INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 13 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: JimH on September 11, 2008, 11:19:52 am
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3D Wall -- a view that shows cover art and allows you to play.
Click and drag to slide the wall. Double Click to Play. Zoom with mouse wheel.
(http://www.pix01.com/gallery/8D12431D-7EA0-495D-9EA2-775091458CB9/3D_Wall/966614214_orig0.jpg)
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This is pretty neat. It looks like PicLens Firefox plugin. Sweet, sweet :-)
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Wooow ;D
It looks greaaaat :o
Another good job. :)
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You can use up, down, left, and right to navigate also. Enter plays.
The view is called "3D Albums" if you use the default library views.
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Any way to have more than 3 high? Or jump faster? Took a loooooong time to scroll towards then end of my album list.
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Yeah, I'm liking this!
Would like to request the slider bar at the top to allow controlling size of the albumart thumbnails.
Would like to go a little larger that this default in some cases.
Meaning with it zoomed all the way in with the mouse wheel, still a little bigger.
What you have is a great default size. Just a little more flexibility if it's possible.
Once they are resized to a certain height, it would have to detect that covers are now running off the top and botton. At this point it should automatically re-arrange so that there's 2 rows instead of three.
Same thing if I zoom all the way out, there's wasted space at top and bottom. Should detect this and fill in a couple additional rows.
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I have two problems with this view:
1. How do I get out of it? If I click on 3D in the pane, where I usually can change views, nothing happens.
2. In my case no album covers show up, only grey areas with the name of the album in it.
Any help on this?
Thanks!
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Yes!
I assume that this is also going to be integrated with theater view and group selection etc.
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Very nice. Is this the successor to carousell ?
Could we get user configurable options for how many album squares are in each column and also to set the default size of the squares. Not trying to push my luck, but is there any chance of a drag and 'fling' style mousing to accelerate browsing through large collections (or at least a position bar that can be grabbed)
thanks.
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I'd like to use this with photos and videos too, any chance to keep aspect ratios for different images?
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I have two problems with this view:
1. How do I get out of it? If I click on 3D in the pane, where I usually can change views, nothing happens.
Right-click "Audio" (or whatever else you've selected) -> Customize view
Took me a while to figure that one out :)
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Same problem here. Great concept, but there is no cover art...just gray boxes.
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Cover art works fine for me in audio views with flac files.
Cover art is not stored in file tags and is stored as folder.jpg in same folder as the audio files.
Perhaps those of you getting gray boxes should provide the staff with some details with how your cover art is stored and what type of audio files you use. This will help them determine if it's a bug or maybe your graphics card isn't up to the task.
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You need to have thumbnails already created for the 3D view. It won't create them on demand like other views.
Use Auto-Import or just go to a different audio view and look through all your files until they all have a thumbnail.
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Rather than having a reflection on the bottom (in which case you can't see it when you are zoomed in) there should be a reflection on the cover art itself such that when you zoom in or out, move the wall, etc..., there should be a fixed point of light that glosses over their shiny reflection as they move. For example, look at how last.fm makes their cover art look like it has a shiny cd cover on it: http://www.last.fm/music/Lynyrd+Skynyrd/+albums.
There should be a full screen view of this, and drop down panes would be nice. Otherwise this view is only for show and it really has no real browsing use from me.
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This is very sexy, but has the same shortcoming as cover flow in itunes: It's too laborious to scroll through every album you have.
If you mixed this with some other filters (I'm thinking the thin drop down panes), or made a the 3D albums available for the bottom files list, then this would be an elegant and powerful way of browsing.
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If you mixed this with some other filters (I'm thinking the thin drop down panes), or made a the 3D albums available for the bottom files list, then this would be an elegant and powerful way of browsing.
Indeed a combo with the dropdown panes would be great.
Add maybe some layered backdrop textures with transparency effects for some additional bling.
peter
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This look very promising! The bigges problem I got with it is the lack of option to set the speed of the scrolling, as well as that direction of the wall is way to much "directly towards" you when you hold one of the arrow buttons in for a long time. How many rows high would also be good to set.
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It would be nice to see this split by letters of the alphabet, to remove the hugeness of scrolling through a large library.
Pressing something like page down would cause the current letters albums to flip out and the next letters to flip in.
Also a free text search built directly into it like coverflow would be a must, without needing to select the search box.
At the moment the search is loosing focus before you've even finished typing.
Also single clicking an album should recentre the view.
Finding it is to difficult, should be a big go 3D button somewhere.
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I had the same gray boxes problem. Open a view that loads the cover art (panes and details with an "Image (thumbnails)" column or an Album Thumbnails view) and scroll it all to force MC to load every image. Go back to the 3D view, it should be fine.
Raph
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Yes, that worked for me (going to a different view and loading all the images first)
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You can also try forcing MC to build your missing thumbnails via Tools > Options > Tree & View > Thumbnails > Build missing thumbnails.
A good idea is to let it run overnight if you have a large library.
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3D walls is jumpy when moving up and down using the arrow keys but perfectly smooth when moving left or right.
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3D walls is jumpy when moving up and down using the arrow keys but perfectly smooth when moving left or right.
interesting enough for me its the opposite. left/right jumpy, up/down smooth
:)
gab
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Zoom with mouse wheel.
Would it be possible to add keyboard zooming? (e.g. the + and - keys)
I'm trying to use 3D Wall on a laptop. Unfortunately its touch pad does not have a mouse wheel.
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Unfortunately its touch pad does not have a mouse wheel.
I have so much trouble using other people's laptop's trackpads now that I've gotten used to my Macbook Pro. Two-finger scrolling is so convenient.
Non-multitouch trackpads == FAIL.
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I have so much trouble using other people's laptop's trackpads now that I've gotten used to my Macbook Pro. Two-finger scrolling is so convenient.
Non-multitouch trackpads == FAIL.
No TrackPoint is a minor disaster in my book . . .
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* the rotation of the wall when dragging the mouse is a bit too touchy with a disorienting feel to it. i think it should be a bit more modulated where if i am just slightly dragging it along it shouldn't rotate but simply shift left or right on an even plane. at the same time it is a bit difficult to flip quickly through the whole library. maybe there could be a stationary mini transparent wall in the upper left hand corner where you click that and it skips to that location, kind of like a scroll bar.
* If at all possible try to not have the wall 'reset' itself so much, try to remember where the user was in terms of the zoom level.
* when locked into the back album track mode, it would be nice if you could multi select song and be able to drag them to another view.
* when flipping the albums, shouldn't the art flip backwards?
* speeding up the zoom/flip in and out of an album just a hair would help.
* can the background be a bit more translucent with maybe a bright blue for the text? the red on white just doesn't look good to me.
* adding some sort of brushed metal look to the sides of albums would look nice
* i would also really like to see drop down panes be given an option to be added.
a few bugs:
1) do a search then switch views, then back. the search term is gone, but the searched albums are still there
2) if a play an individual song it still plays all the songs in the album
3) when switching from full screen display back to normal view, my desktop shows through in place of the wall for a brief moment.
4) the thumbnails seem to have to rebuild themselves quite a bit. I guess that?s for performance?
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3D Wall should not refresh each time a song/title etc is selected, this slows the whole refresh down...the images before the selection should be stored in cache to the refresh is a lot faster. Also the flashy name etc is not needed when a title is selected. One flash or click image of the file selected is enough to confirm the selection and thats it...
Album art that is shown in regular views do not show up in the 3D view as well...
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I have been looking for the 3D view, but I can not seem to find it.
Please provide some guidance.
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I have so much trouble using other people's laptop's trackpads now that I've gotten used to my Macbook Pro. Two-finger scrolling is so convenient.
Non-multitouch trackpads == FAIL.
Yea, me too, on my Macbook Pro right now. But how oh how do you survive without MC?? AHHHH!!!!! (this is me going insane)
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You can use up, down, left, and right to navigate also. Enter plays.
The view is called "3D Albums" if you use the default library views.
I am unable to go to the 3D view?!
And I am unable to set default library views.
I am definitely overlooking something, but what???
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Hi Dutch Peter
Please go to e.g. Audio/Album/View As/More/3D.
Have fun, I get every time a crash.
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Hi Dutch Peter
Please go to e.g. Audio/Album/View As/More/3D.
Have fun, I get every time a crash.
Got it. Thnx.
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Play All plays all.
Clicking one song also plays also, but it starts with the song picked.
I guess that is not correct: it shoudl only play that one song ...
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Play All plays all.
Clicking one song also plays also, but it starts with the song picked.
I guess that is not correct: it shoudl only play that one song ...
Yeah this new view is definitely 'Under Construction'. Can't wait to see it finished!
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Clicking one song also plays also, but it starts with the song picked.
I guess that is not correct: it shoudl only play that one song ...
Picking a track will play the album, starting with the selected track. This is similar to double-clicking in a list.
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Hmm, could it be more theater view like with a check box next to each song you want played? Also we definitely need to be able to scroll and see all the songs.
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Picking a track will play the album, starting with the selected track. This is similar to double-clicking in a list.
to me that makes no sense. why even show the files at all?
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to me that makes no sense. why even show the files at all?
I agree. I shoudl be possible to play a couple of sonmgs from an album, leaving the bad ones out.
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This looks very much like an app called Cooliris (www.cooliris.com). Would be happy if it worked more and more like that one. It looks really nice, and the scrolling and zooming is imo really good. Have not tested it yet though, so there might be keys strokes and mouse movement that is not in MC's best interest?
Another idea is that selecting an album in 3D Wall could zoom in on the album and flip the album so you have the tracks on the back side.
Then you could pick the song you like from that album, or play it all. That would be just awsome!
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Another idea is that selecting an album in 3D Wall could zoom in on the album and flip the album so you have the tracks on the back side.
Then you could pick the song you like from that album, or play it all. That would be just awsome!
Clicking an album does just this with the newer previews.
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Clicking an album does just this with the newer previews.
That is very sweet! I had obviously just tried an early version. Only thing to complain about would be a little slow flip speed of the covers.
Something like this sould also be more easily available for the average user. A default view under Audio maby? I had to make it my self, and it's pretty burried down in the menus.
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I believe it is a standard view with a fresh install. It is just not there when transferring a library I think.
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I believe it is a standard view with a fresh install. It is just not there when transferring a library I think.
Yes, it would suprise me if it wasnt.
Is there ANY way of launching this from the Theater View btw? If not I'm afraid I would use it less than I want to.
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A Great innovation, (on a side note I am also very glad for tree-view in Videos - Great for TV Series!)
One problem i noticed though was that the 3D "CD's" can only list 10 tracks, if your album has 11 or more tracks you cannot scroll down. Would it be possible to resize the text to accommodate the entire album listing?
This would be especially important since this would no doubt be primarily used to browse a large collection.
Great Work though! I am definitely going to keep tuned as new releases are posted!
John
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What are the chances of implementing grouping to the 3D wall, and broader category filters above or below it? It's still just a gimmick for me until you have some way of wittling down the list of albums to a mangable amount.
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What are the chances of implementing grouping to the 3D wall, and broader category filters above or below it? It's still just a gimmick for me until you have some way of wittling down the list of albums to a mangable amount.
My thoughts too.
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What are the chances of implementing grouping to the 3D wall, and broader category filters above or below it? It's still just a gimmick for me until you have some way of wittling down the list of albums to a mangable amount.
Ditto
Looks cool, but still far from being useful. Loading 10000+ albums in 3d-view usually crashes MC. Im guessing they are working on the basics first before implementing filtering/grouping. Hope its worth the effort it in the end. Would be a cool way to visualise searches as well...
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I don't know about groupings, but drop down panes would definitely 'fit' well here.
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Filtering by drop down panes would be great.
But what about an "alternating view scheme" button. This would quickly switch between 3D view to an alternate view scheme customised by the user. In my case this would be grouping by album to show all album tracks. Grouping would be improved with a similiar "play all" option for each album rather than highlighting all tracks of the album to play. Switching between views would be simple.
Also the details shown when the cover is flipped in 3D view should be customisable.
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I'd LOVE to see this as an option under Views in Theater View.
To be able to have this kind of album browsing under a user defined level in view schemes would be awsome.
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I think my laptop is a bit to slow/old to use this feature. It looks
not so good ugly.
(http://www.pix01.com/gallery/BD01FC74-5847-4306-A29B-3AA1BF99BB82/MC13_._Wall/6464479620.jpg)
But instead of showing only 10 tracks of a selected album, as my high end Vista desktop PC does, my good old IBM Thinkpad is able to display 13 Tracks at once :D Nice, isn't it? Perhaps I should try MC with my oldest 200Mhz to get even more tracks displayed at the wall ;)
(http://www.pix01.com/gallery/BD01FC74-5847-4306-A29B-3AA1BF99BB82/MC13_._Wall/6464479621.jpg)
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When you first open 3D Wall first it draws without cover art and then, with, no matter how many times you open it, and on a decent spec machine.
Could it not be done in one swoop?
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I've recently revisited this and it's certainly come a long way! I also have a new graphics card, and it seems that that might have been my limiting factor with the poor performance before...
Three observations/suggestions, the second two mainly geared at application of the 3D wall outside the music/album art arena.
When I click on an album, and it spins around, the file list/header are very big text and look geared more towards theatre view. For desktop use, I think we could really afford smaller/cleaner text. This way we could see more tracks. I'd actually love to have more album information in here... almost like an "Album Info" page built in.
I know there have been some recent changes with handling images of different dimensions... Are there any plans to have this done dynamically? For example, if I have a bunch of photos, MC can determine that a rectangular layout is more appropriate than a square? Same for movie posters -- square isn't ideal.
Finally, how about applying the "scroll through images in this album" setup when you hover over an album with multiple images?
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Some thoughts on the 3D Wall.
First of all, as I have stated previously. Most of the time I use the 3D wall to located an album these days. However, it might be nice if there were easy access to filtering. One example could be buttons along the top, for example a genre button and a sort button or just buttons that the user customize after his vises.
Also, it think it should be easier to make playlists from the 3D view. Imagine that you could put a playlist in each corner. As you browse through the albums you can drag a track from an album up to a corner and it will be added to whatever playlist "rest" in there.
I have tried to illustrate it in the figure below:
(http://www.pix01.com/gallery/7A9B934A-CF79-4E20-863B-533A28D463EB/MC_screenshots/7929229673.jpg) (http://www.pix01.com/gallery/7A9B934A-CF79-4E20-863B-533A28D463EB/MC_screenshots/bigpage.html?image=489352957_orig3.jpg)
At the moment MC always go for three rows. Sometimes it might be better to go for two rows like here:
(http://www.pix01.com/gallery/7A9B934A-CF79-4E20-863B-533A28D463EB/MC_screenshots/7929229674.jpg) (http://www.pix01.com/gallery/7A9B934A-CF79-4E20-863B-533A28D463EB/MC_screenshots/bigpage.html?image=489352957_orig4.jpg)
The 3D wall should maybe be tweaked a bit for videos and pictures. At the moment videos are sorted by albums or something like that. It would probably be nice if the user could easily chose how videos were grouped. Lets say they are sorted by show. Imagine that I chose South Park. When I select South Park I could be taken to a new wall (maybe via the tunnel 3D vis. built in to MC already) that contains the seasons. When I select a season it could be shown the familiar list of episodes but it would also be nice if I could somehow see a preview without leaving the wall.
"Illustration": Wall 1: Shows --> Wall 2: Seasons of selected show --> List of episodes in season --> (optional) Preview of some episode --> Selected episode is played
With pictures there might be a similar system as the one mentioned above. For pictures it would definitely be nice with previews. It might actually be even better to drop list of pictures and go thumbnails only. On wall 1 I might select some event (or something else based on the way pictures are sorted). On the second wall I am shown all pictures or some kind of second sort order. If I chose to preview them there might be some cool effect where one pictures is pulled out to the left and another picture enter on the right.
If playlists could be put in a corner it might also be useful when pictures for sharing is to be selected. Lets us say I want to share pictures from some event with everybody. I could show the event on the wall and easily identify pictures that are worthy for sharing. Afterword I could easily put 'em on pix01.
As Darichman mentioned it would be nice if graphics were a bit "sharper". This is also true for cover rotations.
Cheers,
Rasmus
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pank that's a good idea. We could browse the groupings by moving horizontally, and then to go into one of then we press "up" or something. This would cause the grouping to fan out into z-space and the camera orientation could change so that you now browse by moving backwards and forwards.
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3D Wall is a cute idea, I like it.
I have two issues with the implementation of the idea though ;)
First, the scrolling (maybe strolling?) through your collection seems to have three speeds: stop, crawl and foot-to-the-floor. Maybe there's something I've missed or I'm just not used to it yet, but so far, the speed combined with the sharp angle mean that the odds against me stopping in the right place when scrolling must be about 20 to 1.
Second, where I'd like to see 3D Wall is definitely in Theater View. My HTPC always runs in family-friendly Theater View (unless I have to adjust a setting of course) and has a nice big screen to display eye candy...
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Fooled around with 3D Wall yesterday again and discovered scrolling using the arrow keys on my keyboard is considerably smoother than using a mouse, but the acceleration is still much too extreme.
Can anyone tell me how the wall is sorted and how I can change the sort criteria? The order mine displays in is very odd. Sort of half alphabetical by artist with the rest of the covers in between, in an apparently random muddle (though I'm sure it's not).
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Hi,
3D wall is to slow on my 1,7 GHz Centrino Notebook (1GB RAM). The mouse pointer jumps and MC causes an average CPU load of about 85%.
First I thought that MC takes some time to build up an thumbnail cache. But hours later, even after some reboots, CPU load is still high.
(http://www.tollmann.de/MC/MC13_3DWallSlow.png)
Any idea? Thanks for the help!
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Hi,
3D wall is to slow on my 1,7 GHz Centrino Notebook (1GB RAM). The mouse pointer jumps and MC causes an average CPU load of about 85%.
First I thought that MC takes some time to build up an thumbnail cache. But hours later, even after some reboots, CPU load is still high.
Sounds to me like you're thumbnail building is not done yet. Missing thumbnails in the screen shot as well. Try to do the thumbnail build manualy. Tools -> Options -> Tree and View -> Thumbnails -> Build missing thumbnails. Building the thumbnails can take alot of time. Especialy when you have videos as well. And as others have commented, the thumbnails are not build while you're in 3D Wall.
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Thanks MrHaugen - this was the right hint!
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why is that 3d only show 10 tracks on my albums, is that a bug?
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Can we get 3d album in Theater view?