Tangent Wave 2 Support and Tangent remap options

[agonzalez@sgo.es]

Hi guys, 

We have finally finished the mapping for Tangent Wave 2. The reason why it took some time is because we have dramatically improved the organization of the functionalities in Mistika to allow the remapping using the Tangent Mapper app. This is not yet integrated into the current builds, because we still need to organize the Stereo3D FX and add more functionalities in our library to offer you more flexibility when remapping the panels. Everything related to Colour, Memories, Color Histories, Shapes, Keyers, Framing, etc is now much better organize for remapping the panels.

We will include this as soon as we finished what we consider the basic library of functionalities.

For now, you can install the current version manually (please, make a Backup of the replaced files)

1) Download the attached file and extract it.

2) Copy the controls.xml file in MISTIKA-ENV/config/sys-Element

3) Copy the tangent-map.xml in MISTIKA-ENV/shared/users and in MISTIKA-ENV/shared/users/*your user*. If you only want to have the latest files for remapping your panels, you can finish the procedure here.

4) For those that wants the mapping for the Wave 2, copy the mistika folder in the attached file in the Tangent/Hub folder of your OS. This folder is a bit hidden if you haven't selected its location in the Tangent Mapper App. For example, by default in Windows is in C:\Users\*your_user*\AppData\Local\Tangent\Hub. You can define this folder in the Tangent Mapper application.

5) Restart Mistika in case it was running all this time to see the changes.

With this procedure, now you should be able to enter in the Tangent Mapper and see a virtual version of the mapping as long as you have a panel connected and a Mistika running. From there you can just click on one of the buttons and you can assign a functionality, which now should be organized in categories. 

If you have any questions or feedback, please use this topic for that. This is not yet a released feature so is much better to not use the support system for this kind of issues until this change is part of the current builds. 

Thanks for your support and enjoy mistika!

 

  

 

   

 

 

tangent_wave_2.zip

[jan1]

Hi Adrian,

I installed that on my mobile system with the Wave 2. The instructions where a bit different for the Mac, so I may have made a mistake. I ended up having to add the Wave2 in the panel configuration and then load the wave2.xml as mapping.

I like most of the mapping, but there seem to be some errors. For example when you get to Windows the different shapes are assign to the top row, not bottom row. The top are just knobs, so that doesn't really work. Same thing for add points in Curves. Unless somehow I loaded the wrong map?

Love the up down error for undo/redo. But it's awkward to have so many functions just with the 'alt', like the cmy variant of the fixed vectors. I often have my panel next to the keyboard and operate it with one hand. Having to press the alt key and then operate a knob is not ergonomic for me. The Alt should be a toggle, not a shift. 

But with the newly organized library its so much easier to customize so I will spend some time to see if I can fine-tune it for my habits.

 

Thanks so much!

 

Jan

[Cristobal Bolaños]

Hi Jan!

The Wave2 it's quite limited to the quantity of buttons and knobs it has, that's why we had to make some decisions that may not fit to every user. The philosophy we decided to follow when we mapped the Wave2 was to provide the user all the possibilities that all windows has in the Color Grade.  Besides, when we map tangent control panels, we prefer to let the user have the possibility to travel quickly between windows. That's why the buttons for accessing windows are always stacked in the same place.

We realized that the knobs can be used as buttons too. Normally the knob button is only used for reset values, but we though we could harness this possibility a bit more. In the windows tab for example, you can use the knobs as buttons to activate or deactivate the default shapes (line, square, circle...) and use other knobs to rotate them, make them bigger... The same with the curves, some knobs are for using them as on/off buttons and other for rotating values purposes. 

Indeed, the alt function is used to access to a lot of features, that's mainly because the lack of buttons. All tangent devices are designed for two hands.

However, we are really open for suggestions and changes in the mapping. If you come up with a better mapping we will be delighted to test it, and even apply it as the default mapping. As you said, with the new library is cleaner and makes it easier to find the features ?

Cheers,
Cristóbal 

[jan1]

Hi Cristobal,

Indeed, it's a small panel and harder to map. And I'm happy to do experiment with creating a custom mapping, especially now that the library is so much more organized ?

A few thoughts: The 'Alt' button, which is mapped similar to the 'A' on the Elements is a bigger issue on the Wave. Since I'm using the panel with one hand, on the Elements the 'A' button and the function button are close enough that I can do it with one hand, and in all cases those are buttons not knobs. On the Wave2 mapping the 'Alt' and some of the buttons are further apart requiring two hands, as well as any knob, especially some I might use more frequently such as cmy fixed vectors.

Not sure if you saw how Resolve mapped the Wave2 (not that I really want you to copy everything Resolve has done by any means.... Just as a matter of getting some ideas)? They have a larger set of banks (more than 10 I believe). With the up/down arrow you can flip between banks (which is tedious), but more importantly if you push both up/down at the same time, they bring the panel in a mode where you use the button row for a quick select of the bank, and then have the whole bank for one feature. In the case of the keyer they have three banks for that. So you use the double up/down to select the keyer, and the single up/down to switch between the three keyer banks.

In terms of me being able to customize the mapping, is there a way for me to add another button bank or change the behavior of the alt button from a shift to a toggle? I assume that involves some of the other .xml files. Do you know if there are examples or documentation. I briefly looked through them, but haven't fully decoded it yet.

Thanks for all the hard work and being patient. I seem to have tickets or comments for you so often. Don't want to over-extend my welcome.

[Rakesh Malik]

I just went through this process, and my panel isn't connecting. I'm trying with the 8.8.2 beta -- and I'm also not seeing an image from my AJA module now. I'll back up to 8.8.1 and try it again, see if maybe it's a beta problem.

 

[Cristobal Bolaños]

 

 

 

On 6/1/2019 at 8:57 PM, Rakesh Malik said:

just went through this process, and my panel isn't connecting. I'm trying with the 8.8.2 beta -- and I'm also not seeing an image from my AJA module now. I'll back up to 8.8.1 and try it again, see if maybe it's a beta problem.

Hi Rakesh!

Please check that everything is set up properly inside the Mconfig. If you submit a ticket in our support portal and you give us more details we can sort out the problem as soon as possible.

Cheers,
Cristóbal 

[jan1]

On 6/1/2019 at 2:57 PM, Rakesh Malik said:

I just went through this process, and my panel isn't connecting. I'm trying with the 8.8.2 beta -- and I'm also not seeing an image from my AJA module now. I'll back up to 8.8.1 and try it again, see if maybe it's a beta problem.

 

Two things to try:

For the Wave2 the mConfig is slightly different. In the Tangent tab you need to check both the USB and the next checkbox, not the Elements one. Ran into that at first.

Also on the AJA make sure that you allowed the kernel extension in settings. The best way to check is to run the AJA utility and see if it is happy with the hardware. Was an issue for me on my new laptop. Also make sure it’s a TB3 cable. I first used a generic USB-C charging cable, looks the same, doesn’t work the same.

And after version upgrade recheck all your mConfig settings. Some of them get reset to defaults which is cumbersome. So make sure AJA io checkbox is still good, and that the Mistika UI is set to ‘live’.

[Cristobal Bolaños]

On 6/1/2019 at 2:57 PM, jan1 said:

In terms of me being able to customize the mapping, is there a way for me to add another button bank or change the behavior of the alt button from a shift to a toggle? I assume that involves some of the other .xml files. Do you know if there are examples or documentation. I briefly looked through them, but haven't fully decoded it yet.

As far as I know, the tangent mapper only allows having one bank and the inner alt mapping. The tangent mapper software did not allow us to have a second or third bank. However, we'll study the possibility. Maybe we can upload different mappings inside Mistika for users to decide which one fits better for them. Besides, we'll look into how to change between mappings with the Wave2 itself.

Offtopic, Jan, please would you tell me how many tangent elements units do you have? 

Cheers,
Cristóbal 

[jan1]

Hi Cristobal,

Thanks for the explanation. I was thinking it may have a second one, like the 'B' button that goes to the next bank on the Elements. I see in your mapping library that there is the item to switch to another button bank, but with the Wave only one exists. I guess the Tangent Mapper only has one defined for the Wave. Is there any documentation from Tangent on how their mapping works? Would love to look through it if you have a link.

My Elements has 6 units (3x Bt, Kb, Tk, Mf).

Jan

[Cristobal Bolaños]

On 6/3/2019 at 10:53 AM, jan1 said:

Is there any documentation from Tangent on how their mapping works?

Hi Jan!

Sorry it took quite a time to answer. I'm afraid that there's no open source documentation on how Tangent mapping works internally. According to the dev team, we could force the code of the Tangent Wave2 so it can develop a B button for Bank2 mapping. However, that will break the tangent mapping software.

 

[jan1]

No worries. That makes sense.

[clayton.stearns@msg.com]

Hi guys!

Our company is desperate to map the functionalities in the VR Stitch node to the elements panel.  As I understand it, there isn't currently a way to do this because VR stitch isn't included in the mapping libraries.  Main sources of interest are the ability to unfold the menus for specific cameras using buttons and adjust stitch parameters yaw pitch and roll using the wheels.  This has the potential to speed up our stitching workflow considerably.  

Also, I am wondering if it's possible to map FX presets to the tangent and if so how one would go about it.  

Thanks!

Clay

 

[Melanie Diaz]

On 9/19/2019 at 11:00 PM, clayton.stearns@msg.com said:

Hi guys!

Our company is desperate to map the functionalities in the VR Stitch node to the elements panel.  As I understand it, there isn't currently a way to do this because VR stitch isn't included in the mapping libraries.  Main sources of interest are the ability to unfold the menus for specific cameras using buttons and adjust stitch parameters yaw pitch and roll using the wheels.  This has the potential to speed up our stitching workflow considerably.  

Also, I am wondering if it's possible to map FX presets to the tangent and if so how one would go about it.  

Thanks!

Clay

 

Hi Clay,

Thanks for reaching out and your suggestions.

You're correct, the functionalities in the VR stitch node aren't mapped to the element panels.

Anyway, this would be a great feature to add to future developments. We usually make a feature request survey and users vote for their favorite ones to be implemented.

We will consider your request for the next survey.

Many thanks again.

Cheers!

[Cristobal Bolaños]

On 6/3/2019 at 10:53 AM, jan1 said:

I was thinking it may have a second one, like the 'B' button that goes to the next bank on the Elements.

Hi Jan,

I was looking into the Tangent mapping documentation for more information and updates. I realised there's a way to add a second button bank. The solution was in plain sight. 

You just need to left click on top of the "Knob bank 1 of 1" caption, then a contextual menu appears with the following options:

 

- Add Bank At End
- Insert Bank Before Current
- Remove Current Bank (can't click if there's only one bank)
- Clear Current Bank

Then, another button has to be used for navigating between the banks.

This makes things even more interesting. Actually I think this way is better for mapping than the Alt, since the Alternative function demands the user to stay pressing the button while using this mode.

I hope you find this useful ?

 

Cheers,

Cristóbal 

[jan1]

That's a good find. I'll have to try this out and play with the mapping to improve it.

Cheers,
Jan

[Rakesh Malik]

I'm not having any luck getting my Wave2 and Mistika to work together at all... any idea how to go about troubleshooting this? I installed the mapper and the hub from Tangent's site, and went through the procedure in the support page, but no dice.

[Cristobal Bolaños]

Hi Rakesh!

What version are you  working on?

There have been a couple versions since the mapping of the Wave2 was already built-in in the software, so there's no need currently to add extra file settings for making the mapping work. 

The following procedure should be:

- Install the Tangent Driver for your OS

- Go to the Mconfig and salect in the Tangent tab the one you are using. Save and exit.

- Start Mistika Boutique.

If this does not work, please check the following document:  How to set up Tangent Color Panels for Boutique

Besides, if you would like to open a Support Ticket, we can have a Team Viewer session and fix it.

 

Let me know your thoughts, please.
 

Bests regards,
Cristóbal 

[Rakesh Malik]

Selecting it in mconfig didn't work; the Tangent mapper didn't show Mistika connected to the panel. I followed the steps on that page, but didn't have any better success; assuming that is that I have the right Tangent driver kit installed. Tangent's page doesn't show anything in the application support section for Mistika Boutique, so I just download the Tangent Hub installer and tried that. I've tried with the Use Synapse/Arc option on and off, same result. 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

[Rakesh Malik]

Good news -- I just tried again on a lark, and this time it worked... I have no idea what changed, but the panel is detected in Mistika and working!

 

[Rakesh Malik]

The Tangent mapping is Mistika is phenomenal! Wow. Grading in Mistika just became a lot more fun and a lot easier... 

 

 

 

[Rakesh Malik]

Argh. It worked that one time... not a second time -- now Mistika isn't connecting to the panel at all. 

 

 

 

[Rakesh Malik]

Apparently, I have to reboot the machine between Mistika sessions... sigh.

[jeff@dungeonbeach.com]

I also like the Wave2 mapping. It's very simple. But lots of buttons are unused, no? F1-F9. Up and down arrows for banks. Seems like there's opportunity to improve. 

[Cristobal Bolaños]

Hi guys!

Sorry for the late reply. 

 

On 2/27/2020 at 2:45 AM, Rakesh Malik said:

Apparently, I have to reboot the machine between Mistika sessions... sigh.

How come? Have you tried to simply reboot the Wave2 by unpluggin and pluggin the device again? Let me know a bit more about this please!

On 2/28/2020 at 4:58 AM, jeff@dungeonbeach.com said:

I also like the Wave2 mapping. It's very simple. But lots of buttons are unused, no? F1-F9. Up and down arrows for banks. Seems like there's opportunity to improve. 

Thanks! Wave2 is actually a really cool tangent product. It totally fills the gap between the Arc and the  Elements. 

Actually, there is a use for those buttons. Maybe it wasn't mapped when this post was created, but it is with the current built in mapping:

 

The F buttons are mapped for the presets. This is how they work:

- Once you have different FX Presets created, you can assign them a specific number by pressing the button with the Alternative button also pressed.

- Now they have a number assigned, whenever you are on a Color Grade node and click on the F number button, the color grade will be replaced with the FX preset.

This tool is really quick and is great for matching shots, and also for tryng out different look. Although for the latter, it is bes to use the histories.

 

The Up and Down buttons are mapped for the historys:

- The Bring Newer moves to the next hsitory, and has the alternative function of Creating a Version.

- The Bring Older moves to the previos history, and has the alternative function of Deleting a Version.

That way you can both easily navigate trough your historys, create them and delete them with only two buttons. 

 

If you ever have any doubts, you can go to the Tangent mapping software and it will be easier to see the specific function of the buttons. Also, don't forget that is fully customizable ?

 

Cheers,

Cristóbal 

 

 

[Rakesh Malik]

To update... I've found that if I have the Tangent mapper running, Mistika usually connects to the Wave2 on startup... unless I let Resolve connect to the panel in the interim; after that the only thing I've found that enables Mistika to connect to it again is to reboot the computer. Sigh... 

Scratch and Mistika both work well with the Tangent panel, and I've always thought that Scratch's mapping was quite good... until I got it working with Mistika. Now the Scratch mapping, as deep as it is, feels a lot less elegant ?