What's New in Version 3.x.x

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What's New in Version 3.12.2

New SuperStar license level: 60 CCR

SuperStar now supports a new license level for up to 60 CCRs. The highest previously existing license level supported up to 40.

What's New in Version 3.12.0

•MP3g3 Directors can now output to DMX devices

•MP3 File Loading Speed Improvements for MP3 Directors

•New MP3g3 Show Time Director Firmware

•Initial firmware for Single Network Mini MP3 Director

•Improvements for busy sequences being run on MP3 Directors

•New Options and Features in SuperStar Instant Sequencing

•New Pre-ramp and Post-ramp options for SuperStar images

•New SuperStar Morph Option

•New Wrapped Tree for SuperStar

•Bug Fixes

MP3g3 Directors can now output to DMX devices

MP3g3 Directors can now output to both LOR, DMX, or a combination of the two devices. All the devices must be the same on a particular port, but a particular port can run LOR or DMX devices now. You must use the Hardware Utility to write the sequence to the SD card, and the MP3g3 director must be updated to version 5.28 of the firmware.

MP3 File Loading Speed Improvements for MP3 Directors

The Hardware Utility can now optionally strip unnecessary header information from an MP3 while creating an SD card, improving sequence loading speed on MP3 directors.

New MP3g3 Show Time Director Firmware

A new version of the firmware for the MP3g3 Show Time Director, MP3g3-V5_28.lhx, allows for the use of DMX or LOR devices on a port.

Initial firmware for Single Network Mini MP3 Director

The initial version of firmware for the Single Network Mini MP3 Director, uMP3g3-v5_28.lhx, has been released. This version of firmware supports both LOR and DMX512 output (DMX512 output requires version 3.12.0 of the Hardware Utility).

Even though this is the first release of firmware for this particular device, the version number is 5.28 so as to keep in sync with the version number of the Dual Network ShowTime MP3 Director (MP3g3-V5_28.lhx).

Improvements for Busy Sequences Being Run on MP3 Directors

The Hardware Utility and the Simple Show Builder will now throttle busy sequences so that they better stay in sync with audio. Once the bandwidth of a port on an MP3 director is exceeded, the amount of sequence data written to the card is reduced until the director can catch back up with the sequence. Previously MP3 directors would continue to send all data out the port, regardless of the bandwidth available. During particularly busy sequences, the director would fall back further and further. Once a sequence falls behind now, all subsequent commands are discarded until the director finishes sending the queued data.

New Options and Features in SuperStar Instant Sequencing

The SuperStar Instant Sequencer now has new options including new custom colors, new movement options, and a new trigger type.

New 'Pre-ramp' and 'Post-ramp' options for SuperStar Images

The user can now specify pre and post ramp options when using images in the SuperStar editor.

New Superstar Morph Option

The user now has the option to not shrink a visualization when doing a morph.

New 'Wrapped Tree' for SuperStar

The Superstart Sequencer now can use Wrapped Trees in Visualization sequences.

Bug Fixes

•In the Hardware Utility when creating an SD card for an MP3 Director that used triggers, immediately trying to create another show using a different trigger could overwrite the wrong show number.

•The Hardware Utility incorrectly identified the CCB100D as having stand-alone capability. It does not.

•If SuperStar was in Visualization mode and a smooth effect color is set to white, if the color is changed to something that is not white, the bar in the time layers would stay white.

•If SuperStar was in Visualization wrap around mode and also in scene mode there were cases where the first pixel turns black with a yellow border.

•If SuperStar was in Visualization wrap around mode sometimes only the left half would have pixels set.

•In some cases, SuperStar could create instant sequences that go beyond the end of a song. This is caused issues since the Sequence Editor fails to play the exported sequence if there are effects that go beyond the end of the song.

•In some cases, SuperStar would crash when creating a Quick Visualization.

•In SuperStar, when opening an .sup file the Instant Sequence settings were being cleared.

•In SuperStar, if a fixture was multi-color and had no channels assigned it was still being drawn as if it were active.

•In SuperStar non-CCR strings would sometimes display in dark gray on the screen when clicking on the "VisEffect" checkbox.

•For SuperStar, increased the maximum value of the Sequencing Grid Max Length from 200 to 360 in the Import Visualization dialog box,

•For SuperStar, changed the valid range of morphs to be -50 to 360.

•In some instances, SuperStar was not checking the length of the row it was sequencing.

•For SuperStar the limit of Maximum Detection lines was increased from 24 to 36 in the Import Visualization dialog box.

•In SuperStar if the user clicked twice very quickly on the Play or Play All button, the program Beeped, played and then crashed at the end of the Play.

•In SuperStar, if in Visualization mode and a smooth effect color was set to white, and then the color was changed to something that is not white, the bar in the time layers would stay white.

What's New in Version 3.11.2

•Changes to Edit menu keyboard shortcuts

•Verifier checks for old MC-P compatibility mode

•Optional speed improvements for saving in the Sequence Editor

•Manual creation of compressed sequences

•Bug fixes

Changes to Edit Menu Keyboard Shortcuts

The menu items Undo Settings and Use Internal Media in the Sequence Editor's Edit menu did not have shortcut keys assigned to them. To give them shortcut keys, the menu items "Turn on Loops" and "Select" were changed to "Turn on Loop Levels" and "Select Zone", which allowed them to be moved to the shortcut keys "v" and "z", thus freeing up "s" and "l" for Undo Settings and Use Internal Media, respectively.

Verifier Checks for Old MC-P Compatibility Mode

The Verifier now checks to see whether old MC-P compatibility mode has been enabled. This compatibility mode is required for certain controllers, but they are rare, and if it is enabled, it can cause significant overhead on your network. The Verifier therefore warns you if it detects that this mode is enabled.

Optional Speed Improvements for Saving in the Sequence Editor

When the Sequence Editor saves a sequence, it actually saves it to a temporary file first, and then attempts to reload that temporary file. Only if the load is successful will it actually overwrite the existing "real" sequence file with the newly saved temporary one. This is intended to minimize the potential for a save where something went wrong to cause the user to lose a good (earlier) save. This behavior is now optional, via the Verify Load option in the Saving Preferences menu. It is still recommended to have this behavior enabled, but if you work with very large sequences that take significant amounts of time to load and save, and are willing to take the risk of a corrupted save overwriting your previous good save file, you might want to turn it off in order to speed up saving.

The Sequence Editor also creates a compressed sequence whenever it saves a sequence, but you can now optionally disable this behavior via the Export Compressed option in the Saving Preferences menu. Again, it is still recommended to have this behavior enabled, but if you work with very large sequences that take significant amounts of time to save, you might want to turn it off in order to speed up saving. If you do choose to turn it off, it is highly recommended that you manually ensure that your sequences each have an up-to-date compressed sequence before starting your show. You can do so via the Export as Compressed command from the File menu.

Manual Creation of Compressed Sequences

By default, the Sequence Editor creates a compressed sequence whenever it saves a sequence, but this behavior can be disabled via the Export Compressed option in the Saving Preferences menu. If you choose to disable that option, it is highly recommended that you manually ensure sure that your sequences each have up-to-date compressed sequences before starting your show. You can now manually create a compressed sequence for a single sequence via the new Export as Compressed menu item on the File menu, or manually create compressed sequences for a show or for the entire schedule via the Sequence Compressor program.

Bug Fixes

•The LOR Verifier would incorrectly report that three files (AdjMmsEng.dll, amp3dj.ocx, and Asoedmms.ocx) had unexpected version numbers.

•SuperStar's Play 8 Seconds and Play All buttons were not staying depressed when used in visualization mode, and the other buttons were not being grayed out.

•SuperStar's Configuration dialog box will now give a message if the range of unit IDs for a network is invalid.

•In SuperStar, if the row visualization had a fixture that was not in the real visualization, it sometimes would not get reported as a warning.

•If you modified a morph in SuperStar and then played a part of the sequence, the start and end coordinates of the morph would get set to -1 after stopping play of the sequence.

•SuperStar might have crashed if you put a smooth effect in the right half of a visualization that was in wrap around mode.

•SuperStar might have crashed when playing a shockwave effect using a visualization in wrap around mode, especially if the shockwave had a large leading or trailing edge.

•Various Light-O-Rama programs used to depend upon the Microsoft library "SCRRUN.DLL". If this library was missing or misconfigured, various strange problems would occur. An example is that keyboard maps would not function in the Sequence Editor. In recent times, this library seems to be missing or misconfigured more and more frequently on customers' computers, and so Light-O-Rama no longer depends upon this library.

•SuperStar now checks in the Configuration dialog box to make sure that entries for the star unit ID, first CCR unit ID, and the ranges of the networks are all valid.

•If Windows had been running for about 25 days or more without having been shut down, the Hardware Utility would sometimes not be able to write the time to an SD card.

What's New in Version 3.11.0

•Cosmic Color Array support

•Channel priority

•Named timing grids kept even if empty and not in use

•New card and controller support in the Hardware Utility

•Easy Light Linker configuration change

•SuperStar font update

•SuperStar CCR string segments increase

•Sequences can be removed from the Recent Sequences list

•Paste options moved to their own portion of the Tools Panel

•Memory and speed improvements for sequences

•Control over number of recorded undo items

•Changing input types with InputPup devices

•New MP3g3 Show Time Director firmware

•New CTB32LD/LOR160xWg3 firmware

•Bug fixes

Cosmic Color Array Support

Cosmic Color Arrays are now supported in the Sequence Editor, via the Insert Device dialog and also in channel grouping.

Channel Priority

In most cases, if two lighting effects for two different channels on the same controller are supposed to happen at the same time, it does not matter which of the two commands is sent to the controller first. However, in some cases, it does matter: For example, a macro command for a Cosmic Color Device should be sent before a command for a regular channel on that CCD (presuming the two commands are supposed to take effect at the same time). In the past, this was determined based upon the circuit number of each channel. However, with the introduction of Cosmic Color Arrays, this is no longer possible, as their special channels use different circuit numbers than the special channels of other CCDs. So, the concept of "channel priority" has been added, to explicitly set which channels take priority over which others. Please note: If you have created a Cosmic Color Device (or Array) channel group in the sequence, channels within that group will automatically have their priorities set appropriately. You only need to manually set the priority yourself if you have not included those channels in a CCD/CCA channel group in the sequence.

Named Timing Grids Kept Even If Empty and Not In Use

Previously in the Sequence Editor, if you changed which timing grid a track was using, and the old timing grid was empty (i.e. had no timings) and was not in use by any other track, that old timing grid would be discarded. This is now only done if, additionally, that old timing grid does not have a name.

New Card and Controller Support in the Hardware Utility

The Hardware Utility now recognizes the CTB08Dg3 card, and the LOR800W which uses that card.

Easy Light Linker Configuration Change

Easy Light Linker (ELL) configuration has been changed in the Hardware Utility: Support was added for the new LOR-RF-V5, which supports 115200 kbps. Also, previously, the LOR-RF-V4 only supported speeds up to 57600, but with the introduction of the LOR-RF-V5, there will be a new release of firmware for the LOR-RF-V4 that will enable it to run at 115200 as well.

SuperStar Font Update

Several of SuperStar's fonts have been updated:

•6-6x6_Thin_Vertical.system.font

•8-8x8_Thin_Vertical.system.font

•10-12x12_Bold_Vertical.system.font

•10-12x12_Thin_Vertical.system.font

SuperStar CCR String Segments Increase

The number of CCR string segments that can be used in an imported visualization in SuperStar has been increased from 124 to 160.

Sequences Can Be Removed from the Recent Sequences List

Sequences can be removed from the Sequence Editor's Recent Sequences list. To do so, right-click on the file you wish to remove, and a popup menu will open. The menu will have an entry to remove the file from the list.

Paste Options Moved to Their Own Portion of the Tools Panel

The Clipboards subpanel of the Tools Panel in the Sequence Editor used to contain controls for both clipboards and for paste options. The paste options have now been moved to their own subpanel. This will hopefully make them a little easier to get at when many clipboards are present, by collapsing the Clipboards subpanel.

Memory and Speed Improvements for Sequences

Various memory and speed improvements related to sequences have been made. For example, one particular very large sequence which took about 2 minutes 15 seconds to load, consuming about 420 MB of memory, now takes about a minute and a half and about 160 MB.

Control Over Number of Recorded Undo Items

The Sequence Editor only remembers a certain number of changes (per sequence) for undoing and redoing. This number can now be changed, via the Undo Settings dialog. For most users, the default value will be fine, but users with large sequences who make large changes to those sequences might want to place a smaller limit on the number of remembered changes so as to help avoid running into memory-related issues.

Changing Input Types with InputPup Devices

The Hardware Utility will now allow changing input types (NO/NC) with InputPup devices.

New MP3g3 Show Time Director Firmware

A new version of the firmware for the MP3g3 Show Time Director, MP3g3-V5_25.lhx, fixes a bug where animation sequences (non-musical sequences) would not run if two networks were specified in the file.

New CTB32LD/LOR160xWg3 Firmware

A new version of the firmware for CTB32LD/LOR160xWg3 controllers, CTB32LG3-V1_12.lhx, fixes a bug where most standalone sequences would not operate properly.

Bug Fixes

•In the Hardware Utility, sometimes the ELL icon would show up when an MP3 director was connected but no ELL was on the network.

•Smooth effects in SuperStar would not export beyond 4 minutes 21 seconds of a song.

•The LOR Verifier would report an "error 7" on the file "audioconv.ocx", meaning that the file was missing. This is because the file is no longer used by the current version of Light-O-Rama software, and therefore is no longer distributed. That check has now been replaced with checks for new libraries used by the current version of software.

•In SuperStar's Visualization mode, the Pixel Resolution macro was not being supported for auxiliary networks.

•On some computers, SuperStar would have a repaint problem that would happen when you replayed a sequence to the computer screen.

•Import visualization in SuperStar had various issues relating to mapping lights to the sequencing grid.

•Text with a ramp in SuperStar could create channel commands for channel 151 when exported, resulting in white flashes on the CCR.

•In SuperStar, the selection rectangle would not get drawn around text actions that had a trailing ramp.

•SuperStar would crash when saving a file with a very large image.

•Only one star could be set when applying a star scene in SuperStar.

•If you had more than one sequence open in the Sequence Editor, and they were not maximized (with respect to the Sequence Editor itself, as opposed to with respect to the screen), and you attempted to close them via their "X" buttons, the last one would not close.

•Musical sequences are not allowed to have loop levels, but the Sequence Editor would allow you to add a media file to an animation sequence that had loop levels, which would lead to various issues. Now the Sequence Editor will offer to remove the loop levels, and will not add the media file unless the loop levels are removed.

•In SuperStar, selecting or moving an effect in the time layers in a large sequence could take 30 seconds or more and cause the program to appear to crash.

•If you moved two smooth effects that have the same start time up or down a layer in SuperStar, one of them could disappear.

•If you tried to use a sequence containing a loop that looped back more than 255 times as a standalone sequence, the Hardware Utility would refuse, giving a not-too-helpful error message that merely said "Overflow". The Hardware Utility will still refuse, but it will now give an error message that is, hopefully, more helpful.

•There could be a flicker at the end of the tail on a visEffect. The flicker would only be seen in the exported file.

•Moving endpoints of a group of morphs in SuperStar wouldn't move to the upper sequencing rows if using half ribbons in CCR mode.

•A light in a QuickVis visualization would fail to draw if the QuickVis was large and had to be shrunk to fit on the SuperStar screen.

What's New in Version 3.10.14

•Bug fixes

Bug Fixes

•The Sequence Editor could sometimes report that a media file is not present when in fact it is present. This could cause an error within the Sequence Editor or any of its tools. This problem usually manifested itself when adding a track to a new sequence. However, any part of the Sequence Editor that requires media could also have had this issue.

•CCRs laid end to end horizontally did not import properly in SuperStar.

•SuperStar would crash on some computers if the first effect in a sequence was the smallest star in the SuperStar star.

•When modifying a text mask in SuperStar, it would always display an error.

•In SuperStar, visualizations with draw objects that have the same unit ID would display the square in the sequencing grid as disabled, and instant sequence would not properly define effects to the row.

•A matrix of CCR props would sometimes not import in the proper order in SuperStar.

What's New in Version 3.10.12

•Bug fixes

Bug Fixes

•Text and images sometimes would not clip properly when played to a visualization in SuperStar.

•Some visualizations would not import properly in SuperStar.

What's New in Version 3.10.10

•Help file available in EPUB format

•Bug fixes

Help File Available in EPUB Format

An EPUB (e-book) version of the Light-O-Rama help file is now available, and is published along with the installer as well as on the Light-O-Rama website.

Bug Fixes

•Importing a prop into a visualization that was empty (that is, which had no fixtures) would cause the object selection area to disappear from the Visualizer.

•If Play Again was used in the Sequence Editor before Play (without "Again") had ever been used, play would hang.

•If a large sequence with a ribbon located at the bottom was exported, SuperStar would crash.

•If SuperStar was launched into CCR mode, the "star in use" setting would get set to "no", and the star channels would get played to ribbons, and you wouldn't be able to add star channel effects either.

•Visualization errors in SuperStar no longer get reported at launch if you are in CCR mode. Also, visualization file errors are not reported when loading a CCR mode sequence.

•Some dialog boxes in SuperStar would allow the start time of an effect to be after the end time.

What's New in Version 3.10.8

•New device in Insert Device: CMB24D

•Continued improvements to media handling

•VisEffects

•Import Visualization Pair

•"Reverse" keyword for pixel layout in CCR fixtures

•"Myorder" keyword for order of fixtures

•Bug fixes

New Device in Insert Device: CMB24D

The Insert Device dialog of the Sequence Editor now supports an additional device: The CMB24D. It is a 24 channel controller; you can tell the Insert Device dialog to treat it either as 24 channels or as 8 RGB channels.

Continued Improvements to Media Handling

The Sequence Editor will continue to attempt to create two different internal media formats, for different purposes. However, should one of those conversions fail, the Sequence Editor will no longer refuse to create or open a sequence. Instead, the user is simply informed that one or both of the conversions failed. The Sequence Editor will then choose the best file to use for whatever purpose based upon which of the three files exists and/or the user-specified options. If a format that is required for a particular use could not be created, that use will simply not be available. For example, the Beat Wizard requires that a particular internal media file be created; if it could not be created for a particular sequence, then the Beat Wizard cannot be used for that sequence, and a warning will be presented if you attempt to use it.

A new option, Use Internal Media, has been added to the Edit menu. This option is set per sequence and is saved when the sequence is saved. It allows you to control whether or not Light-O-Rama attempts to use the internal formats with the sequence. It is recommended that this option be on. The option defaults to being on, except when a sequence created using an earlier version of Light-O-Rama is loaded (so that media handling behaves for these sequences as it did in earlier versions, unless you choose otherwise). More details can be found at "Use Internal Media".

VisEffects

SuperStar now supports "visEffects". This gives the ability to apply morphs to the visualization instead of to the sequencing grid, and allows a smooth coordinated sweep across all the lights in the visualization.

Import Visualization Pair

You can now import a pair of visualizations into SuperStar, as a "Row Visualization" and a "Real Visualization". The Row Visualization is to be laid out in rows according to how you want the lights mapped to the sequencing grid. The Real Visualization should be laid out how the light display actually appears.

"Reverse" Keyword for Pixel Layout in CCR Fixtures

SuperStar now supports a new keyword, "reverse", for the layout of pixels in a CCR fixture.

"Myorder" Keyword for Order of Fixtures

SuperStar now supports a new keyword, "myorder", controlling the order of fixtures.

Bug Fixes

•Musical sequences whose media files had names that included multiple consecutive periods (such as "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn To Be).mp3") would not successfully play.

•In SuperStar, if you clicked on an effect in one of the effect lists and then hit play, the effects wouldn't get rebuilt and played for the new location you are at.

•The movement and color of instant sequence effects in SuperStar would get reinitialized every 10 seconds.

•The grid setting and star in use setting could change when changing between SuperStar's CCR mode and Visualization mode.

•After changing from SuperStar's Visualization mode to CCR mode, you could not add a scene to the star.

•Export of large sequences could cause SuperStar to crash.

•On some computers with older versions of Windows Media Player, no matter what play speed was selected in the Sequence Editor, the sequence would always play at normal speed.

•In SuperStar, rendering a fast rotating fan with thin blades would play fine on the computer screen, but would export as a dot.

•In SuperStar, a fan longer than ten seconds would play fine on the computer screen, but when exported would last less than ten seconds.

•If a soundboard interactive group were set up in a show, and contained a single sequence on a particular trigger, and that trigger were tripped while that sequence was playing, an error message would occur ("ERROR STARTING SEQUENCE (This key is already associated with an element of this collection)"). The sequence would not start, and could no longer be started during the current run of the show.

•Text masks in SuperStar were not working for imported visualizations using a matrix made up of fixtures.

•SuperStar's smooth effects would not play to white mono-color lights.

•Shimmers produced in SuperStar would not stay the same color while shimmering.

•If a CCR with no assigned base unit is in an imported visualization, SuperStar will issue a warning.

•You can now open a file in SuperStar by double clicking on the file in Windows. Previously, SuperStar would crash while attempting to open the file if you did this.

•In an imported visualization in SuperStar, props of two or three fixtures would be in reverse order.

•In an imported visualization in SuperStar, the trailing ramp of an image would not clip the maxrix CCRs.

What's New in Version 3.10.6

•Bug fixes

Bug Fixes

•If you exported a sequence from SuperStar, and then opened that sequence in the Sequence Editor, made a change to it, and saved it, the Sequence Editor would warn you that the sequence was created by an older version of Light-O-Rama.

•If SuperStar were already in visualization mode, and you opened a .SUP file that referenced a visualization file that did not exist, SuperStar could crash.

What's New in Version 3.10.4

•Additional networks in SuperStar

•Bug fixes

Additional Networks in SuperStar

The number of networks in CCR mode in SuperStar has been increased from 4 to 8. Note that in Visualization mode, you can have the full 16 networks.

Bug Fixes

•A fast double click in the object selection area could lock up the Visualizer.

•In SuperStar, if the "white" color control is nonzero, and you scroll some text or images using a visualization, the text or image in the exported sequence could skip and jump in some cases.

What's New in Version 3.10.2

•Bug fixes

Bug Fixes

•In SuperStar, the clipboard could not be saved to a file.

•The Sequence Editor would sometimes give an "invalid procedure call or argument" error when attempting to save a sequence.

•The Sequence Editor would have problems with MIDI files, most prominently being unable to create new musical sequences based on MIDI files.

•Sometimes an imported visualization in SuperStar would get resized too large, and its bottom would get chopped off.

What's New in Version 3.10.0

•Sorting in the Keyboard

•Copy and Print in the Keyboard Preferences dialog

•Better memory usage in SuperStar

•New and updated fonts in SuperStar

•Updated SuperStar visualizations

•Eight channel Gen3 controller support in Hardware Utility

•Improved network detection in the Visualizer

•LOR Control Panel can restart the Show Player

•Show Player can automatically shut down and restart in certain situations

•Show Player will decache sequences if memory usage is too high

•Visualizer Keywords in SuperStar

•Duplicate RGB channel assignment warning in SuperStar

•More DMX adapters supported

•LOR Diagnostic shows more information

•Copy and save in LOR Diagnostic

•Beat Wizard, VU Wizard and Waveform Display support more media types

•Better support for variable bit rate MP3s

•Optionally play only audio while sequencing a video sequence

•Show entire head at start of morph

•Acceleration for morphs

•Smooth effects in SuperStar

•Support for more (and less) channels in the Hardware Utility

•Firmware updates

•Extend length of effects in instant sequence

•Instant sequence and timing map dialog settings saved

•Bug fixes

Sorting in the Keyboard Preferences Dialog

The Keyboard Preferences dialog in the Sequence Editor would previously display the list of keyboard preferences in order of the keys - for example, an entry associated with the A key would be listed before an entry associated with the B key. Now, the list can be sorted either in that order or in order of operation - for example, an entry that causes the "Apply Fade Down" operation to be performed would be listed before an entry that causes the "Copy Timing" operation to be performed.

Copy and Print in the Keyboard Preferences Dialog

In the Sequence Editor's Keyboard Preferences dialog, there are now new buttons to copy the list of keyboard preferences to the Windows text clipboard and to print the list.

Better Memory Usage in SuperStar

When building a sequence, SuperStar now uses about half as much memory as it used to.

New and Updated Fonts in SuperStar

Five new vertical fonts were added to SuperStar, and two fonts were updated with new asterisk characters. The new fonts are:

•6-5x6_Thin_Vertical.system.font

•6-6x6_Thin_Vertical.system.font

•8-8x8_Thin_Vertical.system.font

•10-12x12_Bold_Vertical.system.font

•10-12x12_Thin_Vertical.system.font

And the updated fonts are:

•10-12x12_Thin.custom.font

•10-12x12_Thin.system.font

Updated SuperStar Visualizations

Two sample visualization files for SuperStar, SuperStar_ControllersBottomLeft.lee and SuperStar_ControllersTopLeft.lee, have been updated.

Eight Channel Gen3 Controller Support in Hardware Utility

The Hardware Utility's Advanced Configuration screen used to support only 16 or 32 channel controllers. It now also supports 8 channel Gen3 controllers.

Improved Network Detection in the Visualizer

On a very limited number of machines, the Visualizer would be unable to detect the available network adapters. If the detection fails, an alternate method is now used.

LOR Control Panel Can Restart the Show Player

In previous versions of Light-O-Rama, if the schedule was enabled but the Show Player was not running (for example, if it were stopped via Windows Task Manager), the LOR Control Panel would simply change so that the schedule was disabled. Now, it will instead attempt to restart the Show Player. This may also help get the show running again more quickly if the Show Player crashes, but not necessarily: In at least some cases the Show Player might still be "running" in a technical sense until the user dismisses a Windows message box saying that the Show Player had crashed.

Show Player Can Automatically Shut Down and Restart in Certain Situations

If no show is playing, and if no show is scheduled to start playing within the next sixty seconds, and the Show Player is using over a hundred megabytes of memory (commit charge size), it will automatically shut itself down (and will then be automatically restarted by the LOR Control Panel, assuming the schedule is still enabled). The intention of this is a preventive measure to protect against ill effects of possible memory leaks in the Show Player, which could otherwise build up over time to a point that would cause the Show Player to crash.

This behavior can be disabled (so that the Show Player will never shut itself down automatically) by unchecking "Show Player Memory Restarts" in the LOR Control Panel's right-click popup menu.

Show Player Will Decache Sequences If Memory Usage Is Too High

During a show, whenever a sequence is about to start, the Show Player checks how much memory (commit charge size) it is using. If it is using over a gigabyte of memory, it will attempt to reduce memory usage by decaching sequences that it has previously loaded, until it drops down below 900 megabytes (or until it has no more sequences which it can decache). This is so as to prevent it from caching more and more sequences until it finally runs out of memory and crashes.

If it winds up needing to play one of the decached sequences again, this means that it will have to reload that sequence. Therefore, the sequences are decached in an order intended to minimize loading time:

1.If a sequence is currently playing, it will not be decached.

2.If the Show Player knows for sure that a sequence is about to be played, it will not be decached. Please note, though, that the Show Player may not always know for sure that a sequence is about to play, even if you know it, and so in certain situations you may occasionally see a sequence be decached soon before being played.

3.Sequences that are in sections of the show that are already finished are considered highly decacheable, and will be decached before any other sequences. For example, if the Shutdown section of the show is playing, then any sequences in the Musical or Animation sections are considered very decacheable, since they will never be played again during this run of the show.

4.Compressed sequences are considered more decacheable than non-compressed sequences, since compressed sequences can be loaded much more quickly than non-compressed sequences.

5.Two compressed sequences, or two non-compressed sequences, are compared to each other based upon the number of times that they have been played and the amount of memory that they took to load. Generally speaking, all else equal, a smaller sequence is more decacheable than a larger sequence, since it can be loaded more quickly. However, for any specific pair of sequences, the larger might be decacheable if the smaller sequence were played sufficiently more often.

Visualizer Keywords in SuperStar

You can now control various behaviors of how SuperStar will import a visualization by putting certain keywords in the comments areas of props or fixtures in the visualization. For example, you can mark a prop in the Visualizer so that when SuperStar imports the visualization, it will put the prop's lights in certain specific locations in the sequencing grid.

Duplicate RGB Channel Assignment Warning in SuperStar

If you have RGB lights with duplicate channel assignments in an imported visualization, SuperStar will warn you.

More DMX Adapters Supported

Two more DMX adapters, the DMXKing UltraDMX Micro and the DMXKing UltraDMX RDM Pro, have been added to the list of supported DMX adapters. Both should be configured in LOR Network Preferences to use the "ENTTEC DMX USB Pro" protocol.

LOR Diagnostic Shows More Information

In the past, LOR Diagnostic would display certain specific entries from the Light-O-Rama portion of the Windows registry. If Light-O-Rama started using a new registry entry, and LOR Diagnostic was not updated to include it, the information simply wouldn't be displayed at all. It now still shows those specific entries, but also shows raw data from the entire LOR portion of the registry, so that the information is present even if LOR Diagnostic is not specifically updated to include it.

Copy and Save in LOR Diagnostic

The LOR Diagnostic utility now has buttons enabling you to copy the utility's output to the Windows clipboard or to save it to a file.

Beat Wizard, VU Wizard, and Waveform Display Support More Media Types

The Sequence Editor's Beat Wizard, VU Wizard, and Waveform Display now support more media types, including video files. It also now has better support for the types that it supported in the past - for example, they would be unable to handle certain MP3s, issuing an error message such as "Cannot init conversion".

Better Support for Variable Bit Rate MP3s

In past versions, if your musical sequence used a variable bit rate MP3, and you wanted to use certain features in the Sequence Editor (such as starting play somewhere in the middle of the sequence instead of at the natural start of the sequence), you would need to convert the MP3 to use a constant bit rate (using a third party audio editor such as Audacity), or it would not work properly. Now, you may be able to do this without converting to a constant bit rate. Note that it's possible that you may still have to convert in some cases, so keep tools like Audacity in mind just in case.

Optionally Play Only Audio when Sequencing a Video Sequence

The Sequence Editor's Video Preferences dialog now has an option which can be used to make the Sequence Editor play only the audio track of a video file in a musical sequence, as opposed to also showing the actual video.

Show Entire Head at Start of Morph

In SuperStar, there is now an option to show the entire head at the start of a morph. This can be used, for example, to have a morph start out 50 pixels long, and get progressively shorter until it disappears at the end.

Acceleration for Morphs

In SuperStar, morphs can now be set up to accelerate (or decelerate). This can be used, for example, to make a morph going up that slows down, or a morph going down that speeds up, as if under the influence of gravity.

Smooth Effects in SuperStar

SuperStar now has three "Smooth Effects": Shockwave, Spiral, and Fan.

Support for More (and Less) Channels in the Hardware Utility

The main test screen of the Hardware Utility now supports 32 channels, rather than 16 as in the past. This allows the use of this screen (rather than the console) to test the DIO32 (in native address mode) and the new CMB24D (which is a 24 channel Direct Current (DC) card).

The advanced configuration screen previously only supported 16 and 32 channel cards. It has been updated to support the new CTB08Dg3, an eight channel card.

Firmware Updates

Several new firmware updates are included:

•CCB100D-V1_16.lhx

•CCR150D-V1_17.lhx

•CTB16PG3-V1_07.lhx

•CTB32LG3-V1_11.LHX

•DIO32_V1-32.LHX

•mDC_MP3_V4-22.lhx

The CCB100D and CCR150D firmware includes additional support for 500K. The CTB16PG3 and CTB32LG3 firmware includes support for "noisy AC" (less chance of flicker on noisy power). The DIO32 and mDC_MP3 firmware contain many changes that have previously been posted online, but never before distributed with the software installer.

Extend Length of Effects in Instant Sequence

SuperStar now has an additional option for instant sequences: "Extend Length of Effects". This option will extend the length of each effect up to the start of the next effect. This makes the instant sequence less "blinky".

Instant Sequence and Timing Dialog Settings Saved

SuperStar now saves the settings used in the Instant Sequence and Timing Map dialog boxes.

Bug Fixes

•In SuperStar, if you created a sequence in Instant Sequence, then clicked on "roll dice" and "sequence all", it would not erase the existing sequence before creating the next sequence. You would end up with multiple sequences stacked on top of each other.

•Some memory leaks related to sequences have been fixed.

•If you attempted to add an effect in visualization mode in SuperStar, and the fixtures involved did not contain any of the colors in the effect, an error would be displayed and you would not be allowed to add the effect. This error would prevent you from using group modify to move pixels on scenes. This error has been changed to a warning, and you are allowed to proceed if you want.

•After moving a selected group of effects in SuperStar, the first active selection could have been moved. This would result in group modify thinking that some attributes had been changed when they had not.

•In SuperStar's Import Visualization dialog box, if you type a value for "max length" and then click OK, it would not use the value that you had typed in.

•If you add a prop in SuperStar with a row and column specified, and then add a prop without a row and column specified, it would use the row and column of the first prop for both props.

•A memory leak in SuperStar, related to the conversion of an MP3 to a WAV file, has been fixed.

•Non-CCR RGB strings would not process correctly in SuperStar if there were more than 48 pixels.

•If SuperStar's sequencing row max length was more than 50, and if the total number of 50 pixel CCRs was more than 24, it would make the sequence row count be 24.

•If SuperStar's sequencing row max length was more than 50, the location of the SuperStar star was not being calculated properly.

•The time progress display while SuperStar was playing a sequence would flicker.

•If two channel commands overlapped in SuperStar, the channel would play differently in SuperStar than it would in the exported sequence.

•If the SuperStar fonts directory contained more than twelve fonts, SuperStar would hang.

•If the text in a SuperStar text action contained a double quote character ("), everything after that character would disappear when you saved the .sup file and reloaded it.

•If no method returns an available network adapter for the Visualizer, the "Local Loopback" adapter is automatically used.

•When writing a show to an SD card via the Hardware Utility, you could type in the dropdown box which is supposed to allow you to select the show number. Doing so would cause the show number to be 0.

•The "cleanup sequence" in the Musical section of a show was not paying attention to the Musical section's "Turn used lights off at the end of each sequence" option. It would instead always turn the used lights off, no matter whether the option was enabled or not.

•If you open a SuperStar sequence and it fails to open the associated audio file, the time layers would be blank. This has been fixed to default to a five minute length.

•The Hardware Utility might have crashed if an error occurred while selecting a COM port.

•When importing a visualization in SuperStar, sometimes the morph selection points would disappear, and the next time you used them, a spurious line would get drawn.

•The LOR Diagnostic utility was displaying incorrect information about the configured LOR networks, and no information about configured DMX universes.

•If the name of a DMX adapter began with a number, the Network Preferences program would list its name right justified instead of left justified on the DMX tab.

•On some computers, various Light-O-Rama programs would refuse to run, saying that "Light-O-Rama is not correctly installed", despite LOR having been installed.

•Undo and redo in SuperStar would sometimes not work properly; sometimes redo would not restore all effects that had been undone, and sometimes undo or redo would cause SuperStar to crash.

What's New in Version 3.9.0

•Comm speed changes

•Hardware Utility support for two networks in G3 MP3 Directors

•Hardware Utility support for 500K speed in G3 MP3 Directors

•Increased range of allowable sequencing grid lengths in imported visualizations

•New functions added in SuperStar dialogs

•Warning for channels needing a higher license level

•Verifier can be used on a single show or a single sequence

•New CCB/CCP firmware: Version 1.15

•New CCR firmware: Version 1.10

•New CTB32LG3/LOR160xWG3 firmware: Version 1.08

•New CTB16PCG3 firmware: Version 1.05

•New G3-MP3-Director Firmware: Version 5.22

•Bug fixes

Comm Speed Changes

Light-O-Rama networks were previously able to use communication speeds up to 115.4K. New Generation 3 controllers, Cosmic Color Bulbs, Cosmic Color Ribbons, and Cosmic Color Pixels are now able to support 500K, approximately four times faster. You can set your network to use 500K in the LOR tab of the Network Preferences program. You may have to update your firmware to take advantage of this new feature.

Also, network speeds are no longer referred to as distances. Instead, the actual speed of the connection is used. "Long Range" is now called "19.2K", "Average" is now "57.6K", and "Short Range" is now "115.4K".

Hardware Utility Support for Two Networks in G3 MP3 Directors

Previously, a Light-O-Rama MP3 Director was able to control a show on a single LOR network. The new Generation 3 MP3 Directors are able to control two separate networks, and the Hardware Utility has been updated to support this new functionality.

Hardware Utility Support for 500K Speed in G3 MP3 Directors

Previously, a Light-O-Rama MP3 Director was able to support communications speeds up to 115.4K. The new Generation 3 MP3 Directors are able to additionally support 500K, approximately four times as fast as earlier controllers. The Hardware Utility has been updated to support this new functionality. You may have to update your firmware to take advantage of this new feature.

Increased Range of Allowable Sequencing Grid Lengths in Imported Visualizations

When importing a visualization into SuperStar, you can now set the maximum sequencing grid length anywhere from 25 to 200, rather than the previous 50 to 100.

New Functions Added in SuperStar Dialogs

Various new functions were added to some of SuperStar's dialog boxes: "Move pixels" was added in the scene group modify dialog box; "Move endpoints" and "Reverse direction" were added in the morph group modify dialog box; "Use Head Color" was added in the morph dialog box.

Warning for Channels Needing a Higher License Level

When opening a sequence in the Sequence Editor, a warning is presented if the sequence contains channels that your license level cannot control. This warning appears only once per Sequence Editor session.

Verifier Can Be Used on a Single Show or a Single Sequence

The Light-O-Rama Verifier, which can be used to check for various problems with your schedule, shows, and sequences, used to check your schedule, the shows that are on that schedule, and the sequences that are in those shows. It still can do that (and still does it by default), but now you can also ask it to check just a single show (regardless of whether it is scheduled or not), or a single sequence (regardless of whether it is in a show or not).

Note, though, that it's possible that two sequences which each pass individual checks from the Verifier without any problems might still have problems when used together within a single show. So it's always a good idea to run the Verifier against their show, and especially against the entire schedule, at least once before going live with your show.

New CCB/CCP Firmware: Version 1.15

This new firmware for Cosmic Color Bulbs and Cosmic Color Pixels supports 500K communications speed.

New CCR Firmware: Version 1.10

This new firmware for Cosmic Color Ribbons supports 500K communications speed.

New CTB32LG3/LOR160xWG3 Firmware: Version 1.08

This new firmware for CTB32LG3/LOR160xWG3 has the following changes:

•Support for 500K communications speed.

•Support for LED Display sharing with the new G3-MP3-Director when the director is attached rather than the regular Display Daughter Card.

•A bug was fixed in standalone mode when the unit is used as a director for other controllers while running a standalone sequence.

New CTB16PCG3 Firmware: Version 1.05

This new firmware for CTB16PCG3 controllers supports 500K communications speed.

New G3-MP3-Director Firmware: Version 5.22

The G3-MP3-Director is a new device that will replace the DC-MP3.

Bug Fixes

•In SuperStar, a visualization with a matrix of CCRs sometimes would not clip effects to stay within the CCR matrix. This was especially noticeable when playing image actions on the CCR matrix.

•In SuperStar, if you saved an archive file, and then opened it, you could no longer export it with the demo version.

•If you did a Create QuickVis on a combination of CCR controllers and standard 16 channel controllers, then SuperStar would place the first row of 16 channel controllers on top of the last row of CCR controllers.

•In SuperStar, only the end points of RGB light strings (strings where all the lights are the same RGB color) were being drawn. This has been fixed to draw bulbs along the entire string.

•When pressing the Play or Paste button in SuperStar, some unnecessary screen redraws were done. These have been removed.

•Selection of an RGB fixture was not working in SuperStar.

•If you change from CCR mode to Vis mode, SuperStar will now automatically rename the file by appending "_vis" to the end of the name. This is to prevent cases where you would otherwise lose the star channels in a sequence that was done in CCR mode.

•If the Sequence Editor had hold of an audio file while SuperStar tried to create timings using that audio file, SuperStar would crash.

•If you are in "Full Range" color mode in SuperStar, and you set the color controls with the color picker dialog box, red and green could be set to 130. This caused constant "integer out of range" errors because the color fields in the dialog boxes had values out of range.

•In the Animator, if the file that was supposed to be used as the background image of the animation did not exist, the "Remove Image" button would be grayed out, thus giving no straightforward way to remove the reference to the image from the animation.

•When trying to create a new musical sequence in the Sequence Editor, media files with the extension "m4a" would not be shown unless the dropdown box controlling the types of media files displayed was changed from "All Supported Files" to "MPEG Audio".

•Added support for non-continuous lines in a light string in a visualization in SuperStar.

•Added support for "superstar cool" and "superstar warm" to indicate the dimming curve to use in SuperStar.

•On a large resolution screen, you could have ended up with more than ten rows in the time layers in SuperStar.

•In SuperStar, if using an imported visualization using up and over CCRs, or wedge CCRs, images got clipped to the first half of the sequencing rows.

•One of the things that the Verifier checks is whether or not any LOR program files (such as the Sequence Editor) are missing. There were a few such program files that it was not checking for.

•ServoDog controllers were not being properly detected by the Hardware Utility.

•If an international character was used in the name of an audio file in SuperStar, and the sequence was exported, the Sequence Editor would fail to open the sequence.

•In some situations, a SuperStar sequence could be erased if you saved after clicking "New Document".

•A memory leak, which could affect any program using a sequence but which was most noticeable in the Show Player during shows that were using non-compressed sequences, has been fixed.

•In SuperStar, after a paste of a group of effects and nudging the pasted effects around, sometimes a "group modify" would modify more than it should.

•When changing configuration or layout information, SuperStar would crash if SSEdit.cfg was "read only" (this would typically only happen if the Lightorama directory were placed in an area that the operating system does not allow write access to). This has been fixed so that SuperStar will instead display an error message advising that configuration and layout information could not be saved.

What's New in Version 3.8.0

•M4A Support

•Hiding Fixture/Prop Names

•Default Channel Names Options

•Protected Sequences on SD Cards

•Bug Fixes

M4A Support

M4A media files are now supported in musical sequences.

Hiding Fixture/Prop Names

A new option has been added to hide fixture/prop names in the Visualizer when something is selected in the editor. This can reduce editing screen clutter.

Default Channel Name Options

When creating new channels on a fixture in the Visualizer, there are now options to default the channel name to one or more of the Fixture Name, Channel Order Number, or RGB Color (if applicable).

Protected Sequences on SD Cards

Protected sequences can now be used on SD cards via the Hardware Utility or the Simple Show Builder.

Bug Fixes

•When upgrading to a new version of Light-O-Rama, existing SuperStar custom fonts would be overwritten with those from the installer. Only the system fonts, not the custom fonts, should have been overwritten (both should be installed if not already present).

•After double clicking a .LEE file in Windows, the Visualizer's toolbar icons were sometimes not correctly enabled.

•Pressing Delete a second time while the Visualizer's "Are You Sure?" dialog was presented caused a second "Are You Sure?" dialog to pop up. After responding to both of them, the simulation data could be left in a corrupted state.

•If you reduced the number of CCRs in a SuperStar sequence, saved, relaunched, and selected a scene, the program would hang.

•In SuperStar's visualization mode, if you opened a sequence that uses an invalid visualization path, the program would hang.

•In SuperStar, if a visualization had a matrix of CCRs, and some other CCRs as well, then image actions could be seen on the other CCRs.

•If there was more than one prop with CCRs in it, SuperStar would add them in the order found in the visualization. They are now sorted and added according to the row they are on.

What's New in Version 3.7.0

•Easier Visibility of Morph Paths

•Max Length of Sequencing Rows

•Wrap Around Mode

•Tree Wizard Improvements

•Performance of Creation of Standalone Sequences Improved

•Bug Fixes

Easier Visibility of Morph Paths

In SuperStar, a line is drawn from 1a-2a and 1b-2b for morph anchor points. This makes it easier to see the path that the morph is going to take.

Max Length of Sequencing Rows

SuperStar now has a "Max Length" setting to set the length of sequencing rows from 50 to 200. This allows the sequencing rows to be longer, so all fixtures on a row in a visualization will fit on one row.

Wrap Around Mode

SuperStar now has a "wrap around mode", designed to be used with 360 degree trees to make it easier to have an effect start and end in a particular place.

Tree Wizard Improvements

The Tree Wizard in the Visualizer has been streamlined. This includes a new option for a top radius, and several new CCR bundle types.

Performance of Creation of Standalone Sequences Improved

The creation of standalone sequences (for example, in the Hardware Utility for an MP3 Director) has been made significantly faster. For example, a certain very large sequence that used to take over twenty minutes to convert to a standalone sequence on a certain computer now takes approximately one minute on that same computer.

Bug Fixes

•If SuperStar had never been run on a particular computer before, or its configuration had never been changed, and you attempted to change the rotation on a new sequence (not on a sequence loaded from a file), SuperStar would hang in certain cases.

•If SuperStar had never been run on a particular computer before, or its configuration had never been changed, and you attempted to bring up the Layout dialog box and change to half ribbons, the text would be clipped so that only the first ribbons got text on them.

•In SuperStar's CCR mode, if you added white text, it would have a red shadow on it.

•When a visualization was used in SuperStar, in some situations the file would be renamed to _vis.sup.

•In SuperStar's visualization mode, if the "Star in Use" setting was "Yes", effects would get offset by four rows.

•In SuperStar, if the regular network was not being used, but had unit IDs in the same range as an Aux network that was being used, channels for those unit IDs would have incorrectly used the regular network instead of the Aux network.

•In the Visualizer, after inserting a prop from a file, the prop/fixture buttons and/or the list of props/fixtures shown on the main editing window could be wrong.

What's New in Version 3.6.0

•Vertical Mode in Import Visualization

•Bug fixes

Vertical Mode in Import Visualization

•SuperStar's Import Visualization dialog now has an optional "vertical mode" sequencing grid orientation, which can be used to more easily deal with displays that are taller than they are wide (such as a visualization of an RGB megatree).

Bug Fixes

•A bug in SuperStar was fixed related to the drawing of floods and bulbs in a visualization.

•Instant Sequence was producing white effects for CCRs, but not for RGB lights. It will now treat strings of RGB lights the same as CCRs.

•SuperStar now supports reversing the order of fixtures in a prop if necessary in order to support a matrix of RGB lights that are not a Cosmic Color Device.

•Having an "&" character in a fixture or prop name in a visualization exported to a sequence by SuperStar sometimes caused an "unterminated entity" error when the exported sequence file was opened in the Sequence Editor.

What's New in Version 3.5.0

•E1.31 supported

•New Network Configuration program

•Play efficiency improvements

•New "QuickVis" files in SuperStar

•Improved handling of half-ribbon matrix arrays in imported visualizations

•Maximum Detection Rows setting for imported visualizations

•Improved error reporting when importing visualizations

•Change to names of channels in exported visualizations

•Morphs across entire sequencing grid after importing visualization

•Can select individual pixels in CCR visualization in SuperStar

•New mouse selection abilities in SuperStar visualizations

•Can select start and end points of morphs in SuperStar visualizations

•Start and end marks of morphs more easily identifiable

•Dimming curves in exported visualizations

•Support for duplicate fixtures in SuperStar visualization mode

•Improved Instant Sequence effects

•Improved balance across comm networks

•Arches with less than four segments

•Default grid color in Visualizer's options dialog

•Cancelling out of Visualizer's wizard to create fixtures

•Increase pointer precision in Visualizer by holding Shift

•Move only horizontally or vertically in Visualizer by holding Ctrl

•Suppress "Is this the port for shows" in the Hardware Utility

•"Color by time" in Instant Sequence

•Too-frequent SuperStar warning removed

•SuperStar group delete efficiency improved

•Bug fixes

E1.31 Supported

E1.31 protocol, also known as "streaming DMX over ACN", is now supported for DMX devices. This allows native DMX devices to be hooked up to LOR over an ethernet network, rather than over a serial port. Note that one or more E1.31 gateway devices, which convert E1.31 to standard DMX, would be required between your computer and your DMX devices.

New Network Configuration Program

A new program, the Light-O-Rama Network Preferences program, has been made. This program can be used to set up your various network settings, such as for your Light-O-Rama networks, DMX universes, X10 network, and so on.

This new program replaces the Sequence Editor's Network Preferences dialog. It can be launched through the Sequence Editor's Preferences menu, the Light-O-Rama Control Panel, or as a standalone Windows program.

Play Efficiency Improvements

Several efficiency improvements were made related to playing sequences, both at the startup of play and during play itself. These would be most noticeable on very large sequences, or sequences using many events on DMX channels.

New "Quick Vis" Files in SuperStar

SuperStar now has the ability to create "Quick Vis" files, which are simple visualizations, enabling you to use SuperStar's Instant Sequence feature without actually having a "real" visualization.

Improved Handling of Half-Ribbon Matrix Arrays in Imported Visualizations

SuperStar's handling of half-ribbon matrix arrays in imported visualizations has been improved.

Maximum Detection Rows Setting for Imported Visualizations

SuperStar's imported visualizations feature now has a new "maximum detection rows" setting, which enables you to control how many rows the lights from the visualization will be imported into.

Improved Error Reporting when Importing Visualizations

SuperStar's error reporting has been improved in situations when an error occurs while importing a visualization.

Change to Names of Channels in Exported Visualizations

When SuperStar would export a visualization sequence, the names of exported channels used to just be the names of the visualization's channels. Now they are the visualization channel names plus the visualization fixture names.

Morphs across Entire Sequencing Grid after Importing Visualization

After importing a visualization into SuperStar, the unused portion of a sequencing row is drawn in dim green and is selectable. This makes it possible to apply only one morph across the entire sequencing grid.

Can Select Individual Pixels in CCR Visualization in SuperStar

Individual pixels can now be selected in a CCR visualization in SuperStar.

New Mouse Selection Abilities in SuperStar Visualizations

You can now select in SuperStar visualizations using Ctrl-left click and Ctrl-drag.

Can Select Start and End Points of Morphs in SuperStar Visualizations

You can now specify the start and end points of a morph in a visualization in Superstar.

Start and End Marks of Morphs More Easily Identifiable

The start and end marks of a morph in SuperStar are now cyan and magenta to help identify them. Formerly, they were both white.

Dimming Curves in Exported Visualizations

When exporting a visualization in SuperStar, an LED dimming curve is used for CCRs and RGB devices, while an incandescent dimming curve is used for all other lights.

Support for Duplicate Fixtures in SuperStar Visualization Mode

SuperStar's visualization mode now supports duplicate fixtures.

Improved Instant Sequence Effects

The effects generated by SuperStar's Instant Sequence are now limited by the size of each sequencing row. This improves Instant Sequence effects to make them a bit more in sync and a bit less choppy.

Improved Balance across Comm Networks

The buffer size for writes to serial port devices has been increased, as has the associated timeout value. These changes improve balance across communications networks.

Arches with Less than Four Segments

The Visualizer's Arch Wizard previously wanted four or more segments; otherwise the arch would not actually look like much of an arch. It now appears more archlike even with less than four segments.

Default Grid Color in Visualizer's Options Dialog

The Visualizer's Options dialog now supports the default grid color option.

Cancelling Out of Visualizer's Wizard to Create Fixtures

The Visualizer's dialog to create fixtures now has a cancel button, giving the user the opportunity to cancel out of the process.

Increase Pointer Precision in Visualizer by Holding Shift

Holding the Shift key while moving the mouse in the Visualizer now reduces the cursor speed, thus making more precise cursor movements easier.

Move Only Horizontally or Vertically in Visualizer by Holding Ctrl

Holding the Ctrl key while moving the mouse in the Visualizer will now limit cursor movement to either horizontal or vertical, depending upon the basic direction the mouse was moving at the start of movement.

Suppress "Is this the port for shows?" in the Hardware Utility

When the user selects a different COM port in the "Manual Select" dropdown box of the Hardware Utility, the system asks if the newly selected port was "the LOR Show Port". If "Yes" was selected, the Regular network was set to use that port. A "Don't show this again" option has been added to that dialog, so that the user will not see it over and over, if desired.

"Color by Time" in Instant Sequence

SuperStar's Instant Sequence feature now supports a "color by time" option, which enables you to specify an absolute length of time (such as "four seconds") that it will take for effects in a theme to change color.

Too-Frequent SuperStar Warning Removed

When creating a new Instant Sequence in SuperStar, it would often give a warning about not being able to undo your action. This warning has been removed.

SuperStar Group Delete Efficiency Improved

SuperStar's group delete function has been optimized to be faster when deleting a large number of effects.

Bug Fixes

•Lock and Unlock on the Visualizer's right-click context menu were not working correctly.

•The Visualizer incorrectly allowed for multiple unselected fixture/prop deletes when using the DEL key.

•In SuperStar, shrinking a visualization to fit the screen would not always work correctly.

•Various "import visualization" bugs were fixed in SuperStar.

•If you imported a visualization in SuperStar, the first and last boxes on the first sequencing row would be set to white, yet if you tried to add a scene, you would get an error saying that no pixels were selected. This has been fixed so that no sequencing row boxes are selected after the import of a visualization.

•When the Light-O-Rama Control Panel launched another program (such as the Schedule Editor), the program would start minimized.

•When checking that the networks used by channels were configured, the Verifier would not check if the network was a DMX universe.

•The first effect in a SuperStar Instant Sequence would not start out at the right color.

•When doing an Instant Sequence on a visualization using SuperStar's Color Wheel, and a row of fixtures did not contain a color, there were cases where the row would not receive any visible effects for long periods of time.

•In SuperStar's Import Visualization, there were cases where fixtures were not being recognized.

What's New in Version 3.4.0

•SuperStar supports images and text when in visualization mode

•Timing change in SuperStar's "forward" and "reverse"

•Expanded WAV support in SuperStar

•Visualizer can make itself shown in front of all other windows

•SuperStar's export limit based on number of channels

•Large visualizations shrunk to fit in SuperStar

•Bug fixes

SuperStar Supports Images and Text when in Visualization Mode

Images and text are supported in SuperStar while in Visualization mode. Note that it only makes sense to use images in text in a visualization if you have a grid of lights. To use text, the grid must be at least 5x5.

Timing Change in SuperStar's Forward and Reverse

When clicking on the Forward and Reverse buttons on the group of tape recorder buttons on SuperStar's toolbar, it now scrolls forward or backward one second (it used to scroll two).

Expanded WAV Support in SuperStar

If the header in a WAV file is of an unknown format, SuperStar now uses default values to open the WAV file. This is an unusual case, but it means that there are some WAV files that will now play properly whereas they would fail to play previous to this change.

Visualizer Can Make Itself Shown in front of All Other Windows

A new option, "Force Simulation Window to Front", has been added to the Visualizer's Com/Ref options tab (tab number 6). When this option is enabled, whenever the Visualizer receives data and is in Simulation mode, the Visualier window will force itself to be shown in front of all other windows. This option is off by default.

SuperStar's Export Limit Based on Number of Channels

When in visualization mode, SuperStar now limits export based on the number of channels instead of on the number of sequencing rows. For example, if you have a 2 CCR license, it will now allow export of up to 300 channels when in visualization mode.

Large Visualizations Shrunk to Fit in SuperStar

If a visualization imported into SuperStar is too big, it is now shrunk to fit within the screen.

Bug Fixes

•If in one of SuperStar's small views, sometimes the sequencing grid was too wide.

•If a sequence were opened in one of SuperStar's small views, the numbers at the left of the time layers wouldn't display properly.

•SuperStar's effect bar representing a scene for the star could have ended up being any color. This has been fixed so that the bar is always white.

What's New in Version 3.3.0

•Setting SuperStar's color control for images

•Cosmic Color Bulb Support

•Support for flipped Cosmic Color strings in Insert Device

•Bug fixes

Setting SuperStar's Color Control for Images

When drawing an image in SuperStar, you can set the color of the color control to the color of an image pixel by holding the Shift key and left-clicking the pixel with your mouse.

Cosmic Color Bulb Support

Support for Cosmic Color Bulb devices has been added to the Sequence Editor's Insert Device screen (in the Cosmic Color Device section) and to the Hardware Utility's CCR/CCB Configuration screen.

Support for Flipped Cosmic Color Strings in Insert Device

Cosmic Color Devices have a hardware setting option where the pixel numbers can be "flipped" - i.e. instead of pixel #1 being closest to the device and pixel #50 being furthest from it, pixel #50 is closest and pixel #1 is farthest. The Sequence Editor's Insert Device screen's Cosmic Color Device section now has an option to list RGB channels in the device being created from 1 to 50 or from 50 to 1, so as to more easily match up the sequence as shown on the screen with the actual hardware device.

Bug Fixes

•In SuperStar, sometimes the length of an archive file would become five minutes instead of the length of the original audio file.

•In the Visualizer, if the user pressed the Enter key on the Prop Properties screen, the last fixture selected to be part of the prop may not have been saved correctly.

•When using the Visualizer's Prop Properties box, the system could occasionally throw a logged error. The system correctly recovered, but the error should not have happened in the first place.

•When using the Visualizer's Channel Wizard on RGB props along with a reference file with RGB channels, the second and subsequent fixtures assigned to the prop could have incorrect channel assignments.

•In SuperStar, sometimes if you modified the image an an image action and then played the sequence, it would hang.

•Some morphs in SuperStar could have had missing pixels.

What's New in Version 3.2.4

•Play startup speed improved in the Sequence Editor

•SuperStar filename changes

•SuperStar exported timing grid changed

•Bug fixes

Play Startup Speed Improved in the Sequence Editor

The amount of time that the Sequence Editor takes to start playing a sequence has been reduced (this is most noticeable on very large sequences).

SuperStar Filename Changes

The names of various file types that SuperStar creates have been changed: Export files are now "_sup.lms" instead of ".sup.lms"; vis files are "_vis.lms" instead of ".vis.lms"; archive files are "_archive.lms" instead of ".archive.lms". Also, exported files are named ".lms" regardless of whether they have an associated media file, with the expectation that the user will soon add a media file to them.

SuperStar Exported Timing Grid Changed

The timing grids of sequences exported from SuperStar have been changed from 0.10 seconds to 0.05 seconds.

Bug Fixes

•If you chose a color such as yellow-white in SuperStar's instant sequencing in CCR mode, you would only see occasional yellow.

•In some cases, when "loop at end" was on and the play range started close to the end of the sequence, play would not start properly in the Sequence Editor.

•On some Windows 7 computers, every time the Visualizer was started, it would ask the user if they wanted to associate .LEE files to the program.

What's New in Version 3.2.0

•Running sequences displayed in LOR Control Panel

•New DMX adapter supported

•Simple Show Builder defaults to "All Files"

•SuperStar ".vis.sup" files

•SuperStar ".archive.sup" files

•New option for creating trees in the Visualizer

•Effect type options for the tail of a morph in SuperStar

•Added group modify for scene effect type in SuperStar

•Updating Visualizer channels by name

•SuperStar supports DMX for visualizations

•SuperStar supports multiple networks for visualizations

•Visualizer from the command line

•Visualizer files registered with Windows

•Paste Multiple can paste to the end of a group

•Sequence Editor remembers the directory of the last sequence opened or saved

•Ending drawing via the keyboard

•Tooltips for channel group expander buttons

•Control Panel remembers whether schedule is enabled or not after shutting down

•Bug fixes

Running Sequences Displayed in LOR Control Panel

During a show, the LOR Control Panel's status window now shows information about the various sequences that are running.

New DMX Adapter Supported

The LOR USB485-ISO is now officially supported for use as a DMX adapter. It should use the "Raw DMX" protocol.

Simple Show Builder Defaults to "All Files"

When selecting the sequences to use in the Simple Show Builder, the user is given a choice of which sequences should be displayed so as to be able to choose from: "16 Channels", "32 Channels", and "All Files". The first two are not really based upon the number of channels in the sequence; rather, they are based on the name of the file (for example, if "16 Channels" is selected, all files with "16" in their names are displayed).

Previously, the default would be "16 Channels". Since many people make sequences without any having "16" in their filenames, this would result in a blank list being displayed, often leading to confusion as to why the Simple Show Builder was not listing the sequences. To prevent this, the Simple Show Builder now defaults to "All Files" instead of "16 Channels".

SuperStar ".vis.sup" Files

If you load a SuperStar sequence file and then import a visualization, the filename of the SuperStar sequence file is changed to end with ".vis.sup" instead of ".sup". For example, a SuperStar sequence named "AwesomeSequence.sup" will be changed to "AwesomeSequence.vis.sup" upon importing a visualization.

SuperStar ".archive.sup" Files

If a SuperStar sequence file's name ends with ".archive.sup", SuperStar will not let you change the file using "Save". Instead, it will prompt you to use "Save As". If you then use "Save As", it will rename the file to not have "archive" in the name. This is to help prevent changing an archive file.

New Option for Creating Trees in the Visualizer

The Visualizer's Tree Wizard can now also create trees that start at the center pole and go to the base. Previously, it could only create trees where the initial point was on the base.

Effect Type Options for the Tail of a Morph in SuperStar

When doing a morph in SuperStar, you can now do a shimmer or a twinkle on the tail of the morph.

Added Group Modify for Scene Effect Type in SuperStar

"Modify Effect Type" was added as a check box in SuperStar's Scene Group Modify dialog box. Previously, you could set the effect type individually, but could not set it to a group.

Updating Visualizer Channels by Name

When using a reference file, the Visualizer now gives you the option to update channels based on the channel's name or the channel's key. Previously, the only update available was "by key". Now when updating by name, the Visualizer can update the Device, Network, Unit, Circuit, and Channel Color to what was loaded in the reference file(s). Updating by name will help those people who change the physical layout of their channels.

SuperStar Supports DMX for Visualizations

Previously, SuperStar supported only Light-O-Rama controllers for imported visualization files. DMX is now also supported.

SuperStar Supports Multiple Networks for Visualizations

Previously, SuperStar supported only one network for imported visualization files. It now supports multiple networks.

Visualizer from the Command Line

The Visualizer can now accept filenames on the command line. If you specify a filename on the command line, the Visualizer will attempt to load it, skipping the "On Startup..." option. If it is not successful, the "On Startup..." option will be used.

Visualizer Files Registered with Windows

The Visualizer now registers the ".lee" filename extension with Windows, so if you double click a .lee file in Windows, the Visualizer will start and load that file automatically.

Paste Multiple Can Paste to the End of a Group

When selecting the number of times to paste vertically, the Sequence Editor's Paste Multiple dialog used to give a choice between pasting an explicit number of times (such as 3 or 7) and "Paste all the way to the end of the sequence", which would paste vertically as many times as it took to get to the last channel in the track. It now also gives the option to paste to the end of any channel group or groups that contain the first channel being pasted to.

Sequence Editor Remembers the Directory of the Last Sequence Opened or Saved

When a sequence is opened or saved in the Sequence Editor, the Sequence Editor now remembers the directory of the sequence, so that the next time a new sequence is saved, or the next time the Existing Sequence tab of the New and Open dialog is used, it will default to that directory.

Ending Drawing via the Keyboard

Previously, the only way to end a drawing in the Visualizer's editing window was to double click. You can now also end a drawing by pressing either the End key or the Enter key.

Tooltips for Channel Group Expander Buttons

In the Sequence Editor, if you hover your mouse over the expander button for a channel group (the small "+" or "-" button to the left of a channel group button), a tooltip will pop up saying the name of the channel group it is for, and whether left-clicking on the button will cause the group to expand or collapse.

Control Panel Remembers Whether Schedule Is Enabled or Not After Shutting Down

The LOR Control Panel has always had the ability to start up automatically upon the computer being started (and the Windows user logged on), and if the schedule had been enabled when the computer was shut down, it would automatically enable the schedule upon being started as well. However, if the Control Panel were unloaded via "Unload Light-O-Rama", it would not automatically enable the schedule upon being started again. Now, when it is started up, it enables the schedule or not based on whether or not it was enabled the last time it had been running.

Bug Fixes

•In SuperStar, exported CCR sequences have the RGB values "balanced" so that the colors on the actual CCRs match the colors on your computer screen (think of this as a color correction made to the RGB values). This was being done when in CCR mode, but when in visualization mode, exported CCRs were not having their RGB values balanced.

•A SuperStar scene that used the Twinkle effect did not show that effect on the computer screen (note that the effect did happen on the actual CCRs themselves).

•After selecting effects in SuperStar, Ctrl-C would not copy the effects that you had just selected.

•If you created a SuperStar sequence in CCR mode using the star, and then imported a visualization, the channels for the star did not appear on the sequencing grid, and made it impossible to change the star channels.

•If two different effects in SuperStar attempt to control a channel at the same time, SuperStar throws out the shortest command. However, this was not being done for the commands in an exported sequence. The result was that sequences with overlapping channel commands played back differently in SuperStar than they did from an exported sequence.

•After using a wizard, the Visualizer would correctly show Prop mode. However, pressing the "Fixture" button on the main screen sometime did not correctly change into Fixture mode.

•Pressing the "Default" button on the Visualizer's Tree Wizard could incorrectly set the number of pixels per segment, which could then cause an error.

•If you make a selection in SuperStar's star channel grid, selections in the CCR channel grid will be cleared, and vice-versa. Previously, the existing selection would not be cleared, which could lead to confusing effects.

•In SuperStar, if you loaded a sequence with timings, and then loaded one without timings, the timing map would get stuck in Imported Timings mode, and attempting to set the frequency spectrum would not work.

•If you loaded a channel configuration file as a reference in the Visualizer, and then chose to update existing channels, the channel colors for matching virtual channels could be set incorrectly.

•When "Disable Shows Immediately" was done in the LOR Control Panel, the lights on native DMX universe devices would not be turned off.

•If the Sequence Editor's "Channel Button Colors" setting were set to anything besides "None", the color of the channel buttons' fonts would vary during play even if "Vary Color of Channel Button Fonts" were turned off in the Play Preferences dialog.

•The Sequence Editor's Edit menu's keyboard shortcut for Set Paste Mode was changed from M to O, because M was already in use for Paste Multiple, which led to it being impossible to open the Set Paste Mode menu via the keyboard.

•After a "Disable Shows Immediately" was done in the LOR Control Panel, in some cases a message would appear in the status log saying "tmNextAction_Timer Error: Object variable or With block variable not set".

•When selecting a show file to schedule in the Schedule Editor, the "file type" dropdown box of the file browsing dialog would allow either "Show Files" (which was the default) or "All Files". Selecting "All Files" would allow you to schedule some sort of file other than a show file, which would not accomplish what you were hoping (since the Show Player only supports scheduled shows, not any other sort of scheduled thing). The Schedule Editor now only allows you to schedule shows.

•If a track were hidden, and that track were selected from the Sequence Editor's track dropdown list (in the Tracks and Timings toolbar), the track would become the active track (as it should), but it would remain hidden and the display would not move to show it.

•In SuperStar, if you imported a visualization file and picked a recent file to open such as "Untitled.sup", the program would advise that it changed the name to "Untitled.vis.sup". However, if you do a Save As, the name would default to "Untitled.sup" instead of "Untitled.vis.sup".

•When exporting a file in SuperStar, if you typed in a name such as "MySequence", it would give an error saying that the file name has to end in ".lms" or ".las". This has been fixed so that the appropriate file extension automatically gets appended to such a file name.

•In SuperStar, an image that was moved a short distance would stay on the screen too long.

•In SuperStar, if you added some macros, selected those macros, deleted them, and then tried to undo the group delete, they would not get restored. Also, if you selected a group of effects that include some macros and did a group delete, it would not always undo properly, and in some cases would cause SuperStar to crash.

•Sometimes when importing a visualization file that contained RGB fixtures into SuperStar, the channels for that fixture were not red, green, and blue.

•The controller for the star in SuperStar was always being placed in the Regular network; it can now be placed in any network.

•If the Visualizer attempted to load a file that previously existed but was now missing, the error message presented was not clear. The error message now explicitly says that the file is missing, rather than the generic "XML error".

•If you deleted the currently displayed timing grid in the Sequence Editor, it would continue to be displayed until you manually displayed another.

•When exporting a SuperStar sequence, if the name of the media file contained the "&" character, an error would occur when trying to load the exported sequence in the Sequence Editor.

•When saving a morph in SuperStar, the end intensity level for white was always the same as the start intensity level for white.

•In some situations, as the Show Player was starting (after having enabled shows), the LOR Comm Listener would shut down. This would happen when the Show Player took longer than the Comm Listener would expect to start up, which might happen, for example, if the computer had the third-party Universal Library and InstaCal installed for controlling digital IO cards. The Comm Listener now gives the Show Player a longer amount of time to start up before deciding to shut itself down.

•On some computers, the LOR Comm Listener would occasionally get in a state where it would shut down and then restart over and over, fairly rapidly. A change was made to fix this in at least some situations.

•In SuperStar's Timing Map dialog box, if you deselected "Also Set TCM" and changed the TCM settings, it would set the TCM settings back to what they were before you changed them.

•Ball Tree (RGB light strings where the color of the whole string of lights changes together) was not playing back properly in SuperStar.

•In the Sequence Editor, if "Loop at End" is turned on, and the play range includes the end of the sequence, and the sequence is a musical sequence, the loop would be done back to the beginning of the sequence rather than to the beginning of the play range.

•If a sequence contained more than one channel, then on the Channel Configuration screen, the tab key would move the focus from control to control in a strange order.

•When you zoomed channels in or out in the Sequence Editor, any channel group expander buttons on the screen would not be redrawn into their proper new positions until you did something like hover over them.

•In some situations, a clipboard removed from the Sequence Editor would still be partially visible in the list of clipboards, leading to errors if it were selected.

What's New in Version 3.1.4

•Bug Fix

Bug Fix

•In most cases, the LOR Control Panel would slowly leak memory resources, eventually leading to strange behavior such as shows stopping or crashing.

What's New in Version 3.1.2

•Bug Fix

Bug Fix

•SuperStar could crash at startup time. This has been fixed.

What's New in Version 3.1.0

•Expand All and Collapse All for channel groups

•New DMX adapters supported

•Performance of ENTTEC DMX USB Pro adapters improved

•Scrunching the SuperStar sequence grid for imported visualizations

•Instant Sequencing with imported timings

•Increased limit on SuperStar's number of fixtures per prop

•SuperStar exports grouped CCR devices

•Sample SuperStar clipboard files added

•Bug fixes

Expand All and Collapse All for Channel Groups

In the Sequence Editor, clicking on a channel group's expander button expands or collapses the channel group - that is, it makes the channel group's children visible, or hides them. In addition to this, now you can expand or collapse the channel group and all of its descendents:

Holding the Shift key while clicking on a collapsed group will expand it and all of its descendants except for RGB channel descendants; holding both Ctrl and Shift while clicking on a collapsed group will expand it and all of its descendants including RGB channel descendants.

If the group is expanded, holding Shift (or both Ctrl and Shift) while clicking will collapse it and all of its descendants.

New DMX Adapters Supported

The LOR USB485B and the Lynx adapters are now officially supported for use as DMX adapters. The LOR USB485B should use the "Raw DMX" protocol, and the Lynx should use the new "Lynx" protocol.

Performance of ENTTEC DMX USB Pro Adapters Improved

One of the supported adapters for native DMX devices, the ENTTEC DMX USB Pro, is capable of offloading some CPU utilization from the computer driving the DMX devices through it. Previous versions of Light-O-Rama did not take advantage of this capability, but it does as of this version.

Scrunching the SuperStar Sequence Grid for Imported Visualizations

A new option has been added to SuperStar's Import Visualization dialog, allowing you to "scrunch" the sequencing grid for your visualization. This allows you to pack the most light fixtures possible into each sequencing row. For example, if you have the 2 CCR license level, and you are getting an error message saying that your visualization can only have 2 green sequencing grid rows or less during export, then you can try importing your visualization again and selecting the "Scrunch the Sequence Grid" option, then try exporting again.

Instant Sequencing with Imported Timings

Previous to this release, in SuperStar, you could import timings, but could only use them for visual reference. They can now be used to create an instant sequence. You can import up to three timing channels, which will become the top three timings. After importing timings, if you open the Timing Map dialog box, you will see that the "All Freqs" row of timings has been renamed to "Imported".

Increased Limit on SuperStar's Number of Fixtures per Prop

SuperStar's limit on the number of fixtures allowed in a prop has been increased from 32 to 64. This brings the limit up to the same limit as in the Visualizer.

SuperStar Exports Grouped CCR Devices

SuperStar now exports CCRs as grouped CCR devices. This makes it much easier to see the entire sequence in the Sequence Editor.

Sample SuperStar Clipboard Files Added

Twenty new sample system clipboard files have been added to SuperStar. Click on the Edit menu and select "Load/Save Clipboard", and you will see the new files, such as "Sys - BubblesRiseAndPop.scb", "DiamondExpanding.scb", and "Sys - SharkFinForHorizontalRibbons.scb". To use one, select it from the list, click on "Load Clipboard from File", and then click on "Paste". The effects will be pasted into your sequence starting at the time you have selected.

Bug Fixes

•When using the Visualizer's "Insert Fixture from Symbol" command, the symbol inserted may have been missing a segment from the last point defined back to the first.

•When starting a simulation in the Visualizer with more than 255 virtual channels, a warning is now shown that only the first 255 will be used.

•The Visualizer now prevents errors when loading images that are too large, or starting a new simulation with a blank background that is too large. The absolute maximum size is now 2500x2500.

•If you cancelled the creation of a new visualization in the Visualizer, you would incorrectly be prompted for a save filename. Since no visualization was created, there was nothing to save.

•If you loaded a file with a bad signature into the Visualizer, any new file created in that session could also be marked as bad.

•Depending on the size of fonts in Windows, text in the Visualizer's Options dialog may have been cut off.

•In some situations, using certain keyboard functions (such as Ctrl-Z to undo) in the Sequence Editor would cause the display to jump to another location (such as to the bottom of the channel list).

•The Visualizer's Channel Wizard did not correctly assign channels when using the DMX device type.

•In some cases, if an error occurred while the Visualizer was loading a prop file, existing prop and fixture data could be corrupted.

•Importing a channel configuration file would fail if one of the channels in the channel config file was a subsequence and that subsequence's sequence file was missing or otherwise unloadable.

•In the Tapper Wizard, if "Insert a timing into the timing grid for each tap" were checked, and "Insert effects into a channel" were unchecked, and taps were collected and then applied to the sequence, starting over with new taps would not be able to collect more taps than the originally collected number unless the Tapper Wizard were exited and reopened first.

•The Sequence Editor would crash if a port number greater than 32767 were entered into the Visualizer Preferences dialog.

•For large audio files (for example, an audio file that is half an hour long), the Beat Wizard, VU Wizard, and Waveform Display would sometimes fail with an error saying that memory could not be allocated.

•In the Sequence Editor, when pasting from a saved clipboard which happens to be locked, the clipboard would automatically unlock.

•When exporting a file in SuperStar, if the audio file was an MP3 file, the filename would get exported as SSEditAudioFile.wav. This has been fixed to use the MP3 audio file name.

•SuperStar's effect bars in the time layer were sometimes white when they were supposed to be colored.

•In SuperStar, Light-O-Rama controllers were assumed to never have more than 16 channels. They can now have up to 512.

•Orange, yellow, and purple lights were not being sequenced by SuperStar's Instant Sequence feature.

•SuperStar was not handling duplicate channels in a visualization (i.e. channels that are assigned to more than one light fixture). Now, they are displayed in dark gray, and cannot be selected or sequenced.

•SuperStar was not properly detecting rows in visualizations with props that do not contain any lights.

•Sometimes, not all channels in a visualization were being read properly by SuperStar.

•SuperStar was not exporting macro commands when in visualization mode.

•If you load and play an audio file in SuperStar, then open and play a sequence using the same audio file in the Sequence Editor, you could get an error in SuperStar saying to shut down the other program. If you then shut down the Sequence Editor, and try to play the audio file again, it would not play (even if you tried to load the audio file again).

•SuperStar's Configuration Dialog box previously listed "Unit Nbr" and "Unit ID". A controller's "Unit Nbr" was the decimal number that equated to the controller's unit ID (which is a hexidecimal number). This ended up being confusing, and so now only the unit ID is listed. This is now consistent with the rest of the Light-O-Rama software suite.

What's New in Version 3.0.2

•Bug fix

Bug Fix

•When the Hardware Utility scans for connected controllers, it could confuse CTB16PC, CCF, and CCB100 controllers with each other.

What's New in Version 3.0.0

•The Light-O-Rama Visualizer

•The Light-O-Rama SuperStar Sequencer

•Channel Groups

•Native DMX Devices

•Paint Sequence

•Compressed Sequences

•Variables in Windows shell commands

•New paste modes

•Dimming curves

•Hide or unhide a track by left-clicking its track bar

•Select columns or rows via the right-click context menu

•Protected sequences

•Custom keyboard maps

•Reversing pixel order in CCRs/CCBs

•Effect tools' keyboard shortcuts shown in toolbar tooltips

•Control over channel button colors while not playing

•Several view settings for sequences are now persistent

•Tools Panel can be completely hidden

•Control over channel names in "Insert Device"

•Channel names in "Insert Device" indicate network for auxiliary networks

•Subsequences changed on disk automatically reloaded

•Additional clipboard management capability

•Locking channels in tracks

•Additional info in channel button tooltips

•Sequence grid tooltips show channel color

•Time ranges in Beat Wizard and VU Wizard automatically set to play range

•VU Wizard shows percent of time above threshold

•New "Change Controller" dialog

•Add Controller dialog allows selection of network

•Additional Mouse Scroll Wheel Support

•Sequence and track names are printed

•Control Panel's menu reorganized

•Performance of "Repeat" improved

•Memory usage of undo recording improved

•Verifier speed improved for channel conflict check

•"Channel Property Grid" renamed to "Channel Configuration"

•Bug Fixes

The Light-O-Rama Visualizer

The Light-O-Rama Visualizer is a new program in the Light-O-Rama software package. It is intended to give a visual representation on your computer screen of how your lights will look during a sequence or during your show.

Please note that the Animator, which has a similar purpose, is still supported, so that existing sequences continue to work with it. However, the Visualizer is more fully featured than the Animator, so consider using the Visualizer instead of the Animator, especially for new sequences.

The Light-O-Rama SuperStar Sequencer

The Light-O-Rama SuperStar Sequencer is a new program in the Light-O-Rama software package. It can be used as a sort of front end for the Light-O-Rama Sequence Editor, creating sequences visually rather than via a channels-versus-time grid.

Note that existing Light-O-Rama licenses do not cover SuperStar (except in demo mode). In order to fully use SuperStar, your license will have to be upgraded to have SuperStar support.

Channel Groups

The Insert Device dialog can now optionally create devices as channel groups, instead of as raw channels and/or RGB channels. A channel group is a set of channels and/or RGB channels that can be collapsed down to a single row in the display, or expanded to show rows for all (or some) of its members.

Native DMX Devices

Light-O-Rama now supports control of native DMX devices.

Note that only the Advanced license level supports this.

Paint Sequence

The new Paint Sequence tool can be used to paint effects from another sequence into the current sequence. This can be used to accomplish things similar to what can be accomplished with subsequences, in a potentially clearer and easier way, without the extra complication of subsequences.

Compressed Sequences

It may take a significant amount of time to load a large Light-O-Rama sequence. When loading one in the Sequence Editor, in order to view or modify it, this may be an inconvenience, but the real issue is loading one in the Show Player: When the Show Player has to load a large sequence, it may cause a noticeable pause in your show as the sequence loads.

To resolve this issue, this release of Light-O-Rama introduces the concept of compressed sequences. A compressed sequence is a separate save file, associated with a a sequence but containing only enough information to play the sequence in the Show Player, and optimized for loading speed. This can speed up loading times dramatically - for example, for a certain large sequence that takes eight seconds to load on a certain computer, the associated compressed sequence only takes a small fraction of a second to load on that same computer.

Variables in Windows Shell Commands

In previous versions of Light-O-Rama, the Windows shell command associated with a sequence was a static thing - it would be executed exactly as you had typed it. Now, they are instead templates; you can type in pieces that will be executed exactly as you typed them, just as before, but you can also type in variables, which will be replaced with run-time information, such as the name of the song that is being played.

New Paste Modes

The Sequence Editor previously offered two different modes for pasting: paste by cell and paste by time. There are now two additional new modes: stretch to fit and repeat to fit. Stretch to fit stretches (or compresses) the copied effects so that they fit into the area that you select, while repeat to fit repeats (or cuts off) the copied effects so that they fit into the area that you select.

Dimming Curves

Gen3 Light-O-Rama Controllers, and pre-Gen3 LOR controllers with Gen3 firmware installed, support customizable dimming curves. A dimming curve determines the output of a circuit from the intensity setting sent to that circuit; for example, some pieces of hardware (such as strobe lights) should never be dimmed, and so a dimming curve can be set for such a device that sets the output at 100% for any intensity of 50% or above, and at 0% for any intensity lower than 50%. Another example is that different types of bulbs (such as incandescents versus LEDs) may naturally get brighter or dimmer at different rates when going from one intensity to another, and so different dimming curves can be used to even them out, making fades on them appear more similar to each other.

You can control what dimming curve is used for what circuit via the Hardware Utility's new Advanced Configuration screen.

Hide or Unhide a Track by Left-Clicking Its Track Bar

In previous versions of the Sequence Editor, both left-clicking and right-clicking on a track's track bar would cause that track bar's popup menu to open. Right-clicking still does, but left-clicking now instead hides or unhides the track.

Select Columns or Rows via the Right-Click Context Menu

In previous versions of the Sequence Editor, you could select an entire row or rows, or an entire column or columns, via the Edit menu's Select Rows and Select Columns menu items. Now, you can also do this via the right-click context menu.

Protected Sequences

The Sequence Editor can now be used to create protected sequences, which are sequences whose sequence grids cannot be viewed or (generally speaking) modified, but which can still be played, control lights, be scheduled in shows, and so forth.

Control Over Channel Button Colors While Not Playing

In previous versions of the Sequence Editor, while a sequence was not playing, channel buttons would be displayed as grey (or black for RGB channels). Now, it still operates that way by default, but the Channel Button Colors submenu on the View menu gives you two other options: to be displayed using the channel's full color, or to be displayed using the channel's color at the time of the start of the current selection.

Reversing Pixel Order in CCRs/CCBs

The Hardware Utility's CCR/CCB Configuration screen now supports reversing the pixel order of a Cosmic Color Device (so that pixel 50 is closest to the controller, rather than pixel 1).

Custom Keyboard Maps

The behavior of keyboard keys in the Sequence Editor can now be configured, via the new Keyboard Preferences dialog.

Effect Tools' Keyboard Shortcuts Shown in Toolbar Tooltips

If one of the effect tools on the Tools toolbar has a keyboard shortcut that applies that tool, and only applies that tool, it is displayed in the tooltip for that effect tool's button on the toolbar.

Several View Settings for Sequences Are Now Persistent

In the Sequence Editor, several view settings for sequences are now persistent. That is, for example, if you change the width of the channel buttons for a sequence, they will automatically be that size whenever you open that sequence in the future (unless you explicitly change their size again).

This information is automatically remembered outside of the sequence file itself (but associated with it), so you do not have to save the sequence file when you make a cange to such a setting. Also, there had been some such settings which already were persistent, but used the sequence file, so that you would have to save the sequence whenever you altered them; these now are instead automatically persisted outside of the sequence file.

The following view settings are now persisted in this manner:

•The width of the channel buttons

•Whether the channel buttons are displayed or not

•The height of a row of the grid (and of the channel buttons)

•The width of the grid per unit of time

•The zoom setting of the Animator

•Whether the Animator's controls are shown or hidden

•The zoom level of the waveform display

Tools Panel Can Be Completely Hidden

The Sequence Editor's Tools Panel can now be completely hidden, so that not even the narrow bar with its wrench icon is displayed, via "Tools Panel" on the View menu.

Control Over Channel Names in "Insert Device"

The Sequence Editor's Insert Device dialog used to give no control over the names of the channels that it would create. You can now specify the base name (such as changing the default "SD" for a Servo Dog device to "Animatronic Rudolph", resulting in channel names like "Animatronic Rudolph 03.7" for unit 03 circuit 7 instead of "SD 03.7"). You can also specify that the unit ID should not be included at all (resulting, for example, in "Animatronic Rudolph 7" for circuit 7).

Channel Names in "Insert Device" Indicate Network for Auxiliary Networks

When creating channels, the Sequence Editor's Insert Device dialog would not include any indication of the channel's network in the channel's name. For example, a channel for unit 03 circuit 7 of a Servo Dog device would be called "SD 03.7" no matter what network it was on. Now, if the channel is on an auxiliary network, it will additionally include that network's identifier. For example, "SD C03.7" would indicate that the channel is on the Aux C network, while a plain "SD 03.7" would indicate that the channel is on the regular network.

Subsequences Changed on Disk Automatically Reloaded

If a sequence containing a subsequence was loaded, and then the subsequence was changed and saved, and the parent sequence then played, it would play as if the subsequence had not been changed. It will now instead play using the newly saved contents of the subsequence.

Additional Clipboard Management Capability

In previous versions of the Sequence Editor, if a saved clipboard were changed, the changes would automatically be resaved when the Sequence Editor was closed. This is still done, but there is now a new menu item on a clipboard's popup menu to manually resave it, and an option on the Clipboard Preferences menu to automatically resave. Similarly, there is now a new menu item to reload a saved sequence (in case the contents of its save file were changed outside of the Sequence Editor), and an option on the Clipboard Preferences menu to do so automatically. These changes are intended to ease the use of clipboards by third party tools.

Additionally, a new menu item to remove a clipboard from the list of clipboards has been added.

Locking Channels in Tracks

The channels of a track can now be locked, meaning that you will be unable to add channels to the track, remove channels from it, move channels within it, or modify settings (such as device type and unit) within it, unless you unlock the track first. To lock or unlock a track, use "Lock Track" (or "Unlock Track") from the track bar's popup menu.

Additional Info in Channel Button Tooltips

In previous versions of the Sequence Editor, the tooltip that would open when the mouse hovered over a channel button would show the name of the channel. It now shows additional information, such as the unit and circuit.

Sequence Grid Tooltips Show Channel Button Color

In the Sequence Editor, the tooltip that opens when the mouse is hovered over the sequence grid now displays the color of the channel of the row that the mouse is hovering over.

This new behavior can be turned off via "Use Channel Colors" in the Display Preferences dialog.

Time Ranges in Beat Wizard and VU Wizard Automatically Set to Play Range

In previous versions of the Sequence Editor, when the Beat Wizard or VU Wizard was opened, it would automatically be set to operate on "the entire song". It will now instead be automatically set to operate on the play range (the freeform play range if one exists, or the play range as set on the Play menu if not).

Note: This behavior can be overridden, for these wizards and also the Tapper Wizard, via the "Use Play Range for Wizards" option on the Play Preferences dialog. If this option is not enabled, then the wizards will default to using the time range of the entire song.

VU Wizard Shows Percent of Time above Threshold

The VU Wizard now displays the percent of time that is above the specified threshold, with the specified settings.

New "Change Controller" dialog

The new Change Controller dialog (which can be accessed from the Channel Configuration screen) presents a list of the controllers in a track, and allows you to select one and change its physical settings. For example, you could use this dialog to quickly change all channels for the Light-O-Rama controller 03 on the Regular network to instead be controller 07 on the Aux C network. Note: The "Channel Configuration" screen used to be known as the Channel Property Grid.

Add Controller Dialog Allows Selection of Network

The Channel Configuration screen's Add Controller dialog now allows the network of the controller to be selected (for those device types that have networks). Note: The "Channel Configuration" screen used to be known as the Channel Property Grid.

Additional Mouse Scroll Wheel Support

The mouse scroll wheel is now supported in the Schedule Editor and in the Sequence Editor's Channel Configuration screen. Note: The "Channel Configuration" screen used to be known as the Channel Property Grid.

Sequence and Track Names are Printed

When the "Print" function is used in the Sequence Editor's Channel Configuration screen, the printout now includes the name of the sequence and of the track. Note: The "Channel Configuration" screen used to be known as the Channel Property Grid.

Control Panel's Menu Reorganized

In previous versions of the Light-O-Rama Control Panel, some of the menu items on its popup menu were paired with each other. For example, to control whether or not the Control Panel should be automatically launched whenever the computer starts up, there was a "Launch at startup" menu item and also a "Do not launch at startup" menu item. This could be a bit confusing, as the way that you could tell (for example) that the Control Panel would be launched at startup was that the "Launch at startup" menu item was greyed out, so that you couldn't select it.

Now, instead, such pairs have been replaced by single menu items, which can be checked or unchecked. For example, if "Launch at startup" is checked, the Control Panel will launch at startup, and if it is not, it will not; there is no longer any "Do not launch at startup" menu item.

Performance of "Repeat" Improved

The Sequence Editor's "Repeat" function is now quicker than it used to be, and also uses less memory than it did.

Memory Usage of Undo Recording Improved

The Sequence Editor now uses significantly less memory than it used to in order to record events for later undoing/redoing.

Verifier Speed Improved for Channel Conflict Check

One of the possible issues that the Light-O-Rama Verifier can check for is whether a sequence has two different channels with the same physical settings (such as unit and circuit). In the past, this check could take quite a while to perform on large sequences; it has now been speeded up considerably. For example, for a certain sequence, the Verifier running on a certain computer would need ten minutes to perform this check. It now needs only about a second, for the same sequence on the same computer.

"Channel Property Grid" Renamed to "Channel Configuration"

The Channel Property Grid has been renamed to "Channel Configuration".

Bug Fixes

•The tooltip for the Sequence Editor's "Custom Shimmer" button was inappropriately labeled.

•If multiple sequences were open in the Sequence Editor, and they were not maximized, switching from one sequence to another by directly clicking on a sequence would correctly activate that sequence, but would not update the row of sequence tabs to show that that sequence is now active.

•A bug in an earlier Beta release of the software, which was not released to the general public, would sometimes cause a sequence to accumulate "extra" RGB channels, which were not present in any of the sequence's tracks. These RGB channels weren't noticeable to a user, and they would not affect the behavior of the lights, but their presence in a sequence could cause certain operations, such as deleting channels, to be much slower than normal, for that particular sequence. Such operations have now been sped up.

•Clipboards that were loaded from saved clipboard files would always paste as if "Paste from foreground" was enabled.

•If both the Sequence Editor and the active sequence were maximized, and neither vertical scroll bar (the one to scroll between tracks and the one to scroll within a track) were present, and the program was running on the rightmost monitor, then when selecting an area by clicking and dragging, you would be unable to scroll to the right while selecting.

•When loading a clipboard, if you selected the clipboard file's name by double clicking it in the file browsing dialog, and the mouse happened to be over a sequence, then after the clipboard loaded, a phantom mouse click would be applied to the sequence. So, for example, if the Fade Up tool was selected, a fade up would be applied to the spot on the sequence where your mouse happened to be.

•The Delete Controller dialog used to be unable to distinguish between different LOR controllers that happen to have the same unit ID on different networks.

•If a show has a jukebox interactive group, and the trigger associated with that group is pushed while a sequence from that group is playing, the trigger should not cause the sequence to be interrupted and the next sequence in the group to be played. This worked fine. However, it would cause the sequence that is considered to be "next" to be changed. For example, if the group contains three sequences, A, B, and C, and A is playing when the trigger is pushed, A would continue playing (as it should), but after A ended, if the trigger were pushed again, C, not B, would play.

•When creating a new musical sequence, if you set the number of channels to zero, and then specify that the channels should be created via a channel configuration file instead of via the specified number of channels, the Sequence Editor would tell you that you need to specify more than zero channels, and then crash.

•In the Sequence Editor, when the time range of a track is scrolled, the time ranges of any other tracks in the sequence should scroll with it. However, this did not occur unless those other tracks had already been displayed at least once since the sequence was loaded or created. It also would not occur during play except when those other tracks were displayed.

•On the Hardware Utility's LOR MP3 tab, if no MP3 controller were connected, the "Set" button (to set the unit's time) should be greyed out. In most cases, it was, but if no comm port existed (as opposed to merely no comm port being selected) it was not greyed out, and so could be pushed. Pushing it in such a situation would result in a crash of the Hardware Utility.

•When the track list of a sequence is changed in the Sequence Editor - for example, if a track is moved to another position - any tracks that had been hidden would automatically unhide.

•In the Sequence Editor, when a file was chosen from a file browsing dialog by double clicking on the file, sometimes the sequence grid that was "beneath" the dialog would act as if it had been clicked. For example, an effect tool might be applied to the grid, or a Channel Settings dialog would open.

•If a track was hidden, moving it up in the list of tracks would cause it to become the first displayed track.

•If a clipboard was saved in the Sequence Editor, and the clipboard's name was invalid in certain ways, the Sequence Editor would crash.

•If an iDMX1000 controller was selected in the Hardware Utility's Test Console, the "Current Channel Range" display would be incorrect.

•The "Move to Track Number..." menu item on a channel button's popup menu was enabled even if there was only one track.