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Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:43 am
by bcrotaz
I've written a script that pushes ArtNet data into a Blender animation. With Blender 2.8+ and Evee rendering you can get high framerate, realistic previews with haze. Import your stage from Sketchup for fast setup without having to know much about Blender.

Currently it handles colour, zoom and pan/tilt

It needs some community work, and I'd love people to contribute:

Loading fixture definitions from qxf files
Loading lighting positions (x,y,z) from the QLC project

https://github.com/BryanCrotaz/blender-artnet

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 12:52 am
by TNasty
This is really awesome! One thing I feel QLC has been missing is a (actually free) way to vizualize a lighting rig in a space. Looking forward to what comes from this.

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 11:15 am
by bcrotaz
Upgraded it to support attaching your Blender lights to Artnet really easily

Image

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:25 am
by bcrotaz
I think Blender can do a much better job than any inbuilt QLC visualizer - by bringing free Blender models in you can check your detailed key and fill lighting on an actor or singer, preview with reflections, mirrors, shiny or matt sets etc.



Let's get together to use the Blender features to preview gobos, frosts, prisms, limited pan/tilt velocity etc. It's all possible, just needs a bit of scripting.

Then let's build a document explaining how to go from a Sketchup model of your set walls into a fully textured live preview with actors walking around etc

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 2:25 am
by TNasty
Just took the plugin for a quick spin last night, and I'm quite impressed with how reliable it seems so far. I'd certainly focus on getting the remaining channels working before building up a set of fixtures. Seems like the framework you've put together so far makes future development and additions super easy too.

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 1:03 pm
by bcrotaz
Yes I've found it to be very stable over runs of 10+ hours with about 90 fixtures.

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 10:15 pm
by bcrotaz
Added area light support (e.g. light bars)

Re: Use Blender as a live preview

Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 10:50 am
by scarffac3
Hello,
I would like to use this visualizer. I installed and activated the add-on. When i change the direction of the spot, and change the universe afterwards, then the spot-direction moves. But when i change anything in my artnet, nothing happens.

Is there any way, to set the network-adapter for listening to? I don't know where I should send the data? I tried to change the IP in the first script (artnet_socket), but it didn't help.

Thanks a lot!