On the way to Crystal Focus V4

[erv]

all points taken, direction : my todo list
swings / clashes classifications : it's mainly a question of making the sounds themselves

hasid : One CF to have tons of sounds fonts... no offense but I'm not going to implement something "just" because you don't know where you put your stuff. Again, not throwing tomato but... you get the idea. Sometimes people ask things / features because it's "easier for them" but actually it's because they don't want to go over certain difficulties. For instance, I use boxes and suitcases for my sabers, I have "kits" I bring with me to conventions and nothing is missing. Always have some spares allen keys in each kit.
You have yellow teeth ? wear a brown tie. Hack the world and get organized

As for the "more easier to wire" : it does not make any sense. CF, with all the possibilities will *always* remain hard to wire, with lots of wires. If I was including all the things in a "simple way to wire with pads everywhere", the size will be multiplied by 2 or 3. Noone wants that. Who want a fisher price saber when you started with a custom aluminium one ? Or go back to DUPLO when you started working with lego techniks ?

Yes it's hard, and yes this kind of wiring isn't for everyone. Not meaning to be an elitist person, but I won't make it easier to wire to get the double size.
I know I sharp on that, but I'm not insulting anybody

[Jeescook]

Are you actually working on these yet or are you just in the ideas stage? I'm building a saber with crystal focus in it so i was going to get one of the next batch of version 3's but should i wait for version 4?

[killphil]

It does make sense! I'm not sure how noticeably different that would be versus setting it to random, but... who knows, maybe Erv can play with this.

Me, I wouldn't mind a "bubbled" random sort where no sound is ever played twice in a row.

Glad to see you agree here.

As too the noticeability, if this would work out so that a small, light swing wouldn't sound like a triple spin and vice versa. The way I thought, only the fast double or triple swings(several swings in one swing font) would register, is if you were, in fact, spinning and thrashing the saber about.

If you made small getsers, you'd get the "whoomps and "vrms" like what Luke's saber sounded as Luke casually played around with it after 1ft recieving it.

So there would still be randomness, like spinning the saber, you would get one of 3 high register swing sounds, and likewise, small or medium swings would randomly generate a swing sound out of those categories.

Like I said, I have absolutely NO idea if this is even do-able but thought I'd throw it in just in case.

[erv]

I do think that adding selection rules for the different sounds is perfectly doable, depends how they are written, but it does not take so much CPU to decide.
I guess I have to watch some duels again in the movies to see how sounds are chained and try to extract a sort of "general rule" !

[Mad Hatter]

What ever happened to the "force touch" activation feature? Is that something that would be a v4 feature? Or is it an external accessory? Or has it totally gone away?

[erv]

can be an accessory since it's just an emulation of a momentary switch, but... from what I've tried, I'm not totally convinced...

[Sethski]

Cheers guys, this is all interesting and good news.

The GUI/software sounds exciting, as well as the possibility of slimming down the board fractionally with the change to a micro SD setup - as anyone who's installed electronics into a hilt knows, every mm matters.

The only other thing that comes to mind for a future iteration of Crystal Focus would be the possibility of a mini USB input or equivalent that allowed for changes to fonts and configuration without having to open up the hilt, rather by connecting the hilt to a USB port on a computer. I don't know if this is feasible from the point of view of size of components, etc - has this been considered before?

...and Novastar - your work is also very much appreciated and I do intend to show my appreciation via Paypal when I'm next in a position to (I'm studying at the mo, so I'm not always cashed up, but I expect to be a bit better off later in the month).

(Also posted on FX-Sabers forums, reposted to share with folks here who don't visit there )

[erv]

USB : no never
(my answer about that is getting shorter and shorter lol )
despite the sharp answer, it's not "stupid", it's just that :
- USB plug = usb cable, never there when you need it
- requires a computer, all the time, while SD cards can be swapped
- custom drivers for mac-pc-linux / expensive flash memory onboard
- where do you place this bloody USB plug (you also need to implement a recharge port and fit the speaker)
- I hate USB myself

no offense, the question is poping out from times to times. In the design of the saber, I admit that the access of the SD card is not so easy but... how often do you do that ? During testing and setup, I admit that you have to go back and forth but... after that, it's inside, almost forever.
Then for testing the sound fonts a get the result, how they sound, sure, you have to remove the SD card several times. The GUI software could help for that to test and simulate the saber

[Sethski]

No worries, I just liked the idea of my saber hooked up to my computer and was thinking that the USB mini B sockets are pretty tiny. I was also thinking "as well as" rather than "instead of", ideally a setup where the CF effectively acts as an reader/interface between the card and USB for the option of convenience on that front and you still had the option of swapping out cards.

...but I do appreciate if you've been asked and responded to this a few times before and it's not part of the plan . Believe me, my CF makes me smile an awful lot as it is...

And I agree it's only really a PITA getting it in and out of the hilt during the initial testing and configuration of how the CF responds when it's actually in the hilt. The software and a clickable in/out action on the holder willhelp with this, too.

Cheers.

[vortextwist]

I'm pretty satisfied with the CF the way it is except for the size, I love that you are goin to the mini memory card. I'm not so concerned with the length of the board as I am with the width. great stuff you guys are coming up with.