A log of all of the changes and improvements to Lightform Creator and device Firmware

2.4.1

Released in October 2022

The final Creator release does the following:

• Disables user feedback/crash reporting functionality.
• Disables IFTTT functionality.
• Disables Lightform cloud / account functionality. The login screen and the ability to connect to a remote cloud device have been removed.

• Disables stock assets functionality. 
  • Stock assets that have already been downloaded and archived can continue to be used. In this case, there will still be a "Stock Assets" page in the Asset Browser. The built-in Lightform effects & generators will still remain in the built-in asset library.  
  • Once the user removes all the stock assets that page will be hidden.
  • If a user loads an old Lightform Creator project that contains missing stock assets, there is no way to recover them. 

 

2.2.12

Released on December 6th, 2021

 

🌟 Firmware Changes 

• The LF2/LF2+ has a new firmware update (2.4.1)
  • The LF2/LF2+ will now power down completely when you press the power button on the back of the device. 
  • The remote functionality has also been changed to optimize for powering down the LF2/LF2+. Press your remote power button once for the projection menu, and then once more to turn off your LF2/LF2+ completely. 
  • To go into standby mode (turn off the bulb, not the device), select the new options on the control page:

 

⚡️ Improvements

• The Control page device settings panel (the left panel) is now resizable.
• There are new audio reactivity features on the Control page.
  • Added the ability to toggle Live Parameter control between OSC and Audio
    • When Audio is selected, the live parameter will be changed by the selected audio reactive signal

• New Effects
  • Breath
    • Breathing scan edges
  • Dot Matrix
    • Grid of dots that resizes based on the disparity, with configurable pulses
  • Pie Chart
    • Choose how many segments and the relative values. Useful as a live effect with OSC control for an interactive experience.
  • Pulse
    • Edge highlights with a centering control
  • Scorch
    • Fire effect that burns away from the scan edges
  • Slice
    • Animated slicing of the scan image along configurable cut lines
  • Split
    • Animated cutting and splitting apart of the scan image along configurable cut lines
  • Surface Highlight
    • Three color highlights animate along the scan surface

🐜 Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue on Windows that could cause a crash when using many assets in different folders.
• Fixed an issue on the control page OSC list's dropdown buttons not expanding/collapsing items.
• Fixed rare issue with application running slow, even without a project loaded.

2.2.6

Released on July 23, 2021

🌟 Important Changes for 2.2.x

• macOS 10.14 is now the minimum supported macOS version.
  • Apple discontinued support for macOS 10.13 at the end of 2020. 
  • We recommend upgrading all the way to macOS 11 if possible.
  • If you need to continue using macOS 10.13, you must use the previous 2.1 release of Lightform Creator (version 2.1.17).

• Restored the "Fit Accuracy" slider in the pixel tools. It's now labeled "Accuracy". This is displayed with other settings during the final phase of creating a surface with any of the pixel tools.
  
• Modified the pixel tools feedback message to include more information about the path and point counts.

• Fixed an issue where sometimes going to the Control page's "Manual Alignment" tab would reset the alignment points.
• Fixed an issue where exiting the scan dialog could leave the camera stream running in the background.

2.2.5

Released on July 8, 2021

🌟 Important Changes for 2.2.x

• macOS 10.14 is now the minimum supported macOS version.
  • Apple discontinued support for macOS 10.13 at the end of 2020. 
  • We recommend upgrading all the way to macOS 11 if possible.
  • If you need to continue using macOS 10.13, you must use the previous 2.1 release of Lightform Creator (version 2.1.17).

• Changed the path limit in the pixel tools to be a recommendation, instead of a requirement. The "Done" button is now always enabled, and the information message has been changed to be a warning instead of an error.
• Various improvements to the "Check Project" dialog.
  • This dialog is now accessible in the "Labs" menu. It was previously in the "Edit" menu.
  • Added checking for missing asset files (images, videos, effects).
  • Removed "Repair Project" button.
• Added "GPU Memory Window" dialog, accessible in the "Labs" menu. This dialog displays graphics-related memory usage.

• Fixed point insertion on surfaces with multiple paths. It was only working on the first path. This feature is accessible with the "Edit" tool active and a surface selected. When hovering over an edge, press and hold the appropriate key combination to be able to insert a point (Windows: Ctrl+Shift, macOS: Command+Shift).

• Closing the Asset Browser panel no longer causes a toolbar tool change. Previously it would change to the the "Move" tool, which was confusing.

• Fixed rare issue with some content elements not being loaded properly. This was causing application instability/crashes when it occurred. 

2.2.3

Released on July 1, 2021

🌟 Important Changes for 2.2.x

• macOS 10.14 is now the minimum supported macOS version.
  • Apple discontinued support for macOS 10.13 at the end of 2020. 
  • We recommend upgrading all the way to macOS 11 if possible.
  • If you need to continue using macOS 10.13, you must use the previous 2.1 release of Lightform Creator (version 2.1.17).

• This release is focused on bug fixes and improvements.
• On the Control page, added a Refresh button to the Slides and OSC panels. Press this button if some project controls, such as the live parameters for a slide, appear to be missing.
  
• General design page improvements.
  • Properties panel and Notifications panel are now resizable. To resize, just hover over the edge, then click and drag.
  • Asset Browser now stays open in more situations. It will close when switching to complex tools like the pen, and pixel-based tools, but otherwise it will stay open.
  • Revised Unsaved Changes dialog to allow you to save project changes before closing a project.
    
  • Added a storage warning to Notifications panel. It currently checks whether there is at least 1GB of free space on the storage device where the system's application temporary folder is located.
  • Preview streaming now continues to run when switching from the Design Page to the Control Page.
• Various improvements related to creation and handling of surfaces.
  
  • The pixel tools now display how many paths will be in the created surface. If the number is too high, you will be guided toward cleaning up your mask before continuing.
    
    
  • Removed the "tolerance" slider from the pixel tools. 
  • A surface's Paths list in properties panel now has a count. The following screenshot shows there is "1 Path" in the surface.
    
  • Added a Check Project dialog to the Edit menu. This checks the active project for surfaces that either contain too many paths, or too many points, and gives you the option to delete them. This helps to deal with previously created projects that have surfaces that contain too many paths.
    
• Many features that were previously available with the Labs feature enabled, are now always available. 

• Fixed an issue where the Preview would freeze and no frames would be sent to the device.
• Fixed a crash that could happen when using the Pen tool while Preview is enabled.
• Fixed an issue where using shift (constraint) with ellipses didn't work properly.
• Fixed a crash when attempting to use NDI streaming without "Video Stream" enabled.
• Fixed issue with X/Y/Width/Height in the surface's properties panel not behaving correctly, either when dragging their values or using undo/redo.
• Fixed issue with Windows file watching causing an application crash. This was originally encountered when using many downloaded stock videos. 
• Removed transparent videos from Stock Assets catalog search results. This resolves issues with Lightform Creator not being able to handle some platform-specific video formats.

2.1.17

Released on April 23, 2021

Firmwares

• LF2/LF2+: 2.1.22
  • Additional LF2/LF2+ remote functionality
    • +/- buttons now control volume (no longer focus).
    • Direction pad up/down now controls focus.
    • Direction pad left/right now controls previous/next slide (when project is playing).
    • Back button pressed one time now toggles between playback and testcard.
  • Fix for device playback sometimes flickering and then control briefly being lost in Creator. 
• LFC: 2.1.22
  • Fix for device playback sometimes flickering and then control briefly being lost in Creator.
• LF1: Unchanged

🌟 What's New? 

• New project type (Labs Feature)
  A new project type called 'Auto-Aligned Object' makes it easy to create a project based on a single 2D/flat object. The project type is selectable when creating a new project. More information about this new project type can be found here.
• Merge/split surfaces - Allows surfaces to be merged and split. This makes it easy to compose surfaces from separately created paths, which can then have effects applied to a set of complex paths in the surface all at once. Read more here.
• Paths in a surface now have selectable boolean operations - This makes it easy to combine paths in flexible ways, such as subtracting one path from another. Pro-tip: When merging surfaces, keep track of each path by selecting "Auto-Name Paths" to have the path name reflect the surface name. Read more about these operations here.                                    
  
• Per-surface audio reactivity - It's now possible to disable audio-reactivity by surface within a slide.  Previously, all surfaces would be audio reactive. 
• New Publish Types in Publish Button drop down - There are more options for publishing your project. In addition to the typical "Publish", projects can be published in two stages: to a local folder (the render portion) and from a local folder (the upload portion). This is useful if the project being published is large, and the network connection is somewhat unstable. This also makes it possible to publish a previously published project without having access to the original Lightform Creator project files. Read more about this on the Publishing Workflow page.
• Thumbnails for imported video files - The asset browser now shows thumbnails for imported video files (in the "Project Assets" panel). If the videos already have a custom thumbnail image file, that is still used.
  
• Manual alignment - On the control page, you can now manually adjust the four corners of the projection boundary. This is useful for making small adjustments to a deployed project on the Lightform device. Read more about this here.
• New Generator - Audio Bars - Turn on the "Use Simulated Audio" setting, or make this effect "live".
  
• Added fade in/out durations - You can now set a length of time to apply your fade in or fade outs between slides.
  
• New Audio Reactivity Filters (on the Control page)
  
  • Gain Filters
    • Pixelate
    • Ripple
    • Glitch
  • Speed Filters
    • Kaleidoscope 
• OSC Controls for Audio Reactivity
  • TouchOSC layout
    • Read more here.

⚡️ Improvements

• Notifications panel - The notifications panel now incorporates application alerts for things such as application updates, low memory (at startup), NVidia GPU warning (on macOS). Project notifications now have headings.
• Reduced project file size - Optimized project file format - new project files are now up to 75% smaller than before.
• Improved OSC controls
  • All effect parameter types can now be modified through OSC
  • Use /norm to change parameters using the rand [0.0-1.0]
  • Use /1, /2, /3, or /4 to change specific components of color/vector parameters
• Computers will now stay awake when publishing/uploading large projects.
• Simplified tooltips in the surface layers panel.
• Added a keyboard shortcut to the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' menu item, which displays the keyboard shortcuts window. Note - this list is not all inclusive. Please refer to the Keyboard Shortcuts article for more shortcuts. 
• Added a keyboard shortcut (Windows: Ctrl+Shift+B, macOS: Command+Shift+B) to the 'Submit Bug Report' menu item, which displays the bug report window.

• Fix for device playback sometimes flickering and then control briefly being lost in Creator.
• Fixed Creator crash that could occur when changing the active device, if the current device is offline.
• Fixed an issue causing LF2 devices to sometimes report as offline in Creator when they are in fact online.

2.1.15

Released on April 15, 2021

Firmwares

• Unchanged

• Changed the behavior of the design page's 'Delete' item in the context menu with a selected surface. If any points are selected, those are removed. Otherwise, the entire surface is removed. Previously the entire surface was always removed when using the context menu.

• Fixed an issue that caused undo not to work when adding a surface point. 
• Fixed issue that caused the surface properties panel to crash in some scenarios related to entering abnormally large sizes. Implemented fix by unifying x/y/width/height limits between surface and content properties.
• Fixed minor issue with restored auto-save file not flagging the project as "changed", which resulted in a "*" not be displayed next to the project name in the application's title bar, and the user not being alerted to losing their changes if immediately closing the project.

2.1.14 

Released on March 31, 2021

• LF2/LF2+: 2.1.19
  • Additional LF2/LF2+ remote functionality - Use the power button to open up the projector menu. Use the back button to go back. From here you can now switch your input, turn off the LF2, and control the volume. This allows you to adjust the sound without interfering with the focus.
• LFC: 2.1.19
• LF1: 2.8.2

🌟 What's New?

• New project type (Labs Feature)
  A new project type called 'Auto-Aligned Object' makes it easy to create a project based on a single 2D/flat object. The project type is selectable when creating a new project. More information about this new project type can be found here.
• Merge/split surfaces - Allows surfaces to be merged and split. This makes it easy to compose surfaces from separately created paths, which can then have effects applied to a set of complex paths in the surface all at once. Read more here.
• Paths in a surface now have selectable boolean operations - This makes it easy to combine paths in flexible ways, such as subtracting one path from another. Pro-tip: When merging surfaces, keep track of each path by selecting "Auto-Name Paths" to have the path name reflect the surface name. Read more about these operations here.                                    
  
• Per-surface audio reactivity - It's now possible to disable audio-reactivity by surface within a slide.  Previously, all surfaces would be audio reactive. 
• New Publish Types in Publish Button drop down - There are more options for publishing your project. In addition to the typical "Publish", projects can be published in two stages: to a local folder (the render portion) and from a local folder (the upload portion). This is useful if the project being published is large, and the network connection is somewhat unstable. This also makes it possible to publish a previously published project without having access to the original Lightform Creator project files. Read more about this on the Publishing Workflow page.
• Thumbnails for imported video files - The asset browser now shows thumbnails for imported video files (in the "Project Assets" panel). If the videos already have a custom thumbnail image file, that is still used.
  
• Manual alignment - On the control page, you can now manually adjust the four corners of the projection boundary. This is useful for making small adjustments to a deployed project on the Lightform device. Read more about this here.
• New Generator - Audio Bars - Turn on the "Use Simulated Audio" setting, or make this effect "live".
  
• Added fade in/out durations - You can now set a length of time to apply your fade in or fade outs between slides.
  
• New Audio Reactivity Filters (on the Control page)
  
  • Gain Filters
    • Pixelate
    • Ripple
    • Glitch
  • Speed Filters
    • Kaleidoscope 
• OSC Controls for Audio Reactivity
  • TouchOSC layout
    • Read more here.

⚡️ Improvements

• Notifications panel - The notifications panel now incorporates application alerts for things such as application updates, low memory (at startup), NVidia GPU warning (on macOS). Project notifications now have headings.
• Reduced project file size - Optimized project file format - new project files are now up to 75% smaller than before.
• Improved OSC controls
  • All effect parameter types can now be modified through OSC
  • Use /norm to change parameters using the rand [0.0-1.0]
  • Use /1, /2, /3, or /4 to change specific components of color/vector parameters
• Computers will now stay awake when publishing/uploading large projects.
• Simplified tooltips in the surface layers panel.
• Added a keyboard shortcut to the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' menu item, which displays the keyboard shortcuts window. Note - this list is not all inclusive. Please refer to the Keyboard Shortcuts article for more shortcuts. 
• Added a keyboard shortcut (Windows: Ctrl+Shift+B, macOS: Command+Shift+B) to the 'Submit Bug Report' menu item, which displays the bug report window.

🐜  Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that introduced a slight jitter in published videos that were created with video content in them.
• The camera stream window for a device now stays open when switching from the Control page to the Design page. The way it floats over the main window has also been improved. well.
• Fixed an issue that was causing live effects to sometimes influence the structure of a surface upon publishing. 

✨ Other

• Fixed an issue with custom ISF "bool" not being supported. Previously you had to type "boolean" and now both are supported.
• Removed paths +/- buttons and "Invert Mask" button. This functionality can be replicated using the new "Merge Surfaces" feature which utilizes boolean operations.
• Added a clickable link to the guide's "About Scan Settings" page in the scan dialog.
• Removed the status bar and the popup windows/controls associated with it. The functionality in these popups has been moved to various file menu drop downs.
• Some features that were in Labs are now public (you no longer need to enable labs). 
  • Turn projector on and turn projector off buttons on the control page for LF2/LF2+. 
  • Surface properties panel paths list. 
  • The "Add Static IP" text box is now public on the device selection dialog. Useful for some network configurations.

2.0.6

Released on January 19, 2021

🌟 What's New?

• Audio Reactivity
  
  Creator now has the capability to apply audio-reactive filters to your published project based on the incoming audio signal. To use these features, you will need to follow the prompts within Lightform Creator to update your device firmware.
  • LFC: 1.10.6
  • LF2/LF2+: 0.10.6

The following articles go into detail about how it works and navigating the new interface:

• • Audio Reactivity Overview
  • Audio Reactivity Settings

⚡️ Improvements

• Perspective Warp
  The Structure tool is now Perspective Warp.
  • The Perspective Warp keyboard shortcut is the I key. 
  • "Perspective" utilities have been added to the Asset layer's Properties.
    • Fit to Surface - Automatically adjusts the content's perspective to match the Surface's dimensions when clicked. It is only enabled if the Surface contains 4 points.
  • "Perspective" utilities have been added to the Surface layer's Properties.
    • Auto Fit New Content - When enabled, automatically perspective warps newly added content to the surface. It does not affect content that has already been added.
• Control Page
  OSC and Audio Reactivity windows are now embedded into the Control Page on separate tabs.
• Shortcut Keys while using Pixel Tools
  Changed the increment/decrement amount for the shortcut keys associated with the pixel input modes. It's a bit faster now.

---

1.12.6

Released on December 9, 2020

🌟 What's New?

• New Effect
  Clock generator

⚡️ Improvements

• The Pairing UI has been redesigned to be more visual with new images, updated descriptions, and external links.
  
• 'Motion Backgrounds' category has been added to the Stock Assets (Storyblocks) catalog search. This adds even more videos to the results.
• Improved application startup time.
• The application will now keep the monitor/display on while publishing and when the streaming Preview is enabled.

🐜  Bug Fixes

• Various stability improvements.

---

1.11.13

Released on November 16, 2020

🌟 What's New?

• Stock Assets
  A third tab has been added to the Asset Browser that enables access to an online library of thousands of video and animation assets that can be browsed and downloaded to include in Lightform projects. Read more about Stock Assets here.
  
  
• New Effect
  Transition Fade - check out potential ways to use it here
• New Built-In Video
  Reveal
• New Test Card
  The device status color scheme and text have been updated and the test card has been redesigned.
  
  
  
  
  If there are any pairing or playback errors, they will be displayed on the test card.
  

⚡️ Improvements

• New Scan Settings
  We've added more settings to improve scanning. Read more about the new Scan Settings here.
  
  
  
  New Settings:
  • Noise Reduction (LFC/LF2 only): Added a checkbox to apply additional noise reduction to scans.
  • Smoothing (LFC/LF2 only): Added a checkbox to apply additional smoothing to scans.
  • Focus (LF2 only): You can now directly adjust the focus of an LF2 from within the scan dialog
• Scan Panel
  The scan panel has been removed from the bottom-left corner of Creator.
  
  
  
  You can see scan properties and take a new scan by:
  • going to the Edit > New Scan or Edit > Scan Properties
  • or by clicking in an empty area of the artboard.
• Magic Wand Improvements
  
  
  
  
  • Improved Magic Wand selection algorithm.
  • Alt+Click to toggle between add and subtract mode on Mac and Ctrl+Click on Windows.
  • Modify Edge: Added options for expanding/shrinking the rasterized surface geometry.
  • Fit Accuracy: It is now represented as a percentage
    
    
• Magic Brush replaces Quick Select
  
  
  
  
  • A new pixel-based tool, Magic Brush has replaced Quick Select. It works similarly to Magic Wand but can be used to paint with and the brush size is adjustable.
  • Modify Edge: Added options for expanding/shrinking the rasterized surface geometry.
  • Fit Accuracy: It is now represented as a percentage
• Duplicate Asset layers
  Asset layers (effects, generators, videos & images) with their properties can be duplicated to the same, next, or all slides. Right-click the layer and select where you want to duplicate it to.
  
  
  
  
• Slide Thumbnail redesign
  Restyled the slide thumbnails to display duration. There's also now an option to set the looping behavior with a hover button.
  
  
  
  
• Preview Preferences
  Added "NDI output enabled" setting to application preferences dialog. When disabled, streaming falls back to a JPEG sequence, which works better on some computers and networks.
  
  
• No Devices Found page
  This page has been redesigned to add more relevant links and clearer instructions for users.
• 
•  

🐜  Bug Fixes

• Changed naming behavior of asset layers created from user imported files, avoiding unexpected behavior when the file name ends with numbers.
• Canceling out of rasterization mode now takes the user back to editing mode, instead of canceling out of the entire mode.

✨  Other

• Opening project progress bar
  When opening a project a progress bar is displayed.
• Hovering on slides
  Hovering over slides in the Control Page highlights the slide row.
• Surface outline
  Hiding a surface now hides its outline in the artboard.
• Analytics & crash reports
  Crash reports are now auto-submitted if the user has opted into analytics.

🧪  Labs

• Yellow line
  When Labs features are enabled, there's now a permanent horizontal yellow line at the top of the Creator window

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1.10.19

Released on August 21, 2020

⚡️ Improvements

• Fixed various issues reported by users
  • Fix for Wi-Fi pairing issues that could occur on devices with factory firmware.
  • Fix for publishing hang that could occasionally occur while streaming is enabled.
  • Fix for stability issues that could occasionally occur when inserting a new effect into your project.
  • Fix for stability issue that could occasionally occur when using the color picker dialog on macOS. 

1.10.17

Released on August 17, 2020

🌟 What's New?

• New Effect + Generator Assets + file types!
  • We have 5 new assets in this release-
    •  Effects: Night Vision + Old Movie
    •  Generators: Plasma + Tiles + Transition Wipes
      
      
  • .mkv files are supported
  • Transparent GIFs are supported
• Create a New Project on Startup
  Creator will now prompt you to name and choose a location for every new project. Associated project files like scan data are located in this directory and easy to find. Please note — A temporary project file will not be created.

⚡️ Improvements

• Scanning
  We've added new scan features to the scan dialog!
  
  
  
  
  • Full Scan: This is the recommended scan option when starting a new project.
  • Quick Scan: A combination of the previous scan and a new scan.
  • Download Previous Scan: If the Lightform device and scene have not changed since your last scan, this will import the previous scan so you can avoid taking a new scan.
  • Scan Masks
    • Camera Mask: Gives you the option to define the region to scan by drawing a rectangle
      
      
      
      
    • Surface Mask: Gives you the option to create regions to scan based on the Surfaces in your project
  • Simplified Project Archive Process
    Now you can choose where to archive your project and have it generate a ZIP file of the archive automatically. Our support team will often ask for a compressed or .zip folder of your archived project for troubleshooting scanning and various other issues. Now it is much simpler to get that over to us.
    
    
• • Improved Project Rendering
    • We've greatly improved the performance of project publishing and rendering. Projects will now render much faster.
    • We've also improved Creator's video decoding performance. Due to the improvements, we've removed the following settings from the Preferences dialog.
      • ”Video Frame Memory Cache Size”
      • ”Video Playback Maximum Frame Skip”
  • Stream, also known as, Preview
    We've renamed the Streaming feature to Preview and moved the Stream Preview settings to the Preferences dialog. You can access them by clicking the drop-down arrow.
    
    
• • Device Selection Dialog Improvements
    • You can now search for your devices by name
    • Devices are listed alphabetically
      • If a device was previously connected, it is automatically selected in the list
        
        
        
        
  • Bug Reports
    The Bug Report dialog is now populated with some default text to help users better describe their issue and a checkbox to submit scans for LF2 and LFC devices.
  • "Loop Count" has replaced "Loop Frequency"
    The "Loop Frequency" parameter of Effect and Generator assets has been replaced with a "Loop Count" parameter, making it easier to set how often an effect loops within a slide.

🐜  Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue on Windows, which caused some projects files that contained spaces in the title not to load when double-clicking the File Explorer
• Fixed an issue causing some LF2 scan images to come back with as corrupt
• Fixed an issue causing Creator to crash when undo is used while using the 'Edit' tool
• Fixed issue with deleting a surface
• Fixed issue with performing an undo after creating a Surface and then adding content
• Fixed issue with error messages appearing in the Notifications Panel after performing a scan about a scanned image not loading correctly
• Fixed an issue that allowed a user to quit the application while a project is publishing. Now, if a project is publishing, the user will be informed that they much first cancel the publish before exiting
• Fixed an issue with publishing large projects

✨  Other

• Asset Browser
  Closing the asset browser will now clear and reset search results.
• Disallowed Characters
  / and \ are now no longer allowed in naming surfaces, assets, and slides in the UI.
• Negative Content Scaling
  It's no longer possible to create content on a negative scale. It will stop scaling when it hits 0%.
• "No Active Project"
  The Design page will now display "No active project" if there is no active project.
• Publish without Scan
  Added the ability to publish a project even if it doesn't have a scanned image. It is helpful for prototyping/testing or if you create a project without mapping your output.

🧪  Labs

• Remotely Control your Device
  With Labs enabled, you can now remotely access 'Cloud Devices.' This type of device is connected to the Internet on a different network (such as an office in a different city) but registered to your Lightform Cloud user account. It can be used similarly to a "Local" device to scan and publish content. Your registered devices will appear in the new 'Cloud Devices' section of the Device Selection screen.
  
  
  
  
  • You can register a new device by clicking on the new "Register Device on Lightform.com" link within Creator. It will redirect you to log in to your Lightform Account. Please note — you cannot register a device using an unsupported browser. We do not currently support Safari or Internet Explorer. Please register your device from a supported browser like Firefox or Chrome.
• Scan fps
  We've added a new frames-per-second display in the scan dialog. This will allow users to monitor the performance of scanning and for our support team to troubleshoot issues better.
• NDI for LFC Kit
  You can select an NDI streaming source as an input to the Lightform device, instead of using a published Lightform Creator project. It only applies to Local (not Cloud) devices. This control is on the left panel of the Control page. By default, the published project is used (not NDI streaming).
• Effect Editor
  You can use the built-in Effect Editor as a starting point for writing your custom shader-based effects.

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1.9.12

Released on March 20th, 2020 

What's New?

• Your project will now autosave!

  • After 30 seconds of inactivity, Creator will autosave the project to a .autosave file. If for some reason the application terminates (due to a crash, power outage, etc.), that file is left in place. Upon loading the project the next time, if the ".autosave" file exists it will be loaded instead of the main project file. A notification will also be presented informing you that the autosaved project was used.

• Improved pairing workflow

  • The pairing process is now more guided and requires you to first select the type of device you are pairing.
    

• New notifications panel

  • Added a 'Notifications' panel, which slides out from the left side of the screen. It presents warnings and error messages associated with your project, such as when you import duplicate asset files, or load a project file that has missing asset files. It can also be displayed by clicking the View→Notifications menu item while on the Design page. This panel incorporates messages that used to appear as temporary popup messages in the lower right corner of the Design page.

    

• You can now drag and drop a folder of assets (from your local file system) into the "Project Assets" panel of the Asset Browser. All supported assets (images, videos) will be imported.

• You can now right-click on effects, images, and videos and choose how you'd like to insert them into your project

  • Insert Content - Inserts the asset into the selected/active surface. If there's no surface, it's the same as selecting "Insert as New Surface".

  • Insert as New Surface - Inserts the asset into a newly created surface. A default size will be used.

  • Remove From Project - This is a new feature. When chosen, it will remove all content that references the asset. This will remove content elements within surfaces, as well as the asset in the "Project Assets" list. If using this feature on the "Asset Libraries" panel, the asset in that list will continue to exist since those assets are not part of the project.

    

Improvements

• Increased the bug report/feedback attachment size to 20MB. This new limit is present in the user interface.

  

• Enabled scan submit option in Bug Report/Feedback dialog for LF2 and LFC

Bug Fixes

• Fixed macOS issue that allowed the "Import files" dialog on the "Project Assets" panel that would sometimes allow the dialog to become obscured by the main window.

• Fixed issue with JPEG images in the CMYK colorspace not being correctly decoded.

• Fixed issue with TIFF images not loading.

• Fixed errors that would occur when publishing the 3D Wiggle and Scan image effects as "live".

• Fixed issue with the Fire effect not looping smoothly.

• Fixed a macOS crashing issue that when editing two different colors for an effect's parameters. The issue would occur if you switched between the parameters with the color dialog open, leaving the application in a sort of 'locked' state, preventing you from making more changes, and eventually a crash.

• Fixed issue with some buttons (such as the "Inherit Alpha Button" on the content element properties panel) not changing their visual state when clicked.

  

Other

• Imported image assets are now restricted to 4096x4096 in size. If this isn't the case, you will see an error message appear in the new "Notifications" panel.
• Switching away from the Design page (to go to the Control page) no longer stops playback on the Design page.

1.9.5

Released on March 2nd, 2020

 

What's New?

• We now support animated GIF files. Once you import a GIF, they will appear as videos in the asset browser.
• We have added new videos and effects!
  • Effects: Checkerboard, Perlin noise, SDF shape, SDF grid, TV static, Voronoi, Noisy circles, Wood grain, Fireflies, Fireworks
  • Videos: Brick shifter, Crumble, Current, Echoes, Fish, Float, Globulator, Gloop, Jello, Milk, Pixelate, Squares, String, Tile wave, Water, Whac a Mole, Voronoi, Yinyang, Ripple
• We've redesigned the Media/Effect browser. We now have "Project Assets" and "Library Assets". The Project Assets browser will contain any user imported assets (video, images, etc.). The Library Assets browser will contain all of Lightform's built-in assets. See more details about this in the improvements section below.

• We've added a "Make Structure Planar" button to the Structure section of the Properties panel.

• This feature allows the structure patch points to be set to planar for easier single-video mapping of planar surfaces, such as in this square cake example: 

Improvements

• Pairing
  • We've made some improvements to the instructions provided on the pairing workflow page. This page will continue to be improved. 
• Design page
  
  • The Asset browser has been redesigned.
    • The Media/Effect browser is now referred to as the "Asset Browser".
    • Changed the 'Effect' and 'Media' tab pages and toolbar buttons to be 'Project Assets' and 'Library Assets'.
    • Changed the Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut to Ctrl+P (for 'Project Assets', which occupies what used to be the 'Effects' panel).
    • The search text box now uses all the search terms individually, making it easier to search. Previously "Bass Drop" would find a result, but "Drop Bass" would not.
    • The Asset browser lists now display the effect category underneath the effect name. You can now search by effect category "effect" vs. "generator". 
    • The Asset browser now supports adjusting the size of the asset view.  Improved the Asset browser search functionalit
•  
• Tools
  • Brush Tool
    • Added a feature that allows you to draw straight brush strokes when the shift key is held. 
  • Magic Wand Tool
    • Modified the color threshold to be 0-255, making it more similar to other art tools. 
• Effect properties
  • Increased the effect maximum loop frequency from 30 seconds to 120 seconds. 

Bug Fixes

• Restored the ability to use keyboard shortcuts for various operations, such as nudging a point using the arrow keys.
• Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing the application to crash after selecting the color picker dialog or closing the application while the color picker dialog was open. 
• Fixed an issue with published videos sometimes rendering the first frame out of order.
• Fixed an issue with published videos sometimes being offset vertically by 5-10 pixels.

Other Changes

• Removed the Projection Preview option in the main menu.
• Removed the resolution selection combo box from the scan dialog since changing the resolutions is rarely needed. If you need to change the device resolution, you should do so on the Control page.

Coming soon

• We are working on further improvements to the pairing workflow instructions page. Stay tuned! 

1.8.6

Released on January 6th, 2020

What's New?

• We've introduced Lightform Accounts! From the login page, click the "sign up" button to create an account. Please note - if you already have a Lightform Guide login, you still need a separate account for Lightform Creator, however, we recommend using the same email address to create your Lightform Creator user account. Read more here.
  • Known Issue -- When creating a new account or logging into your account via www.cloud.lightform.com the following browsers are not supported: Safari, Internet Explorer.
  • To try from a supported browser like Firefox or Chrome, enter the following url into your navigation bar: https://www.cloud.lightform.com/signup.html. 

• We've updated the minimum system requirements for macOS

  • Lightform Creator now supports mac OS 10.13 and above. In order to better support the recent release of Catalina (macOS 10.15) and better support the more recent versions of macOS, we've discontinued support for macOS 10.12.

• We've added the ability to force a Lightform device into pairing mode by selecting a new "Enable Pairing Mode" button on the Control page of Lightform Creator.

• We've added a new feature that allows users to connect to their network by manually entering the SSID or "service set identifier" of their network.

Improvements

• Pairing 
  • We've made various improvements to the layout and text on the pairing workflow screens making it easier to know how the pairing process works without having to go to the Lightform guide.
• Control page 
  • Added functionality to force Lightform devices into pairing mode by clicking on a "Enable Pairing Mode" button on the control page.
  • Added logic to ensure the test card is shown when pressing the test card button on the control page.
• Design page 
  • Improved behavior for inserting new content (effects, images, videos) into the canvas.
    • If you select a surface and then select a different slide, the previously selected surface will be the target of new content.
    • If no surface is selected at all (you click onto an empty area in the canvas, for example), the content will go into a new surface, sized according to the type of content.
    • If multiple surfaces are selected, the content will be added to all surfaces.
  •  
• General User Interface
  • Added more troubleshooting tips and links to the page that is displayed when no Lightform devices are found on the local network.

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed an issue with the size of text images that caused text to render at a higher resolution unnecessarily. This also resolves an issue with duplicating surfaces that contain text.
• We've improved the way error detection works while performing firmware upgrades. This fixes issues that caused Creator to send the error that the "device is not on the correct version" when the firmware update was actually completed successfully.

Coming Soon

• We are working on some new effects-- Stay tuned!
• We are still trialing Lightform Accounts. If you'd like to help us test the initial login functionality, you can login and register your device here. If you have any feedback on how this is working, please let us know.

And earlier...

1.7.21/1.7.22

Released on November 15th, 2019

What's New?

• There is a new firmware update for LF1 — v2.3.9.255.
• We have added a new status bar that shows the app's status. If there is a new Lightform Creator update, you will be notified here:

 

Improvements

• Made an update to the Lightform Creator installer to improve download speeds across various geographical regions.
• Introduced various stability fixes for video decoding.
• Added functionality to disable the 'Publish' button when it is not possible to publish.

    

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue when saving a project to a network directory on Windows. Previously, this would result in an error message and the project would fail to be saved.
• Fixed permissioning issue that was preventing some Windows users from being able to run Lightform Creator.
• Fixed a crash that was sometimes caused by adding video files to a project or after duplicating a slide that referenced video files.
• Fixed the 'Pause' label on the OSC menu, which previously read as 'Stop'.
• Fixed a crash that was sometimes caused by pressing the escape key after dragging paths in the quick select tool.
• Fixed issue that would cause a crash when using some shortcuts keys on the Control and Welcome pages.

Coming Soon

• We are continuing to make improvements to the Lightform Guide. We've updated articles with relevant LFC information and will be adding relevant LF2 instruction over the next few weeks. We've also added a lot of new FAQs to our FAQ article. More improvements will be coming soon and if you have any feedback, don't forget to log in to suggest improvements to articles in the comments!
• We are currently trialing Lightform Accounts. If you'd like to help us test the initial login functionality, you can login and register your device here. If you have any feedback on how this is working, please let us know.

 

1.7.15

Released October 11, 2019

What's new?

• There is a new firmware update for LF1 — v.2.3.7.255
  • The "Safe Mode" option in the Scan Workflow now allows scanning to proceed even if the camera is having a hard time seeing the projected light (this was previously causing some perfectly good scans not to go through).
  • If you run into any issues while updating firmware, please submit a bug report and/or reach out to our support team.

Improvements

• Various fixes to point selection i.e. moving points with arrow keys while in edit/move modes and keyboard navigation while using blend effect properties.
  • Please note— We are still working on an issue that sometimes causes an error when deleting/modifying some points.
• Device pairing improvements to address an issue that incorrectly indicated pairing had failed when it actually succeeded.
• General UX improvements.
• Improved memory optimization when importing images into Lightform Creator.
• Improved scan image processing to prevent invalid edges from being used.
• Various publishing improvements to optimize memory, video encoding and rendering.

Bug Fixes

• The "Restart Device" button in the control page is functional again.
• Fixed an issue with slides sometimes having a sensitive reaction to being clicked which would cause them to be selected/dragged incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue reported on Windows machines that was causing surfaces to be offset when using the wand and quick select masking tools. If you encounter this issue, please make sure your graphics drivers are up-to-date. 
• Fixed an issue that caused some tools not to deactivate when adding new content (for example being stuck on the structure tool after creating text).
• Fixed an issue that was causing feathering to have an incorrect or "cut-off" appearance while being used with some effects/settings.
• Fixed an issue that would cause some imported videos to cause a crash or start on the wrong frame.
• Fixed various shutdown issues.

Coming Soon 

• We will be making some changes to Lightform Guide to make way for instructional materials for our new products (LFC and LF2). You may also notice slight changes to the terms used in Lightform Creator. For instance, rather than "Select your LF1", you'll see "Select your Lightform device" or mention of LFC and LF2 in conjunction with LF1.
• In the coming months, we will be launching Lightform Accounts. More information will be shared soon!

1.7.11

Released September 19, 2019

Highlights

• Fixed performance issues for projects with a large amount of content. The amount of content necessary to have the performance issues varied based on the performance of the computer.

1.7.10

Released September 14, 2019

Highlights

• Fixed rendering issues for some effects, and images with alpha channels (images with varying degrees of transparency or opacity). 
• Various stability fixes.
• Various user interface improvements.

Details

• User interface
  • Improvements to scrolling speed on Windows.
  • Various consistency improvements for capitalization of button text, mainly on the Control page.
• Design page
  • Added zoom in/out to the canvas. Use Cmd+(plus) and Cmd(minus) on Mac or Ctrl/Alt+(plus) and Ctrl/Alt+(minus) keys.
    • Added Ctrl/Alt + Space + Middle mouse button to increment/decrement zoom in canvas.
  • Improved drag & drop behavior in the layers panel and slides panel.
  • Fixed crashing issue in move tool, related to holding connections to sometimes stale geometry objects. 
  • Fixed issue with design page holding some stale data resulting in a crash when closing a project, or some time after a project has been closed.
• Feedback / bug reporting dialog
  • The feedback / bug reporting dialog will now allow you to submit a bug even if you run into an error = for example, if an attached file can't be uploaded for some reason. Previously, an error message would be presented.
  • A few changes that should resolve rare crash issues.
• Renderer
  • Fixed an issue with incorrect blending of images that have an alpha channel (images with varying degrees of transparency or opacity). 
  • Improved graphics initialization failure handling. This will make it easier to diagnose future graphics related initialization issues.
• Assets
  • Fix for Intel-specific GLSL issue in the following effects' shader code:
    • Color flood
    • Digital fade
    • Pixel fade
• Video
  • Fixed an issue with some video decoding logic occurring even when a video asset fails to load, resulting in a crash.

1.7.9

Released August 30, 2019

Highlights

• Improved support for older graphics hardware - This makes it possible to run Lightform Creator on more laptops, and the older Mac Pro.
• Redesigned control page - The new layout takes better advantage of the free space and allows you to more easily locate live effect parameters. 
• Many fixes and improvements for scan image processing - This resolves a number of known issues with processing on slower computers, provides better visual feedback when the processing is occurring, and prevents you from making changes that will cause the processing to take minutes instead of seconds.
• Improved keyboard and mouse input handling - There are a number of improvements made to how inputs are handled, resulting in more consistent handling of shortcuts and other general input. There have been a number of additions to the user interface as well, with highlights being drawn around the active panel within the layout.
• Status bar - There is now an status bar at the bottom of the main window. It has a clickable items for displaying project information, as well as quick help items.

Details

• Rendering
• The renderer now has fallback behavior for older GPUs. This helps with some older hardware previously being unable to run Lightform Creator.
• Fixed issue with some effects appearing too dark.
• Stability
• Fixed a number of shutdown crashes.
• Fixed an issue with feedback/bug report submission dialog crashing in some situations.
• Project Saving
• Fixed an issue with the project archiving process also performing a directory copy on the source directory, creating an extra copy of the scan images.
• General User Interface
• Fixed an issue that could occur when re-opening Lightform Creator after removing monitors from your computer setup, preventing the application window from being visible. In such a situation, the application window is now re-centered on the primary screen.
• Various user interface control improvements to improve layout, and input handling.
• Added "Generate Scan Images" menu item to the "Labs" menu. This item, when selected, will reprocess all the scan images that are used with effects. This only needs to be used if for some reason there is an unexpected issue with the regular processing.
• Status Bar
  • Added a status bar, located at the bottom of the main window.
  • Project - Displays a couple of items for the current project.
    • A link to explore the directory that contains the project file. For this to be present, the project needs to have been loaded from a file, or previously saved to a file.
    • A message indicating whether the project is temporary. A project is temporary if it has never been explicitly saved to the file system.
    • A message indicating that the project has unsaved changes, if it has unsaved changes.
  • Help - This replaces the floating "?" icon that previously floated over the user interface.
• Design Page
• Fixed an issue with items in the layers panel sometimes not being expandable after reloading from a file.
• Fixed an issue with object picking that would cause the application to crash. This would in rare cases occur when clicking or dragging somewhere outside the canvas boundary, but still within the artboard.
• Added separator items for the "Blend Mode" combo box list used in the property panel for surfaces and content elements.
• Fixed issue when duplicating a surface that didn't duplicate the content elements as expected.
• Changed how double-clicking an effect, image, or video in the media browser creates content on a surface. Previously, it would use the "active" surface (which has a gray highlight in the "Layers" panel). Now it uses the selection set.
• In the properties panel for a selected scan, modified the "Brightness" and "Effect Edges" sliders to be disabled when scan image processing is occurring. This corresponds to the "Magic Wand" and "Quick Select" toolbar items also being disabled. Scan image processing occurs after a scan completes, or after loading a project. 
• Fixed issue with content dragged between layers not always properly updating the bounding boxes, resulting in difficulty selecting the content in the artboard.
• Control Page
  • The control page's main area is now populated with all of the slides on the device and the live effect properties for each slide.
  • It is now possible to set the current slide on the device by clicking the slide directly.
  • The old right-most "Live Effect Parameters" panel has been removed since its functionality has been redone.
  • Moved the "Change Device" button further up the control page and changed its color to blue.
  • Improved margins for better aesthetics.
  • The page now has a near-empty layout when no device is selected, instead of having the regular layout with everything disabled.
• Device selection process has been moved to a separate dialog.
• Improved control page appearance and functionality:
• Assets
• Added "Tie Dye" built-in effect.
• Scanning
• Fixed issue with scan images not being processed consistently on some computers. These images are used with effects, magic wand selection (in toolbar), and quick select selection (in toolbar), so when this issue arose, those features would not be enabled.
• Reduced CPU utilization when performing scan image processing.
• The "hide" button has been removed from the scan dialog. This wasn't well supported before.
• It is now possible to perform a scan even if there is a warning about an HDMI cable not being connected. This addresses an issue with some projectors not always reporting their status over HDMI even if they are actually connected.
  • Note that the scan process will not succeed if a projector is not actually connected.

1.6.9

Released June 27, 2019

Improvements

• The "Recent Files" submenu now allows you to select the project you are currently editing, which will reload it if it has been modified. Previously, no action was taken regardless of whether the project had been modified.
• Modified the scan image download process to download more images. Having all the images available can help to diagnose real-world scene setup issues.
• Fixed a shutdown issue that would sometimes occur when closing the application with an open project.
• Fixed a couple of issues related to scan image processing that would occasionally cause the application to crash.

1.6.8

Released June 21, 2019

Improvements

• Added "Gradient" and "Scan" built-in effects.
• Added hue-saturation-value controls to each effect.
• Added an error page that is displayed if errors are detected when Lightform Creator is starting up. These types of errors are rare, but can occur if people are using an older laptop or desktop, often with a version of OpenGL that doesn't support a critical feature needed by our application. If such errors are encountered, they are listed in the user interface, and most of the application options are disabled. A bug report can still be submitted, and the application can still be closed normally by the user.
• Added application preferences dialog. On Windows, this is available through the "Edit" menu, under the "Preferences..." menu item. On macOS, this is under the "Lightform" menu, under the "Preferences..." menu item. This dialog contains the following settings:
  • Artboard tab
    • "Playback renderer target frame rate -" Indicates how often (in frames-per-second) the artboard's playback rendering occurs. Lowering this number can reduce the load placed on the GPU, which can be helpful on slow computers. This setting has no effect on published content.
    • "Load and Decompress Imported Video Files From Memory" - This indicates which video files should be loaded and decompressed from memory (instead of being decompressed from the file system). This can improve video playback performance, while increasing memory usage. This should only be used if the computer has a lot of spare memory. Changing this setting only affects newly loaded video assets.
    • "Video Frame Memory Cache Size" - The amount of memory used to use to store decoded video frames for real-time playback. Using a lower value will result in lower quality video during real-time playback. This setting has no effect on published content.
    • "Video Frame Maximum Frame Skip" - The amount of frame skipping allowed when decoding video frames during real-time video playback. Normally this setting doesn't need to be changed, but it could be of help when using Lightform Creator on a slow computer. This setting has no effect on published content.
  • User Interface tab
    • "User Interface Sizing" - Indicates the preferred user interface sizing. Indicates how large the user interface controls should be. Choose smaller, normal, or larger sizing based on whatever looks best.
  • Support tab
    • Various directories the application uses. These are for viewing only, and cannot be changed. These directories were previously accessible in the "Labs" menu (but are now removed from that menu).

Labs Features

• Removed the "Labs" status from the following settings, making them always visible: Layer: Opacity, Blend Mode
• Removed the "Labs" status from the following settings, making them always visible:
  • Layer: Opacity, Blend Mode
  • Surface: X, Y, Width, Height
  • Mask: Feathering, Offset

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with the search box in the effect and media browser sometimes causing the application to crash.
• When switch away from the design page (to the control page), the active tool is cancelled. When returning to the design page, the active tool is set to the "Edit" tool.
• Firmware versions are now always displayed as 4 parts (for example: 1.2.3.4). Previously the fourth part would be hidden if it were "255", creating confusion when comparing to a version number that only contained three parts.
• Fixed an issue with the "Enable Labs" menu item being checked if the "Enable Labs" dialog was cancelled.
• Fixed an issue with some combo boxes causing an application crash after using the application for an extended period of time.
• Fixed a couple of rare issues when closing a project that would cause application instability.
• Fixed issue with application crashing when performing a scan at a resolution different from a previous scan. This may also resolve an issue with a couple of users not being able to perform a scan at all.
• Fixed issue with the cancellation of scan image processing. This could occur when performing another scan very quickly after a project has loaded or after a previous scan has previously completed.
• The installer for the Windows version of Lightform Creator now includes Visual C++ 2017 runtime drivers. Previously, these had to be manually installed if they weren't already installed.

1.5.13

Released May 2, 2019

Improvements

• After successfully importing one or more assets into the media browser, the list auto-scrolls to display the last added asset.

Fixes

• Fixed a rendering issue that caused slowdown or crashes on some GPU hardware.
• Fixed an issue with scan image processing using slightly incorrect image dimensions. This would result in application instability.

1.5.11

 

Released April 29, 2019

Improvements

• Control points are now only visible for a point in the "Edit" tool if their parent or adjacent vertex is selected. Previously all control points were visible at all times.
• Double-clicking a point while the pen tool is active now resets the control point.
• Modified the Pen tool, so that when creating a surface you can press the "Enter" or "Return" key to automatically close a surface and complete its creation.
• Restyled playback buttons to make the current state of playback more obvious.
• Moved the drag & drop area from the bottom to the top of the Media Browser. This makes it easier to find and use.
• Increased keyboard shortcut's brush "increment size" to 10 pixels. Previously it incremented by 1 pixel, which was too slow.
• Increased brush size maximum to 300 pixels.
• Improved the dragging of layers so that dragging below the last layer in the layers panel displays more visual feedback.
• Moved x/y/width/height controls in the properties panel for a surface and content element, so that they are in a more intuitive location.
• Modified the surface and content elements' "left/top" coordinates to be "x/y" in the properties panel.
• Added the "Move" tool to the the canvas right-click menu.
• Modified Welcome page to display the main menu on Windows. This allows the "Recent Files" submenu to be accessible.
• The updater log file is now included when submitting a bug report, making it easier to diagnose issues.

Labs Features

• Fixed various undo-related issues with surface and content element effects.
• Added more "Labs" indicator icons to various surface and content element controls that are only used when "Labs" is enabled.

Fixes

• Fixed issue with "Tron" and "Iridescent edges" effects not looping properly.
• Fixed an issue with playback occurring one or two frames ahead of where it should be, resulting in video content being a few frames ahead. This would result in published videos not starting at the beginning.
• Fixed issue with various 'toggle' functions not un-toggling: design snapping, pixel grid, projection preview.
• Fixed an issue that would crash the application if you were to close the application while scan images are being processed. This could occur if you were to load a project file that contains scan images and then quickly close the project or application.
• Fixed an issue that prevented complete cleanup of all assets when closing a project. This would often result in an application crash when loading a project that contains text.
• Modified the auto-update process to only check for application and firmware updates when the application starts. This corrects an issue with the application sometimes crashing while checking for an update when the application is inactive.

 

New Feature Roundup - April 7

Quickly learn about some of our latest and most useful features!

1.5.4

Released April 7, 2019

Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue with undoing the creation of a new effect causing an application crash.

1.5.2

Released April 5, 2019

Fixes and Improvements

• General
  • Fixed issue with assets being removed too soon, sometimes causing an application crash.
  • Fixed an issue with some content for old projects not being properly processed, causing an application crash.
  • Added logic to suppress duplicate rendering log messages that sometimes occur too frequently. This fixes some lag issues experienced by some users.
• User interface
  • On macOS, disabled the feature that required the application to be 'trusted' by the operating system in order to control the cursor position. This would result in macOS seemingly randomly displaying a message about Lightform Creator needing to be 'trusted'. This affects draggable controls, which normally would reset the mouse position in order to make the dragging easier.
  • Fixed issue with the layouts for surfaces and content elements generating many internal warnings, causing lag when removing objects.
• Design page
  • If there is a context menu visible, it is now closed if the 'delete' key is pressed to remove objects.
  • Improved the text that is used for the undo action when creating a new content element for a surface. It now varies depending on whether the content was created or replaced.
• Control page
  • The playback controls and OSC controls button now have a constant width. This makes them more visually appealing on a large screen.
  • Fixed some layout issues with live effect parameters. Live effects is a 'Labs' feature.
• Assets
  • Fixed issue with the 'Chroma' effect not working correctly when published as a live effect. Live effects is a 'Labs' feature.
  • Fixed an issue with the internal asset tracking count being off by one when performing an undo, which would sometimes result in Lightform Creator prompting you to discard unsaved changes when closing a project, even if the project is empty.

1.5.0

Released April 1, 2019 (not an April Fools!)

New Features

• Added "solid color" built-in effect. This is accessible in the effect browser.
• Added a floating dialog for viewing keyboard shortcuts. This is accessible through the "Show Keyboard Shortcuts..." menu item in the "Labs" menu.

Labs Features

• Added a 'content effect' feature
  • This feature is oriented around applying color operations on a surface (and all of its content elements) or individual content elements.
  • To use this feature, select a surface or content element, and press the + button in the upper right corner of the properties panel. A menu will appear in place, allowing you to create a content effect, which will be added to the properties panel. Currently the only content effect is 'solid color'.
  • The content effect's settings can then be modified. If modifying the settings for a surface, the surface must have one or more main effects in order for the content effect to be visible in the artboard. So, if you are using the 'color fill' content effect, it will only be visible if there are content elements. If you just want a single content element with a solid color, it would be better to use the 'solid color' built-in effect.
• Added "Explore Temporary Directory..." menu item to the "Labs" menu.
  • When selected, this launches the native file browser on macOS and Windows, making it easy to explore the application's temporary directory.

Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue with an auto-created text content element not appearing when activating the text tool on an empty artboard.
• Fixed an issue after loading a project that sometimes resulted in surfaces not being selectable within the artboard.
• Fixed an issue with the search text not being used in the media browser when in "Alphabetical" order.
• All OSC parameter names are now nicely reformatted.
• The slide index control is now visible.
• Fixed an issue with asset cleanup sometimes causing an application crash at shutdown.
• Fixed an issue with locked surfaces still being selectable in some situations when using the Move tool.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused scan image processing to crash the application.
• Fixed an issue with some rendering resources not being released properly at shutdown.
• Fixed an issue on macOS with firmware checks sometimes causing an application crash if Lightform Creator isn't the active application on the desktop.
• Fixed issue running the installer on Windows as the result of starting the in-application update process. This issue sometimes presented itself as any of the following:
  • Missing built-in effects.
  • Application executable unchanged (it had the same version after update).

1.4.6

Released March 7, 2019

• Fixed issue with slides list not being reorderable.
• Fixed issue that prevented the surface left/top/width/height properties from being undone/redone fully.
• Fixed very rare issue with the application user interface not being clickable, requiring an application restart.

1.4.5

Released February 28, 2019

New Features

• Added a 'Submit Feedback' button in the help popover.
• Numeric values in the properties panel can be modified by clicking and dragging on the label above the value. Previously the only way to drag a value was by clicking and dragging on the text field.
• Added Lightform Creator tutorial links to the scan progress and firmware update pages, displayed while you wait for the operation to complete.
• Added feature to duplicate surfaces. This is available through the 'Duplicate' menu item in the surface context menu. A duplicated surface is at the same position as the source surface, so you need to use the 'Move' tool to move it to a new position.
• Added popup menu button next to the 'Media' search text box. The popup menu contains items to sort media in 'Alphabetical' order or by 'Group'.
• Added a feature in 'Edit' mode to reset a surface's control points for a particular point. This is triggered by double-clicking a point on the surface.
• Added left/right arrow navigation in slides bar.
• Added crash detection and automatic submission of additional crash logs to the 'Submit Bug Report' dialog. This dialog will be presented when running the application again after a crash.
• Improved rendering performance.
• Added zoom levels up to 6400%.
• Added pixel grid for zoom levels of 500% and higher.

Labs Features

• Added 'Invert Mask' button to properties panel of surface. This is a 'Labs' feature.
• Added x/y/width/height controls to the surface properties panel. This is a 'Labs' feature.
• Added more controls for adding and removing paths from a surface. This is a 'Labs' feature.
• Added 3 more effects: Ganzfeld, Sonar, Traffic Jam.
• Added position, rotation, and scale properties to properties panel. These are 'Labs' features.

Fixes and Improvements

• Modified the slide duplication to prevent duplicate "Copy of" prefixes appearing in the names for repeated duplicates.
• Various improvements to overall layout with spacing, placement of controls, and other visual feedback.
• Draggable numeric property controls now attempt to reset the cursor position to the original position to make it easier to drag larger values without hitting the edge of the screen.
• Fixed typos in the 'Labs' enable/disable dialog box.
• Fixed issue that sometimes caused an application crash when dragging the application window to a different monitor.
• Fixed issue with publish being enabled even if there are no slides enabled for publishing.
• Fixed a rare issue when saving a project that would prevent the intermediate project file from being written. This would result in an error message being displayed.
• Fixed shutdown crashes with asset manager.
• Fixed known issues with undo/redo when using text.
• Fixed surface rendering being truncated by ~1 pixel at some zoom levels.

 

1.3.12

Released February 2, 2019

New Features

• Slides can now transition instantly 
• Slide fade transitions are now disabled by default, they can be optionally set to fade in, fade out, or both
• Redesigned Stream drop down now allows full control of cursor, mask, and video preferences.
• The Control page now has a brightness slider to control the brightness on the device.
• A number of application events now generate 'toast' messages that appear temporarily, replacing modal dialogs from the previous releases.
• Added a "What's New" button to the Welcome Page to make it easier to open these Release Notes
• All built-in effects now seamlessly loop and can be controlled using the Loop Frequency slider
• Added 'Set Slide Duration' button to properties panel, which sets the duration of the active slide to match the duration of video content

Labs Features

• It is now more obvious when Labs is on. Look for the yellow beaker.
• Removed a number of unusable menu items from the 'Labs' menu.
• Added 'feathering' and 'offset' properties to the Surfaces properties panel.

Fixes and Improvements

• Published projects don't produce a green flicker when looping.
• Pixel-based/raster tools are much more stable.
• Many other stability and performance improvements.
• Improved various scrolling speeds when using the trackpad on Windows.
• Updated the all project-related menu items in the 'File' menu to be enabled/disabled as appropriate.
• The application now cleans up its temporary directory on shutdown.
• Fixed issue with some asset data not being released when closing the active project.
• Canceling any of the pixel-based input modes (paintbrush, magic wand, quick select) is now very fast. Previously there would be a noticeable pause if you were cancelling or closing the application after performing many operations in the canvas.
• Fixed automatic formatting of effect parameter display names in the properties panel. Some names had incorrect capitalization.
• When changing a scan image property that requires image calculations, these calculations are now performed in the background, making the user interface more responsive.
• Fixed issue with draggable color control and 2D position control creating too many undo/redo actions.
• Modified the behavior when selecting a non-existent recent file from the ’Recent Files’ menu, presenting an option to remove the file from the recent files list.
• Modified behavior when selecting the current project’s location from the ‘Recent Files’. It now does nothing if the project has not been modified.
• Control page UI styles are now unified when Labs is on.

Due to library compatibility, we have removed support for MacOS 10.11 (OS X El Capitan). MacOS 10.12 (macOS Sierra) is the latest version now officially supported by Lightform Creator.

1.2.0

Released January 14, 2019

• Added 'Increment & Save Project' menu item to the 'File' menu
  • Saves the current project to an automatically named project file in the same directory as the previously saved location of the project
  • e.g., if the project was saved to a file named 'Project.lit', using 'Increment & Save Project' results in a file being saved to 'Project.1.lit', and then 'Project.2.lit', and so on
  • It also saves the current project if it has been changed. If the project has never been saved before, you will be prompted for a save location
  • Incremented project files do not appear in the recent files menu
• Added 'Archive Project…' menu item to the 'File' menu. This feature saves the current project to the selected directory and copies all of the project’s assets to that new directory
  • The saved project file references the copied asset files (not the files in the current project), making it suitable for distribution or backup purposes
  • The saved project file is separate from the current project: it does not become the current project file and it does not appear in the recent files menu
• Modified the project asset importing feature to instead directly reference the chosen assets, instead of copying them to the project directory, which was the behavior in previous releases. This makes it faster to bring your own video assets into your project, and makes it easier for you to modify your own image assets
• Added toggle button in each slide to enable/disable the slide for publishing. This makes it possible to exclude some slides during publishing
• Added tooltips for lock and visibility buttons in layers panel
• Various improvements to curve fitting, improving performance of path calculations
• Fixed pixel access issues associated with the magic wand tool. The selection is more reliable now
• Download previous scan images is now out of Labs
• New Labs Feature: Labs > Export Selected Surface Mask

1.1.3

Released January 4, 2019

 

• Device name now shows above the canvas artboard
• Fixed an issue that some effects exhibited when published
• Fixed an issue that would cause projects to not save in certain scenarios
• General bug fixes and stability improvements

1.0.12

Released December 14, 2018

 

• Added 'Recent Project Files' submenu to 'File' menu
• Added a support for hue/saturation control for effect parameters and modified the following built-in effects to use it:
  • Color Flood, Depth Trace, Ghost Flash, Hue Picker, Light House, Rainbow Edges, Tron
• Improved surface grab handle behavior in the artboard
• Updated checkbox style to look like a switch
• Fixed surface snapping issues when the surface filled the entire artboard

1.0.7

Released December 09, 2018

 

• Software updater fix

1.0.5

Released December 08, 2018

 

• New Labs Feature: you can now apply blend modes to layers to create even more custom looks. Enable Labs under Help > Enable Labs
• Many effects now have better transparency support
• Fixed issues associated with project file loading. This change moves the application out of pre-release mode and into official release mode. As part of this change, old project files will no longer be supported. Such projects will cause an error message to be displayed. Going forward, the application will be backwards compatible with newly created project files.
• Application settings are now automatically saved and loaded:
  • The application window being repositioned at startup.
  • The ‘last project directory’ used in the project open and save dialogs.
  • The ‘last asset directory’ used in the import media dialog.
• Added minimum/maximum ranges in the properties panel UI for effect parameters. This applies to floating point values and 2D point values.
• Fixed various issues associated with Asian-language file paths.

0.9.7 (Beta)

Released November 30, 2018

 

• 17 new effects!
• 13 built-in videos and 6 built-in image assets
• New Media Browser UI and improved media import drag and drop UX
• New Structure tool UI/UX. Double click with Structure tool to reveal mesh
• Dozens of UI improvements
• Better application dialogue windows
• Control Page UI is now cleaner. Live Effect Parameters are always shown.
• New Scan Property parameter to control Effect Edges
• Scan Brightness is now used by the raster selection tools
• Better and faster raster tools. Better conversion from raster to vector
• Videos should no longer hiccup when published to the device
• Better multi-line text control for Text tool

0.9.6 (Beta)

Released November 6, 2018

 

• Fixed a bug causing firmware update to fail on some computers.
• Pairing a device should no longer report success until the pairing is complete.
• Media browser now includes folders
• OSC learning and manual realignment from the control page have been optimized and should work as intended.
• Published projects had some issues with video glitching/restarting. This should now be fixed.
• Many UI/UX tweaks. 

0.9.5 (Beta)

Released October 22, 2018

 

• New Installer
• Help Popover
• Undo/redo is now available
• Improved device communications to help network performance
• Video playback fixes and improvements
• In mask streaming mode: only selected surfaces are streamed (or if no selection, all are streamed)
• Various raster tool improvements
• Can specify the opacity of stroke and fill of a surface mask/geometry
• General stability and rendering optimizations

0.9.4 (Beta)

Released October 08, 2018

 

• New in-app firmware update workflow which will make firmware updating more robust
• Right click menu in the canvas to reveal contextual functions
• Scan Brightness can now be adjusted after a scan in the scan properties
• New Structure tool functionality 
• Device pairing is now more robust and handles more edge cases
• Increased character spacing of all caps letters for improved legibility
• Publishing optimizations
• Double-clicking on a surface will change selection to the first child content element of the surface
• UI's of selected surfaces now drawn on top of all others for better picking/editing when surfaces overlap in Edit and Structure tools

0.9.3 (Alpha)

Released September 13, 2018

 

• Live Effects with adjustable live effect parameters and editable OSC mappings in the Control Page. Note: you can only have ONE Live Effect per slide
• Play/pause/stop capabilities
• Modal dialog before closing project to prevent from inadvertently losing changes
• Delete Surfaces works (see Known Issues for deleting layers)
• Slides V1
• Render content to video V1
• Master Surfaces
• Entirely new Control Page (UI redesign coming soon): Next/Previous slide, Post-Publish Mesh Warp, Editable OSC Mappings, Live effect controls
• Built in App and Device Bug reporting. Help > Submit Bug Report
• New Wi-Fi-pairing workflow with UI, UX and networking improvements
• Publishing with Effects playback [speed+quality] behaves properly/as expected
• Timeline Synchronization between effects and videos
• Effects Panel work on Windows
• Pen Tool is improved
• More intuitive Scan Properties — Scan Properties + New Scan exist on the properties panel
• Can open projects with effects from the Design Page (see Known Issues for opening from the Welcome Page)
• Better formatting on most Windows machines
• Current device is displayed with Scans (more improvements coming soon)
• Half a dozen new icons in the layers panel & toolbar
• Better input and keyboard shortcut handling
• Rewrote many data types to support the concept of master surfaces existing on all slides

0.9.1 (Alpha)

Released June 18, 2018

 

• New Device Test Card
• Added ESC/RETURN/UP/DOWN key functionality for the scan workflow
• Last used device now automatically selected in device list
• Double-clicking device in DeviceListView now selects the device and advances the scan workflow
• Allow variable video stream resolutions ("fast", "med", "high" quality)
• Magic wand and Quick select support color and depth
• Improved keyboard shortcut robustness
• Quick select & magic wand improvements
• Fixed issue with properties sometimes not being saved/loaded correctly
• Fixed occasional crash when closing a project (or closing the application)
• Fixed an issue with points not being selectable when loading a previously saved project
• Properties panel elements that take keyboard focus now release it when editing is done
• Color picker is now modal so it cannot be obscured by the application
• Fix issue in scan workflow where old camera images would load on new scans
• Better cursor behavior when switching back to Lightform from another application