Save to Tape doesn't work

gmcclusky

I received my BlinkTape and have been playing with animations in PatternPaint (using Photoshop primarily to mock up color patterns) and opening them and testing animation and speed in PatternPaint - However, I tried to Save to Tape, and the progress bar never fills--just sits there forever. I can see my animations, so I know I am connected to the BlinkyTape, but I cannot seem to save them...any thoughts on what might be wrong, since there was no manual or help file that provided insights?

gmcclusky

I tried a 60x60 pixel 24 bit png and it worked fine. However the larger 60x240 wide 24 bit png doesn't seem to save...

Matt Mets

Sorry about that! There's currently an issue with PatternPaint when you try to upload an image that's too big to fit in it's memory. It should pop up a warning to say it's too big. I'm working on fixing that now, and also improving the pattern compression so that it can store larger patterns.

Can you share the image you are trying to load? I'll add it to our series of tests, so that we can make sure it works.

gmcclusky

Here is the original (large) image I tried to Save to Tape: http://imgur.com/ingtekL - The purpose of the image is to make the Blinkytape provide lights in ceramic houses under a Christmas tree--I designed the yellow house lights to flicker or change in color or in some cases go on and off and varied the pattern so each house in unique. In between the houses I have a single LED set to a blue gradient for lighting the snow in between the houses. Works great!

Matt Mets

Ok, cool. Interestingly, that .jpg didn't open for me in the OS X version of PatternPaint, so I filed that as a separate bug. After converting it to a .png, it loaded fine, and exhibited the same behavior as you are describing.

Improving the image compression that this will upload, and fixing the above bug, are the two main features I hope address in the next version of PatternPaint.