I am developing a multi sensory show using lights lasers and visuals. So far in this show I’ve been using madlaser to control the lasers.
I have an upcoming event at which there will be DJs before my performance and I will be running the lasers using liberation for the DJs. I then want to transition as seamlessly and quickly as possible to my show with my MadLaser controlling the lasers.
Is it safe or advisable to have Madlaser and Liberation running at the same time on a computer with both of them addressing all four ether dreams simultaneously?
They won’t ever be sending control simultaneously.
Hey! I don’t think you can assign an etherdream to 2 different programs at the same time. I imagine you would have to either unassign them in the controller assignment window, or just quit liberation to be able to reassign them in madlaser
Yeah I would say it’s risky and probably isn’t even possible.
The good news is that I’ve just implemented PONK, the Paths Over NetworK protocol made by Madmapper.
So you can pipe content in from MadMapper (and TouchDesigner) into Liberation.
The bad news is that this is implemented in an untested private build, so I’m not sure when your show is but it might not be ready in time. Happy to let you try out a Mac version though if you like - I’d love to test the PONK implementation.
Failing that, here are the issues you face :
On Windows, apps tend to conflict over the network resources used for discovery, so whichever one starts first usually ‘wins’
On Mac, you can share ports but only if they’re set up properly. I think I’m doing that correctly on Liberation in the private build, but I’m pretty sure MadLaser isn’t. This is potentially something we can fix together in future.
So you could run MadLaser and Liberation on different computers but you have to be SUPER careful. Liberation has some custom code in it that attempts to tell whether an Ether Dream is in use or not, and doesn’t connect to it. But again, MadLaser doesn’t.
If two apps connect to an Ether Dream it can crash or behave unpredictably (ED3/4 tend to crash, older ones can go wild trying to render two point streams)
So my advice would be run MadLaser to run the show. Close MadLaser. Open Liberation. Never have them both running at once.
I would love to test this with TD. I’m working on an interactive multimedia installation and have had a little trouble with the laser output from TD. I recreated some of the laser content in Liberation and have been “faking” the laser mapping portion in Capture for a previz demo. If I could pipe TD content into Liberation canvas zones via PONK, that would make my life much easier.
OK, I’d like to give it a test. I’d rather have everything set up with both programs ready for use than have to quit Liberation, open madmapper, and then check all connections a few minutes before starting my performance.