directX option

Since all content lives on an object of some sort it will always be mapped to that visible size regardeless of its' source size. I.E. a 640 x 480 image will fill the enitre 1024 x 768 raster on the default 4:3 screen object in its default position in 3-D space with the default viewpoint.

I believe the largest the server will recognize as usable is 2048 on either axis. The main thing is to keep your pixel count under 800,000 (calculate this by multipling the two axes together).

Hope this helps.:)

Don't think 1500 x 1400, think "What Works!"
Keep your content as a stock codec. When you use different sized flies, you just create more work for yourself in sizing.
Yes the PJ does 1024 x 768 but trust me when I say 640 x 480 (or technically 720 x 480 DV standard) is just fine.
If you get creative and want higher rez, just do HD although I recommend using 720p instead of 1080p unless you're going to be running content across several DL2s or Axons in an edge blended collage.
Remember... Keep it simple. Remember! This is not TV, it's digital imagery--eye candy.
If though you decide to use a high rez file (up to 2048 x 2048) then don't forget that you need to crop your files to each pj if you are doing a collage in order to simplify processing.

If you want a trick, say you want to use 4 pjs edge blended horizontally to do create an HD image, I would recommend taking a 1080p HD file and cutting it into 640x480 pieces (truncating the top and overlapping the sides). Then when you sync to the other DLs, you will be running well within the processor limits instead of taxing the performance by running high rez files that you scale and position.

If you do a 2x2 collage, then a file that is 1280x1024 is 1.3M pixels but a 720p file is 900K Pixels which is a 25% difference. 720p is still counting a high pixel count and you will notice hardware lags in image transitions and you will also see frame drops with multiple files running.

Keep simple with your media server.

Marty's info is correct.

The system operates in either 1024x1024 or 2048x2048. Once you load in content that exceed 1024x1024 it automatically switches to a 2048x2048 texture.

If you are creating content to use as a Collage then you'll want to refer to the following web page for reccommended resolutions as you'll have to create the content in non-standard formats to maintain a proper aspect ratio as it is stretched across the multiple fixtures.

www.highend.com/support/digital_lighting/dl2supportguide/Collage-generator/dl2-HD-Content-creation.asp

Pre-dicing the content as SourceChild suggests for each projector is a lot more work than is necessary with the Collage system in DL.2.

Scott is right.
The only advantage I have to dicing content is that I can run pixel to pixel files and maximize the resolution at each projector. With the Collage generator, this is not the convention but it is something I use quite frequently on Catalysts Systems I use to run multiple projectors.
Basically the DL projectors or most standard projectors have an LCD or DLP pixel count of 1024 x 768. Therefore, the highest rez a user will ever see is 1024 x 768. If I create stock content that I need to be high rez, then I design it so that after all imaging is scaled at 1:1 that my source file is the same as my output raster which is 1024 x 768.
If for example I have a design for a show that will use 6 DL2s to create a 6x1 horizontal blend region then my screen size becomes 5376 x 768 allowing for a 128 pixel overlap between projectors. So when I'm using Maya or After Effects, etc to create my custom content then I'll create it at that size of 5376 x 768 as my source file before rendering, cutting, and compressing into the six pieces that are 1024 x 768.
This was a very complex process to establish but I've already written all of my batch scripts for rendering etc for different screen scenarios that I can pump out content pretty damned fast. (render cluster)
It actually becomes more complex than this though because I try to use standard DV codecs for my Catalyst content (720 x 480) which obviously is not to the same high projector pixel resolution. I can explain this more but I am writing a book on digital imagery content creation and I'd rather just reference it once I've released.
For now though consider this...
If I create a DL2 collage table that is 4 x 4 and I make my stock content 2048 x 1536 (3:4 ratio) for each single file then when I turn on the collage generator, each DL2 shows only a sixteenth of the file and that 1/16th is at 640 x 480 but the DL2 is still rendering and processing a file that is 2048 x 1536 just zoomed to 4 times it's size.
This becomes a processor load and totally kills performance with disk seek times making one single file completely bog down the media server if it's video playback.
In my scenario of chopping content, I could theoretically create a source content file that is 4096 x 3072 and just chop it into 16 pieces that are 1024 x 768 and the processor load is less than a quarter of the larger file but at a resolution that is twice as high.
Furthermore, even if I kept my source file at 2048 x 1536 then when I manually chop it in 16 pieces, the pieces are still 640 x 480 but at one eight the size per projector at a profoundly lower processing load.
There are two alternatives. The collage generator is fast and you put one piece of content on all machines and only suffer resolution and more processor expense. chopping content on the other hand is tedious, and you end up with tons more files to load and name as well as having to deal with keeping a naming and numbering convention that works to show savings in processing resources and an increase in resolution.

Todd,

You've made my point for me. It is all about TIME. If you have the time, resources, knowledge, and tools to split the files per fixture then of course you'll be able to squeeze more performance from the units.

I think you've gotten used to doing this on Catalyst not necessarily because you got better performance as much as it was because Collage Generator wasn't an option for Cat.

Generating and Managing the seperate media files on every fixture would easily require a dedicated person to just handle that task on most shows, along with a fairly heavy infrastructure to be able to generate and respond to things onsite quickly.

The simplicity and time savings is really what makes the Collage Generator so powerful for DL.2 and Axon.

Scott

Scott, you're right. However, as long as storage is not a problem I have a convention for file options which has sped the process. As a single person, I can load content and program in less time than it takes me to explain to a separate person. Let me explain...
If I have two projectors, my naming convention is:

000 No file

001 01 A
002 01 B

003 02 A
004 02 B

005 03 A
006 03 B

007 04 A
008 04 B

009 05 A
010 05 B

011 06 A
012 06 B

013 07 A
014 07 B

015 08 A
016 08 B

017 09 A
018 09 B

019 10A
020 10B
If I have three projectors, my naming convention is:

000 No file

001 01 A
002 01 B
003 01 C

004 02 A
005 02 B
006 02 C

007 03 A
008 03 B
009 03 C

010 No file

011 04 A
012 04 B
013 04 C

014 05 A
015 05 B
016 05 C

017 06 A
018 06 B
019 06 C

020 No File

Notice the x01, x02, x03 is one file and the x11, x12, x13 is another. Basically I know there are 3 files per decade since I skip the xx0 files.
If I do a 4 projector system I do it this way:

000 No File

001 01 A
002 01 B
003 01 C
004 01 D

005 02 A
006 02 B
007 02 C
008 02 D

009 No File
010 No File

011 03 A
012 03 B
013 03 C
014 03 D

015 04 A
016 04 B
017 04 C
018 04 D

019 No File
020 No File

Basically I use the same convention where my files start out at xx1 and xx5 in each decade. Making it easy to remember.

What is wonderful about this is that when my content creators are making content, they can create the Source Files as 01, 02, 03 etc and I just use a batch to insert the A, B, C, D, etc and then another batch to number 001, 002, 003, 004, etc.

The wonderful thing about this naming convention is that if I want to do a combination of groups, I just create different content folders for each and call them something like:
100 Size reduced Source Files
101 Single File
102 Double Files
103 Triple Files
104 Quad Files

Notice I am still using the numbering convention xx1 for single file folders xx2 for double file folders ect.

and since my content creator has labeled the files as 01, 02, 03 to start with, I just batch to add a zero on the front and bam! I have my source file as a single file too.
Then I can run a batch to reduce the file size on my singles.

When all is said and done, I might end up with a six projector show having 30 custom looks and that only means about 200 files which fits on the media server.

That's a nice system that obviously works well for you. But it takes an enormous amount of time to either do all that manually and keep up with (different people think in terms of different naming schemes) or to create the system to automate it to some degree as you have done.

Even with Collage Generator there will be some times where you need to split the files, but splitting for each individual unit is painful in many ways and for most applications isn't even necessary.

Then there is loading, assigning, and modifying the content for each unit too.

I'm just saying for most applications using Collage Generator will be more than adequate and provide more time to be creative with the design itself.

[quote=SBlair]
That's a nice system that obviously works well for you. But it takes an enormous amount of time to either do all that manually and keep up with (different people think in terms of different naming schemes) or to create the system to automate it to some degree as you have done.


You're right about time. It took at least 6 months to derive a naming scheme that can be adopted as a formal convention.
Now though, when I receive source files from a content creator, it takes about 10 seconds to run the script and as much time as the cluster needs to render (what after office hours are for haha).

[quote=SBlair]
Even with Collage Generator there will be some times where you need to split the files, but splitting for each individual unit is painful in many ways and for most applications isn't even necessary.


The collage generator is absolutely the most fantastic thing I have seen. Since many times I dump stock RF content into the fixtures, this becomes my "one button" press. Granted I have already build tons of Hog Show templates for doing 1x3, 1x4, 1x5, 2x2, and 2x3 with Catalyst (and soon the same for Axon and DL2). If I walk up to a cold console then collage is the answer. Especially doing the pattern alignment which is the biggest time saver of the collage generator.
I think the alignment tools prove the brilliance of the col gen. Twenty minutes instead of an hour or two is proof of the times savings.

[quote=SBlair]
Then there is loading, assigning, and modifying the content for each unit too.


The time it takes to copy is the only delay here since there are more files to copy. Everything else in the assigning and loading is built into the batch scripts or performed already in the Hog Show Templates.

[quote=SBlair]
I'm just saying for most applications using Collage Generator will be more than adequate and provide more time to be creative with the design itself.

DL2 and Axon are limitless! The collage generator is the single greatest innovation in media server technology. We are not just using though. This is true Video IMAG industry replacement and the future of Video.

I am no longer a Set and Lighting Designer. Like us all, we are becoming the true Digital Imagist erasing the past 20 years of video stagnation with the future of Digital media.

And somewhere in the growth of the future is the need for the technical smart asses...
like me:D
to annoy the overworked forum mediators.
HAHA

:notworthy: Scott! Love ya man! :notworthy:

Thanks Todd!

Forum Administration is just one of the 2 dozen things I've got to keep me overworked ...but it's all good :)

It's always interesting when some of the customers I deal with the most see us replying to their emails at all hours of the day/night/weekend/holidays more than once they've asked us when those of us in R&D actually get to sleep.

And I thought it was us crazy eccentric high maintenance designer types that were up at 4am for no particular reason.
I guess I'll have to buy more stuff so can be the anoying customer worthy of all the love.