just missing the option to turn this off, but so far I have not found it. Most of the songs I have worked on just play the section I am working on the grid and then stops so that's not a problem. One I worked on today plays from the start of where I am working and never stops (until the end of the song). I'm already going to hear a song way more than I want during sequence creation and this really takes it over the top.
- Ability to work the grid while the sequence is playing. Again, I think this has to be an option somewhere but I did not pick it up in the tutorials or found it anywhere. I want to watch the timeline move through the audio and just see the lower preview window and the grid, not have the big preview window pop-up and cover everything....This is critical when you are trying to perform more precise timings (like talking faces).
- Applying an effect to intervals I have selected. This one really, really frustrates me. If I have something selected I should be able to apply an on/off/ramp/whatever to that selection rather than having to pick the tool and reselect what I have. Gosh, imagine having to retype everything in a document that you wanted the font to be different for!
- RGB ramp....I did catch in a post somewhere that you should not use RAMPS for RGB you should use the color picker to have it go from the color to black...I sort of understand this, but if that is a "rule" either don't let me do it an be confused about why it says it is only going to 10% or behind the scenes conver the RAMP to a color blend from the color selected to black....btw if you import it will put a RAMP on an RGB channel and take it to 0%, it is only when you want to add a new RAMP later on that you find this problem.
- Ability to remap shortcut keys for items. The keys are not intuitive to me and I'd love to remap them. Cool that it responds to words (I have not used that feature, but it sounds neat), but for me shortcut keys are king and quick and everyone will have a different way they think of things...so let us control them. If this is an option somewhere too and I have not found please point me in the right direction.

I know the "work" section is longer than the "really like" section, but I really do like the product and want to see it get to the point that I don't feel like it is causing me extra work in spaces. I'm also relatively new to this product and fully admit my "work" section may have things in it that are already handled, but I could not figure out. Any thoughts, direction, help with the tool would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Dan

Dan, I am on my way out tonight so I do not have time to address everything, but most of the things in your rant are settings or the way to do things. I know that this post does not help much at this time, but when I or someone else has some time to respond it will help "most" of your issues.

Thanks...looking forward to getting on the correct path!

I found the playback option I was looking for....under the visuals tab...the shared virtualizer. Someone telling you it's there makes you look harder I guess.