DMXControl 3 Is More Powerful Than You Realize! (3D Simulation YouTube Demo Video Link)

OK. So, I have been playing with DMXControl for years, and I believe it was in 2016 I began using DMXControl 3.

Since then, I have experimented with various lighting and control surfaces, all running off of DMXControl 3, and every time I go back into it, I realize it is more powerful than I thought it was before.

I have programmed clubs, theaters, studios, and more with this software, and It can always keep up, and never limits the potential.

I am going to keep this short and let the demonstration speak for itself, but, recently I came across another software suite by a company called Chromateq. Their Software, Pro DMX 2 is paired with what is apparently an epic visualizer called Studio DMX.

I have searched for years for an external DMX application that could take Art-Net from DMXControl and use it within a more intuitive visualizer than Magic 3D Easy View (That doesn't cost thousands of Dollars). Nothing against Magic 3D but I really wanted to play with more advanced lighting simulations to really see what DMXControl can do.

Anyway, the Chromateq software was free to download and use, and, could input 4 universes of Art-Net.

It was a long and steep process to learn exactly how this Chromateq software worked, as it also had its fair share of bugs, but, I managed to make this demonstration programmed entirely in DMXControl 3.2.3.

I considered using the newer DMXControl 3.3.0 to program the following demonstration, eager to mess around with the new timecode player and see how much more stable the working environment might be, but, I immediately noticed that a few methods of my programming style were not quite compatible yet with the new version.

Sticking with 3.2.3, I managed to put this demonstration together.

My goodness. DMXControl Projects e.V. Do you know the beast you have unleased? Hahaha.

Thank you for creating what I believe is THE most intuitive DMX Control software that currently exists on the planet. I believe it is even more powerful than any console available. And there are still more tricks under the hood that I have not yet discovered.

I would have loved to make a detailed Bug Report during my time programming this demonstration, as there were plenty, but I feel as if it would be irrelevant until I get a chance to experiment with the newest version.

Anyway, this is a simulation of a 3D Arena Concept Modeled in Chromateq Studio DMX. Art-Net out from DMXControl 3 goes into Chromateq Pro DMX2 and well... This is the result:

Please watch the following Demonstration, as I cannot speak more than it can.

Watch via YouTube with the link below:

Thank You.

Thank You.

Thank You for your creation and continued development. You have really created something so special, and it is finally all these years later I am able to properly show my thanks in the form of utilizing this software in this fashion.

Please view in 4k Resolution, and read the description and credits to understand the basic workflow of how this demo show was made possible.

I also have links to other past simulations made in Magic 3D Easy View in the video description as well.

Warm & Colorful Wishes to You All!

`S

An additional question for the developer's and community here:

I posted this topic last night before I went to bed simply because I could not contain my excitement and thanks once the project was "Finally Complete". But I wanted to ask this:

My time with DMXControl is sometimes far between projects, but I really wish to contribute more to the DMXControl Forum Community when working on projects.

The problem is, my understanding of German does not really exist. And in the past, I have used Google Translate to simply add a German translation to my postings.

When I browse the forum, I am thankful that my browser will automatically translate the page.

Are you all able to adequately read Posts in English, or would it be preferred to also include a German Translation?

I can repost my English Posts with a German Translation if Preferred.

I am not sure if you [all] use the same tactic of having the browser Translate English-to-German, or are just that much more incredible to know Both Languages natively.

I would love to view and understand the videos you have been publishing lately. YouTube can add a translation, but it might seem that finer details in the auto-translation get lost.

I just want to be a courteous as I possibly can in culture.

Thank you!

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Google übersetzt:

Eine zusätzliche Frage an die Entwickler und die Community hier:

Ich habe dieses Thema gestern Abend vor dem Schlafengehen gepostet, einfach weil ich meine Aufregung und meinen Dank nicht zurückhalten konnte, als das Projekt "Endlich abgeschlossen" war. Aber ich wollte Folgendes fragen:

Meine Zeit bei DMXControl liegt manchmal weit zwischen den Projekten, aber ich möchte wirklich mehr zur DMXControl Forum Community beitragen, wenn ich an Projekten arbeite.

Das Problem ist, dass mein Verständnis von Deutsch nicht wirklich existiert. Und in der Vergangenheit habe ich Google Translate verwendet, um meinen Postings einfach eine deutsche Übersetzung hinzuzufügen.

Wenn ich im Forum surfe, bin ich dankbar, dass mein Browser die Seite automatisch übersetzt.

Seid ihr alle in der Lage, Beiträge auf Englisch angemessen zu lesen, oder wäre es vorzuziehen, auch eine deutsche Übersetzung beizufügen?

Ich kann meine englischen Beiträge mit einer deutschen Übersetzung erneut veröffentlichen, wenn ich dies wünsche.

Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob Sie [alle] die gleiche Taktik verwenden, den Browser vom Englischen ins Deutsche übersetzen zu lassen, oder ob es einfach so viel unglaublicher ist, beide Sprachen nativ zu beherrschen.

Ich würde gerne die Videos ansehen und verstehen, die Sie in letzter Zeit veröffentlicht haben. YouTube kann eine Übersetzung hinzufügen, aber es mag den Anschein haben, dass feinere Details in der automatischen Übersetzung verloren gehen.

Ich möchte einfach so höflich sein, wie ich es in der Kultur nur kann.

Vielen Dank!

Stefan,

Thank you for your reply. It gives me peace of mind that you are able to understand my ramblings xD.

I would greatly appreciate and be happy to answer any questions that might be inspired by anything that I have shared. (I now just only read this after posting translated BugTracker Tasks just recently).

I encourage a relaxed state to take in the demo, and, appreciate your sincerity, and again, for [all] your commitment to this community and its development.

I really wanted to use DMXControl 3.3.0. And in hindsight, probably would have been able to, and probably should have.

But, Here is why I decided not to:

Before I found the Chromateq Software for the simulation modeling, I was playing with both DMXControl v3.2.3 and v3.3.0 to see what major stability changes there were.

My main test in both versions was to load in as many "Generic RGB" devices as I could to see how it would handle running hundreds of simple devices simultaneously.

I also wanted to test the efficiency of the way DMXControl handled Matrixes.

So in both versions, I began by initially loading 500 "Generic RGB" devices. This was the maximum amount that the application would let me add at one time.

If I wanted to say add another 500, I would simply have to initiate another instance of importing the fixtures.

This was my immediate result which I will attempt to explain as best I can.

First, in 3.2.3, I found that loading that many devices at once took a crazy long time for the application to load in the fixtures, with one exception.

When I began adding devices, I was adding them primarily by going into the "Devices Window" -> Right Clicking -> Add Device inside of the "Devices Window".

With the device window still open, it took probably about 5+ full minutes of waiting for DMXControl 3.2.3 to add all the devices at once if I was lucky. DMXControl 3.2.3 would be locked until all the devices were finished importing into the project. I believe sometime this would also crash the application.

I then discovered that if you do not have the "Devices" window open (rather keeping say the "Cuelists" window in focus), and instead add the fixtures using the "Add Device Button" at the top of the main Project Explorer window, adding the same amount of devices produced a progress bar, and resulted in a significantly less time (less than 30 seconds) to add the fixtures to the project.

I also discovered, that in the stage view, when viewing the graphical display, the visualization was very very choppy with that many fixtures added to a stage view window. (I believe it was after about 150-200 fixtures is when the results became choppy) and eventually you could not really tell what was accurately going on with chasing sequences.

I attempted the same test in 3.3.0:

Adding the fixtures with either "Right Click" -> "Add Device" in the "Devices Window", or, clicking the "Add Device" button at the top of the Project Explorer was a significant improvement, almost instantaneous add, and also resulted in slightly better performance in the Stage View, but here was the problem:

When trying to use Fan or Matrix Sorting in stage view (Hold M and then Drag Selected Fixtures), all of the fixtures in the Stage View would randomly scatter all over the place, and you could not organize the fixtures in the slightest way.

I was able to kind of get around that problem by creating a matrix and then making the Stage View Matix icon the same proportions as the full amount of RGB Fixtures, and then removing the individual RGB Fixtures from the stage view, but then this occured:

When selecting the "Bitmap" Matrix effect, no matter what type or size of image used, the only thing that would display was a default DMXControl Projects Logo across the lights in the Matrix.

It actually took quite a while to realize what the heck was displaying on all the lights at that point hahahaha.

So right off the bat, even though I did not end up using the Matrix feature at all in this particular demonstration, without doing too much more testing, I deemed that 3.2.3 was going to be ultimately more stable to program in than the release of 3.3.0, and decided to run with that.

In the future, I would probably use the Matrix Feature to program larger amounts of Static RGB washes and things like that.

I also would have liked to utilize the new version of the Executer, and discover what other improvements there were, but I didn't know when my sanity was going to break xD (Spoiler: It broke anyway )

So that is why initially I did not decide to use v3.3.0.

As for the Timecode Player, it's not that I didn't want to use it in DMXControl. It's just that in Studio One, I am able to both edit the musical timeline, add different audio layers and effects, and change them in real-time and as needed within the project, in addition to sending MIDI output (adjusting audio levels, time between songs, etc...).

I guess technically the new Timecode Player in DMXControl would eliminate an extra step of assigning individual MIDI rules in the MIDI manager and Input Assignment, but overall, using Studio One as a Timecode Trigger was just the most efficient way of dealing with this particular type of project.

Plus, I have been using it this way for many years, and am just used to using it as a master timeline trigger system at this point.

Plus, If I wanted, I could also use additional MIDI channels to trigger external video sequences in VJ applications and such, so it is a really intuitive way of using a master application to trigger all sorts of different show commands across different applications and platforms.

Also, triggering MIDI in this way falls in line with how I would program a 'Light Board' using TouchOSC and BOME MIDI, so it really leaves all possibilities open.

There is actually a situation I will probably make a seperate post on at a differt time regarding how Input Assignment treat MIDI Fader Data.

Briefly, I realized it might be possible to use a MIDI Fader rule (as opposed to a MIDI Button) in large cuelists containing things like color cues. Say you have 20 Colors in a color Cuelist, and you want to use "GoTo" to call a specific color cue. Rather than making 20 MIDI buttons and wasting 20 values (notes) in a single MIDI channel, you could in theory use a single MIDI note, and treat it as a fader, using each fader step as a "GoTo" recall number.

The problem is that Input Assignment creates a really complicated floating decimal number on the output, and I have not been able to find a way to "Round" the number with any functions available in the Input Assignment Logic. This results in skipped steps when trying to assign that floating number to a whole number that can easily be used as a "GoTo" step.

Perhaps you know of a method to round floating numbers in Input Assignment.

That one simple feature would allow much more efficient Input Assignment rulesets. I think I am simply overlooking something.

Also, I wonder if there is any documentation on what each Logic Feature of the input assignment does, as there are some I simply just cannot begin to understand what they do. Such as "Rule of Three" and "Smittrigger" along with a handful of others. I have searched the Wiki and Forum, but I think I have been looking in the wrong places.

As for the amount of Cuelists, I have attached images of the full Cuelist tree in the following replys. I will let you enjoy viewing the surface of this list haha.

It seems the number is 154 cues total used in this demo.

The attached Cuelist images will show how many cues are in each Cuelist down the line.

I must add those images in 2 more posts given the image limitation of a single reply (not Spamming)

</Ramble>

Cuelists_A

Cues_B

Also, I guess I will add this:

It took about 2 Weeks to learn the Chromateq software and it's formalities enough to build a set.

About 2 Weeks to program in DMXControl

...............And then............. a little over a week of nonstop rendering and exporting to figure out why my PC(s) couldn't keep up and why YouTube kept destroying the video quality. <-

I also had to try 5 different GPU video cards, an infinite amount of system and hardware settings, and had to test across 3 separate computer systems trying to figure out the Chromateq software <-    <img src=

For a total of that 37 day timeline

Happy Times Though lololol

Those are answers I was hoping to have answered.

I will check to see if I have already posted it in the BugTracker. If not, I will surely make a task regarding the Stage View Matrix glitch experienced.

Thank you for linking the documentation on the Input Assignment. I will be sure to reference it the next time I undertake another programming project. That is a massive help. I had no idea it would be as simple as adding a Rule-of-Three logic node to re-establish MIDI numeric values based off of MIDI input.

I will have to take some time to really get acquainted with the 'press release' videos you have published to really see first hand what features you describe and how much I have overlooked regarding the topics we have touched on here. I am interested to see the similarities in programming that you were referring to.

I am infinitely excited to see what new and improved features of the next official release of DMXControl will bring. Keep up the great work all!

Quote from showtechniker

I can reccomend Capture. Its "only" 400€ and quite powerful.

showtechniker

Thanks for the love and recommendation!

Someday when I 'go pro' and can justify spending the money on this type of software, I hope to one day to learn "L8" Software.

Lighting modeling software is insanely expensive, and to be honest, I am surprised the 3D engine technology isn't a bit more, how do I say.....

Like modern video games use such nice graphics.

Even free Unreal Engine has DMX capabilities now, and that has amazing lighting features like real time Ray Tracing and such (But a MASSIVE learning curve lol)

I actually used to play around and became quite familiar with Magic 3D Easy View, bundled with DMXControl for as long as I can remember.

Here are some of those demos:

Magic 3D Demo_A

Magic 3D Demo_B

Magic 3D Demo_C

But I've always wanted something just a little bit more expensive...

This software in the topic of this thread was called "Studio DMX" bundled with "Pro DMX 2" and is currently available for free from Chromateq (http://www.chromateq.com)

I would love to have tried using the new version of "Easy View View 2", but it is only randomly bundled with other lighting software like "Daslight" that has its features and DMX input locked unless you own their proprietary hardware.

And I have not been able to find or 'hack' a standalone version.

As for your upcoming translation of the Input Assignment Wiki, I salute you and thank you for your service.

I myself look forward to your detail on that powerful section! Google Translate and trial and error has only gotten me so far xD