SDK for Connectivity?

Thanks for the replies!

Eric - yes... I suppose in broad terms a visualiser is what I am looking at creating. However, the idea is to take programmed cues and record them to animation channels to be rendered out later (using Mental Ray or V-Ray - I've also been looking at a Maya connection to render using RenderMan), rather than doing real time visualisation.

I suppose you could also say that it is a tool for lighting Max/Maya scenes using 3PC as if I were lighting a real show.

Quinn - thanks very much for the very detailed reply. There is a lot to think about there.

Using cue data fits very well with the whole concept of keying (as opposed to keying every parameter once per DMX refresh)

I agree - it would also get over the issue of DMX refreshing, as long as you could "get" data from the cue such as the length of time a fade / movement should take. That would prove tricky however for any movement that was not linear...

Never use pan/tilt. Focusing through a render window blows. always map 3 parameters to “Center of Interest” XYZ

Excuse my ignorance. By that do you mean that the spotlight (or whatever kind of Max/Maya/V-Ray/finalRender light it is) should always be set to "look at" a dummy object/helper and it is that helper which is animated, rather than the light itself?

Remember to add parameters to animate “hang position”, too.

As part of the project, I plan on creating a library of fixtures, which are then inserted by a single button or menu click (the fixture geometry and the max/maya light will be created using a MaxScript/MELScript). onClick, a UI will pop up asking for hanging position.

Perhaps it would be easier to create a simple(ish) UI inside the 3D app (or using the .NET connection in the latest Max) which emulates as closely as possible all the relevant 3PC functions. Then all(!) I would need is to write a file translator which reads 3PC cues and converts them into a format that Max/Maya can understand (probably using XML as the middleman).

Cheers,

Martin

Thanks for the replies!

Eric - yes... I suppose in broad terms a visualiser is what I am looking at creating. However, the idea is to take programmed cues and record them to animation channels to be rendered out later (using Mental Ray or V-Ray - I've also been looking at a Maya connection to render using RenderMan), rather than doing real time visualisation.

I suppose you could also say that it is a tool for lighting Max/Maya scenes using 3PC as if I were lighting a real show.

Quinn - thanks very much for the very detailed reply. There is a lot to think about there.

Using cue data fits very well with the whole concept of keying (as opposed to keying every parameter once per DMX refresh)

I agree - it would also get over the issue of DMX refreshing, as long as you could "get" data from the cue such as the length of time a fade / movement should take. That would prove tricky however for any movement that was not linear...

Never use pan/tilt. Focusing through a render window blows. always map 3 parameters to “Center of Interest” XYZ

Excuse my ignorance. By that do you mean that the spotlight (or whatever kind of Max/Maya/V-Ray/finalRender light it is) should always be set to "look at" a dummy object/helper and it is that helper which is animated, rather than the light itself?

Remember to add parameters to animate “hang position”, too.

As part of the project, I plan on creating a library of fixtures, which are then inserted by a single button or menu click (the fixture geometry and the max/maya light will be created using a MaxScript/MELScript). onClick, a UI will pop up asking for hanging position.

Perhaps it would be easier to create a simple(ish) UI inside the 3D app (or using the .NET connection in the latest Max) which emulates as closely as possible all the relevant 3PC functions. Then all(!) I would need is to write a file translator which reads 3PC cues and converts them into a format that Max/Maya can understand (probably using XML as the middleman).

Cheers,

Martin