Working on new Midi import, help needed

[MichaJo]

No, i don't delete them.

I just did a short testing and seems to be a similar behaviour.
But unfortunately it seems not to be deterministic.
Additionally, importing with "note" button enabled raises the errors i mentioned before.

I really hope that this has nothing to do with my environment.
Here is the little Midi-file i'm testing: http://www.remoserv.de/BlenderMidi/DEMO2.MID
Perhaps some other can test it too.

I have an addition to the wishlist :
It should be possible to shorten the decay - btw in Your GUI You called it delay - so that one can have a kind of flashes.
I've played around with IPOs of a lamp. For that purpose i've copied the snare-ipo to the buffer and pasted it to the energy-IPO of the lamp.
(Another way could be to do that with IPO-drivers)
For a flash i'd need a short attack and a short decay. (I hope, not only i do)



Regards

Michael

[julesd-g6]

Ok... I have fixed the wrongly labeled DECAY / DELAY in MiX 0.51.... which I replaced in the MiX 0.5 release. Please download if you need it.
As for your problem I have just tried loading your midi file into brand new Ipo's and repeatedly picking all different settings... i.e. drum/note/glide modes and channels 6 and 10... the ipo's for each were editable and worked fine in my .blend file. In your .blend i cannot edit, like yourself.
Maybe it is because i never overwrote other IPO's.... Maybe I should just write a tut to show you my workflow.... I need to do one soon anyways.

With regards to the ADSR, here is a quick rundown of what their settings are inside this script. Remember this picture?


Here is how it breaks down in the script:-
ATTACK : valuetype = FRAME, range 0-5, default 0.001, description: number of frames before the note hit the curve is set to 0 value. In our case it works like a pre-delay.
DECAY : valuetype = FRAME, range 0-5, default 0.001, description: How quickly the sound drops to the sustain level after the initial peak
SUSTAIN : valuetype = CURVE HEIGHT, range 0-1, default 0.001, description: ON=1, OFF=0 so this value sets what the curve drops to.
RELEASE : valuetype = FRAME, range 0-5, default 0.001, description: number of frames after which the curve is set to 0 value.

So in your case Michael, You can set the DECAY value to be less than 1 frame. You may want to turn S and R off for these lamps though I think.

J

[MichaJo]

Well, the behaviour remains strange. Sometimes it's editable, sometimes not.
Even if i've just opened blender with a new, clean file.
Maybe something's going wrong only in my PC, my Blender, my...don't know.
The decay for example doesn't work.
Here is an AVI - screenrecording: http://www.remoserv.de/BlenderMidi/TestDecay.avi

1) I open Blender, open the script, import demo.mid, set an IPO AcousticSnare and have a look at the values:
At frame 16 is the first high value, at frame 31 the first low value.
Then i close Blender.
2) I do the same as in 1) with the only difference that i put the decay-slider at a middle value.
Looking at the values in the IPO-window still the first high value is at frame 16 and the first low value at frame 31.
Am I wrong to expect that because of the decay setting this had to look different?


Regards

Michael

[Mike_S]

Originally Posted by MichaJo Well, the behaviour remains strange. Sometimes it's editable, sometimes not.

It's not just your blender, happens with me too, doesn't matter what midi channel.

I'll look into this further and see what I can find.

Mike

[julesd-g6]

Apologies.... For DECAY to work properly, also set SUSTAIN value to what you want it to decay to....
So.... Set your decay to be very low and also your sustain to be very low. Remember DECAY just refers to how long (in frames) before the curve reaches SUSTAIN value.

[julesd-g6]

MichaJo...
Just had a watch of your AVI and that defo seems to be the problem.
I was going to ask "What software produced the AVI plese??" but it seems your on a MAC!! I think I need something like this for PC to do tutorials.
As for the none-editable IPO's I raelly have no clues as to why this is happening... I have just been given 3 old PC's So I will try to turn one of these into a LINUX box to make sure I can test on that platform too.. However, it looks to me like your on a MAC which I have no way of testing on... (Unless I VMWARE OSX on my AMD 64... which kinda works but is dreadfully slow)

Mike_S... are you on a PC??
Anyone have the same issue on PC?? If not, I'll ask santa for a quad-core power mac... (I doubt he'll listen!)
Thanks, J

[MichaJo]

Jules, i'm on a PC, Windows XP home Edition SP1.
The software i use is bulent's screen recorder.
(It's free with the watermarks You can see in the video. Without watermarks it would cost somewhat 30 Euro).
I record it with DivX-Codec (or as raw-AVI and then use VirtualDub for compression and cut).
Additionally i have FlyakiteOSX as a theme on my PC. So that's why it may look as MAC.


Michael

Edit: The decay still doesn't work here. All the sliders seem to have no influence to the curves.
btw, i've started midiing in 1994 with Cakewalk and since then i've used different sequencer software
(Powertracks, Emagic Logic, Cubasis, and on Linux Rosegarden).
So decay is not that new to me

[kernond]

Are there simple instructions on how to use this? I can't seem to find any. Everytime I try this, I come up with absolutely nothing. No errors, no curves, no animation...

I would really like to try this out but, I don't have time to tinker with it. I need to see it actually work before I spend anymore time with it.

A simple step-by-step tutorial is all that's needed (did I miss it somewhere?). Thank you.

[Mike_S]

Originally Posted by kernond Are there simple instructions on how to use this? I can't seem to find any. Everytime I try this, I come up with absolutely nothing. No errors, no curves, no animation...

1) You need a midi file (filename.mid). If you don't know what a MIDI file is, do some googling .. if you do know .. sorry .. but you didn't say exactly where to start

Start with a simple file, just create 2 or 3 notes, set them to channel 10 .. or take note of what channel they are (usually defaults to 1) and set the Midi Ch button to the matching channel. Run the script, click the "Search" button (which probably should be re-labelled to "Choose File/Open File", then click on the Import Mid button. Check the "console" for output. If it found note events in the file it will output messages like :

track  0
Note60 exists
IpoNote60 exists
LocZ exists
frame=  0.0  channel=  1  velocity =  60  pitch =  60
frame=  12.3958333333  channel=  1  velocity =  0  pitch =  60
frame=  12.5  channel=  1  velocity =  60  pitch =  60
frame=  24.8958333333  channel=  1  velocity =  0  pitch =  60
frame=  25.0  channel=  1  velocity =  60  pitch =  60
frame=  37.3958333333  channel=  1  velocity =  0  pitch =  60
frame=  37.5  channel=  1  velocity =  60  pitch =  60
frame=  49.8958333333  channel=  1  velocity =  0  pitch =  60
frame=  50.0  channel=  1  velocity =  60  pitch =  60
frame=  62.3958333333  channel=  1  velocity =  0  pitch =  60
 ***** END *****

Now add any object to your scene, or choose an existing one, and open an IPO window, and you should see IPOS created corresponding to the notes in your MIDI file , e.g. "IpoNote60" .

Once you have that working, you can experiment with the other buttons, .. the only documentation for them is in this thread and on Jule's blog for the moment


Mike

[kernond]

@Mike_S:
THANK YOU!

Yes, I'm very familiar with MIDI. But, step 1 will help those who aren't. I don't think I would have ever gotten it because, intuitively, I was selecting an existing object thinking it would apply the curves to the Active Object. Anyway, I've got it going now. Thanks again.

P.S. - Why do so many people spend so much time creating great tools and then, totally drop the ball when it comes to documentation? So many projects become doomed because of this bad habit. I was about to give up on this one...

To the author, and all other programmers...documentation is more important than the tool itself because, without it, you're wasting your time (and the time of those who may be interested). A lesser tool with real documentation would blow you out of the water. ...just my .98 cents...

[kernond]

After experimenting, I found out that you don't have to add an object AFTER creating the curves. You can apply them to anything already in the scene.

[julesd-g6]

Documentation and tutorials are on the way Kernond, believe me... It is going to be the very next stage... Which is why I was asking about MichaJo's video grabbing etc... alos... it is beta right now, not full release... so please bear with me on that side. I figure that some of the point of this thread is to find out what different people 'expect' and make the script more intuative so it works like you expect. Also some of the comments shown up here will form the basis of some of the docs too. Please don't think of the ball as dropped just yet Thanks Mike_S for helping out once again with the quick start guide though.

I'll try and do an evening's worth tomorrow on this, but I do want to get the none-editable curve issue ironed out as well though so I guess that will be next in line.

cheers, J

[julesd-g6]

Okies... I have made a home for the MiX documentation, Everything here is WIP so don't expect the world just yet:-

http://blog.global6.net/julesd/index...s/MiX_Doc.html

Mike_S... I hope you don't mind... I have pinched your post from earlier as a start line for some of the documentation...

I will be adding to this more as time goes on.

J

[Mike_S]

Originally Posted by kernond I don't think I would have ever gotten it because, intuitively, I was selecting an existing object thinking it would apply the curves to the Active Object. Anyway, I've got it going now.

You can actually run that script with a totally empty scene, and it will still create the IPO curves. Without any objects in the scene, though you won't be able to see them in the IPO editor, but you can see their names in the "data editor " (SH-F4).

The curves can then be "attached" to any object that supports the type of curve that is created, which in this case, the script is creating an (OBJECT) LocZ curve, which all of the objects in Blender support. So you can animate anything with a LocZ parameter.

Mike

[kernond]

You can also copy the resulting curve to the buffer and paste it to any channel. Well, I haven't tried them all but, it works with all the channels that I have tried. Very exciting stuff...

[julesd-g6]

Glad your over your initial reservations there Kernond... Very happy to see that you have worked out how to work the script.

And your dead right about being able to copy the data blocks. In the demo reel, I copied the balls "LocZ" curve to "ScaleX", "ScaleY" and "ScaleZ" (but i also offset them by 0.5 to make sure the ball does not completely disappear)

Actually, the discussion in this thread has lead me to understand what needs to happen next in terms of functionality as well..... Earlier i mentioned :-

Originally Posted by julesd-g6 5) Individual note importing. (it's nice to import it all at once the first time, but subsequent 'tweaks' will require the ability to just import individual elements. This will also benifit when the next point is added) 6) Object and IPO selection. (At the moment, we import into an new 'EMPTY' object that we create on the way. We only import on to 'LocZ'. What if I want to import on to say 'Energ' on a Lamp IPO? I want disco lights dammit!)

and whilst considering how to implement these parts I was starting to worry about how to do it. It sounds to me that you guys already know how to make this part intuative though....

I was worried that I'd have to write some object picking code into the menus, but seeing the way Kernond EXPECTS things to work, has lead me to both an easier way to code this and something that feels like it is a more blender native method....

I think (correct me if I am wrong) that if you are working with an individual IPO curve, (i.e. you want to import just one notes curve, or glide mode) that it should allow you to import to an new IPO curve (as it does now) OR to the currently selected objects IPO curves. So would an "EMPTY/CURRNT" toggle button with a drop down meno for which curve (such as "LocZ" or "RotX") you import to do the job? This should mean that if you currently have a 'Lamp' object selected when you run the script, you would click the 'Current Object' button, and be able to choose things like 'ColR', 'ColG' or "ColB'.

Let me know what you think guys!

Also Kernond... did you have any of the "None-editable curve" issue that was mentioned by MichaJo?

[MichaJo]

Originally Posted by kernond You can also copy the resulting curve to the buffer and paste it to any channel. Well, I haven't tried them all but, it works with all the channels that I have tried. Very exciting stuff...

That's what i described here a few days ago

Originally Posted by MichaJo I've played around with IPOs of a lamp. For that purpose i've copied the snare-ipo to the buffer and pasted it to the energy-IPO of the lamp.

Michael

[MichaJo]

I just have seen the console output of Mike_S.
Maybe my following output is an indicator for what is going wrong on my PC?
(The uneditable curves, and the fact that moving the sliders don't change anything in the shape of the IPOs)
The strange thing in the output for me is, that each message "xxxx was created" is sent twice.

Compiled with Python version 2.4.
Checking for installed Python... got it!
cyclic OBCamera
cyclic OBEmpty
***** START *****
ticksPerQuarterNote = 120 ticksPerSecond= None
track 0
track 1
track 2
track 3
track 4
track 5
track 6
1
True
Tambourine was created
Tambourine was created
LocZ was created
1
True
Bass Drum 1 was created
Bass Drum 1 was created
LocZ was created
1
True
Acoustic Snare was created
Acoustic Snare was created
LocZ was created
frame= 0.0 channel= 10 velocity = 85 pitch = 54
frame= 0.0 channel= 10 velocity = 107 pitch = 36
frame= 7.5 channel= 10 velocity = 0 pitch = 36
frame= 7.5 channel= 10 velocity = 0 pitch = 54
frame= 11.25 channel= 10 velocity = 96 pitch = 36
...
...
frame= 232.5 channel= 10 velocity = 120 pitch = 36
frame= 236.25 channel= 10 velocity = 0 pitch = 36
frame= 236.25 channel= 10 velocity = 0 pitch = 54
frame= 236.25 channel= 10 velocity = 0 pitch = 38
***** END *****



Regards

Michael

[julesd-g6]

Intresting!
I think you may have found the reason it occurs.... I gotta go work now, but I will be investigating this tonight... In fact, I will do a printout in the office and see if I can spot the reason on my tube journey home...
Thanks once again Michael... good work.

J

[MichaJo]

Hmm...okay, in the script i've added the name of the function to the print statements, just to see if it's really twice...

***** START *****
ticksPerQuarterNote = 120 ticksPerSecond= None
track 0
track 1
track 2
track 3
track 4
track 5
track 6
1
True
Tambourine GetOrCreateEmpty was created
Tambourine GetOrCreateIPO was created
LocZ GetOrCreateCurve was created
1
True
Bass Drum 1 GetOrCreateEmpty was created
Bass Drum 1 GetOrCreateIPO was created
LocZ GetOrCreateCurve was created
1
True
Acoustic Snare GetOrCreateEmpty was created
Acoustic Snare GetOrCreateIPO was created
LocZ GetOrCreateCurve was created
frame= 0.0 channel= 10 velocity = 85 pitch = 54
frame= 0.0 channel= 10 velocity = 107 pitch = 36
....

And that make it look less strange to me. I think that's how it should be..?



Regards

Michael