Q Light Controller+

The day has come.
This day marks an important milestone of the QLC+ project: the very first preliminary version of QLC+ 5.

It all goes back to 2014, when I started thinking of a new way of designing light shows.
After many thoughts, dreams, studies, I came up in April 2015 with the "A new direction" video. The user response was good, so I kept working toward that direction.
Eleven QLC+ 4 releases later, after almost 3 years of one-man hard work, it is now time to start rolling QLC+ 5.

However, before you get too excited, this is not a production release. It's not even a complete release.
I want things to be clear since the beginning, before falling into misunderstandings, so I've done 2 things:

• added a big, annoying popup every time you open QLC+ 5

  

• tracked the development status on a public spreadsheet, where you can see the whats and whatnots

As you can see in the Statistics tab, this is a 51% complete version, so you can draw the conclusions on your own.

For now, what I am most interested into is:

• OS compatibility. It has to work on Windows (7 or higher required), macOS (10.10 or higher required) and Linux (let's say a 4 years window). Details here
• High DPI compatibility. I've tested resolutions from 1280x1024 up to 4K and it always has to look good and be usable
• touch screen and multi touch support. One of the goals of QLC+ 5 is to run on Android and iOS too, so the whole UI must be usable without a mouse
• multi screen support. All the QLC+ 5 contexts (main tabs, sub-tabs, VC pages) can be detached with a mouse right click to a separate window and when you move them to another screen, they should adapt to the DPI they find. If you see anything wrong or contexts don't stay in sync, please report
• 3D compatibility. This is a tricky one, cause the Qt3D module is still pretty young and the Qt company is working hard on improving the performances. So if you see a high CPU usage, it's not a QLC+ fault, but most likely it will improve in time. For now, let's say the requirement is an OpenGL 4.0 capable graphics card. The more recent, the better. nVidia and AMD cards should work fine. Intel cards probably will not, even though the Intel Iris card I've got on my Mac Mini seems to do the job
• overall usability of the UI. It has to be consistent and you should never find awkward situations or uncomfortable ones. For obvious reasons there is no user manual at this stage but the goal is to not be needing one. The workflow should be intuitive, so you are invited to try actions that you believe are the most efficient for you. If something is not there, kindly report it
• project design workflow. One of the goals of the QLC+ 5 mission is that project design should take half of the time you spent on QLC+ 4. I've implemented as many shortcuts as I could. If you think some other would help improving the design speed, please report and let's discuss it.

Alright, now that you have read all the above, please go to the download page and grab the beast !

Sparse notes:
- Linux users, to run the AppImage bundle, just make it executable and run it
- Windows users: DO NOT install QLC+ 5 in the same folder of QLC+ 4 (C:\QLC+). Choose another folder.
- Windows users, if you see this, please report, even though I haven't seen it for a while now

P.S. I'll create new forum areas for QLC+ 5, not to confuse the discussions with QLC+ 4.

Hi,thanks for the alpha release. However, when I install it and start the program only get a white window... (Windows 10 64bit)

[edit] thanks for the new windows install file. It now works.

Jochem77 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 4:50 pm Hi,thanks for the alpha release. However, when I install it and start the program only get a white window... (Windows 10 64bit)

Ouch ! That means something is missing in the Windows package. I'll upload a new one shortly.

[EDIT] new Windows package uploaded. Now it should open correctly.

Since there are no specific forums yet, I post this here:

Changing from the 3D view back to any other view (also directly after starting up) lets QLC+ crash for me. Running the AppImage version on 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04.

floEdelmann wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 5:19 pm Since there are no specific forums yet, I post this here:
Changing from the 3D view back to any other view (also directly after starting up) lets QLC+ crash for me. Running the AppImage version on 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04.

Guys, please let's not start with incomplete reports. You're reporting a 3D issue. Would you care to state the graphics card and drivers you're using ?
Let me guess: Intel card with Mesa drivers. That's the worst case possible and there's nothing I can do for those crashes.

Wow! Looks amazing Massimo! Thank you for dedicating so much time to this! I can't wait to see it develop further!

For Linux, will this overwrite/upgrade on top of QLC+4? Or will it install as a new application and both will run together? I guess this can be posed for Windows and OSX as well.

Thank you for all your hard work,


--Dan

manfacro wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:12 pm For Linux, will this overwrite/upgrade on top of QLC+4? Or will it install as a new application and both will run together? I guess this can be posed for Windows and OSX as well.
Thank you for all your hard work,
--Dan

In this case, the Linux version is a self-contained bundle, so no, it will not overwrite your existing QLC+ 4 installation.
However, it will work on the same configuration files of QLC+ 4 (.config and .qlcplus) for backward compatibility

Thank you

Hi Massimo,
I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the QLC+ 5 Alpha but it doesn't even start:

kripton@momo ~/dmx $ ./QLC+_5.0.0_alpha1-x86_64.AppImage
qlcplus-qml: symbol lookup error: qlcplus-qml: undefined symbol: _ZN17MonitorProperties16staticMetaObjectE

Looks like you forgot to upload the source code to somewhere so that users can build the thing themselves

And I tried posting this as a new Topic in the "QLC+ 5 Issues" but the board tells me that I'm not allowed to post there

kripton wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:56 pm I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the QLC+ 5 Alpha but it doesn't even start:

kripton@momo ~/dmx $ ./QLC+_5.0.0_alpha1-x86_64.AppImage
qlcplus-qml: symbol lookup error: qlcplus-qml: undefined symbol: _ZN17MonitorProperties16staticMetaObjectE

Again, information missing. Which Linux distro ??

kripton wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:56 pm Looks like you forgot to upload the source code to somewhere so that users can build the thing themselves

Sources are on GitHub since the beginning. Tags/releases are here: https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/releases
Please search before blaming.

kripton wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:56 pm And I tried posting this as a new Topic in the "QLC+ 5 Issues" but the board tells me that I'm not allowed to post there

Ok, I'll fix the permissions later.

mcallegari wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 3:55 pm

manfacro wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:12 pm For Linux, will this overwrite/upgrade on top of QLC+4? Or will it install as a new application and both will run together? I guess this can be posed for Windows and OSX as well.
Thank you for all your hard work,
--Dan

In this case, the Linux version is a self-contained bundle, so no, it will not overwrite your existing QLC+ 4 installation.
However, it will work on the same configuration files of QLC+ 4 (.config and .qlcplus) for backward compatibility

Hi Massimo, what about Windows and OSX, we can do the same or do you suggest another procedure to maintain both release on the same PC?
Thank you!

kikko wrote: ↑Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:26 am

mcallegari wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 3:55 pm

manfacro wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:12 pm For Linux, will this overwrite/upgrade on top of QLC+4? Or will it install as a new application and both will run together? I guess this can be posed for Windows and OSX as well.
Thank you for all your hard work,
--Dan

In this case, the Linux version is a self-contained bundle, so no, it will not overwrite your existing QLC+ 4 installation.
However, it will work on the same configuration files of QLC+ 4 (.config and .qlcplus) for backward compatibility

Hi Massimo, what about Windows and OSX, we can do the same or do you suggest another procedure to maintain both release on the same PC?
Thank you!

macOS is self contained as well.
Windows, just select a different installation folder.
Again, custom fixtures, profiles etc, will be picked up from the same place. Configuration too, even though QLC+ 5 has not much to write there at the moment.

hey
Windows 7 opens in black background can be changed?

mcallegari wrote: ↑Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:55 am Again, information missing. Which Linux distro ??

You're right, that was missing, my fault.
It's Gentoo Linux with Qt 5.9.4.

mcallegari wrote: ↑Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:55 am Sources are on GitHub since the beginning. Tags/releases are here: https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/releases
Please search before blaming.

Wow, totally my fault sorry. I didn't expect this to be on master but on a separate branch or repository. I totally missed that :-/
I didn't mean to blame, it just went completely under my radar ...
I'll try to build it from source and tell you how it went

mcallegari wrote: ↑Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:55 am Ok, I'll fix the permissions later.

Thanks

Looking forward to have QLC+ 5 running here

Hi Massimo,

I just want to say thanks for all your great work. The first look is amazing, I am really looking forward to the finished show manager. As soon as the music track feature is working, I will try the hell out of it .
Keep up your amazing work.
Kind regards,
Gerhard

What an exciting update! I'm eager to finally play around with v5 even if it's only in an alpha environment.

The work you put into this software is nothing short of superhuman, and I can't wait for the full release! I can't remember if I had already donated to the project, so I'm going to do so again. This is an amazing piece of software that I hope continues to mature well into the future.

mcallegari wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 6:00 pmLet me guess: Intel card with Mesa drivers. That's the worst case possible and there's nothing I can do for those crashes.

The worst case, if you just have the three big GPU-manufactures in mind, I guess...
Well, that could be really sad for most linux users out there, as most of the laptops running with linux have a intel GPU inside.
At least I am using QLC+ on 4 different laptops (Dell Inspiron Mini, Thinkpad R60, Thinkpad R61, Thinkpad T410), all intel GPU.

Is it because of the lack of OpenGL 4 on those GPUs or is the driver that bad?

Besides this: I was blown away as I saw the latest video previews! Most things I never even dare to dream about seem to be realized in QLC+5. Amazing, really! I just keep my fingers crossed that I don't need an hardware upgrade to use it...

Greets!

mitscherdinger wrote: ↑Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:27 pm

mcallegari wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 6:00 pmLet me guess: Intel card with Mesa drivers. That's the worst case possible and there's nothing I can do for those crashes.

Is it because of the lack of OpenGL 4 on those GPUs or is the driver that bad?

Please let me elaborate my previous statement with a technical explanation.
I am perfectly aware that Intel cards are probably the most adopted on the market, for the simple reason that Intel invented themselves as "GPU" expert...like yesterday...and they could count on millions of CPU sold.
However, Intel cards are fine for 2D graphics (e.g. moving a window around) but not quite when it comes to 3D. If you have ever tried to play a videogame on Intel, you would have noticed it sucks.
On top of this, there is the terrible Linux situation when it comes to graphics drivers. Each one of the 3 big (Intel, nVidia and AMD) has a proprietary/close source driver and an open source integration in Mesa. In the last year AMD aligned the open source performance to the close source one, which is pretty awesome. nVidia on the other hand sucks on the open source side, cause they don't want to provide signed firmware blobs necessary to reclock the GPU and gain performances. The close source driver instead works like a charm.
And now Intel... In the last 2 years they worked hard to lift their poor GPU chipsets to OpenGL 4.x compliance, but as I said, it's not the area where they shine. Open source drivers kinda work now (obviously on a recent distro) and I'm eager to see how Ubunutu 18.04 will behave with Mesa 18.
While their latest GPUs can be good (coffee lake and later), I don't expect anything good to come from the old ones, which right now is 95% of the market.

Given all the above, there's one more contrain which is a consequence of the early adoption of Qt3D. When I evaluated how I could realize a lighting simulation pipeline, I had 2 choices: forward or deferred rendering techinques. The latter is typically used by videogames.
I had to opt for deferred rendering, since there's a 8 lights limitation in Qt3D that I couldn't workaround. The Qt3D guys are talking to remove this limit NOW, but when I implemented the 3D preview (August 2017) this was not an option.

And in any case -personal opinion-, to do proper 3D, you need a proper 3D graphics card, not one designed to play Angry Birds. You don't do Blender or Maya on an Intel card.

In conclusion, the combination of Linux + Intel + Mesa has probably the smallest QLC+ user base. You all know I am a big Linux fan, but in this case Linux sucks.
Maybe, but only maybe, the crashy situation on Intel will improve in time, but since those crashes happen in Qt3D and/or Mesa, this whole thing doesn't depend on me.
What I can do is open a ticket to the Qt3D guys, meaning I have to write the necessary code for them to reproduce the crash (and no, they won't build QLC+ 5). At the moment this is not one of my priorities.

I hope this clear things out a bit.

it's not a technical answer but just sadness, unfortunately I've an intel card and it doesn't stop me to draw something with blender when I need it.