LightAct 3.3.3. was released just a few days after 3.3.2 and includes basically just one new feature. It is quite an important one, especially if you are doing projection mapping on either moving objects or/and very complex ones.
This feature is called Dynamic AutoBlend.
Dynamic AutoBlend
With LightAct 3.3.2 came support for the 3 most common tracking protocols on the market: BlackTrax, OptiTrack and PosiStageNet. And with it, came the need to be able to project to moving objects and to adapt projector blending masks in real-time.Â
As with everything in LightAct, we tried making it as simple as possible. Dynamic AutoBlend is enabled with a simple checkbox. Just 2 additional settings appear: the refresh rate and Apply change threshold. Refresh rate determines how often blend masks are recalculated. As LightAct usually runs at 60 FPS, it might be too much to recalculate blend masks on every frame. That’s why you can select if you want to refresh them every 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on frame.
You also have the option to Apply change threshold.
Minimum translation and Minimum rotation determine the minimum change of objects’ position and rotation that has to happen in order for the blend masks to be recalculated. For example, in the image above, the Refresh rate is set to Every frame, but as you can see Blend FPS is only 12. That’s because we set the Minimum rotation to 0.08 degrees.
This feature might be useful if, during a show, one object is still for almost the whole show, but moves only every now and then. In this case, you can use Min translation & rotation settings to reduce the load during the majority of the show.
