All new guis are sucking valuable resources

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For those who want to test whether size matters or not, I quickly made Eco versions of Default and GearPorn themes. I just batch resized most of the graphic files down 50% using ffmpeg.

Download: Bazille_(Eco)_3898.zip

Extract to your Bazille.data\Support\Themes\

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Grizzellda wrote:Urs, aren't vectors really the way to go, ultimately? I'm thinking in terms of fundamental flexibility, the best user experience interacting with the GUI of a plug-in. Do you think that improving this type of technology is worth the effort?

I do! :hihi:
I am afraid that vector graphics are a pretty tough sell, still. They might work with fancy gradients and stuff but rendering those is ultimately more CPU consuming than just blitting bitmaps.

However, we're experimenting a lot. We'll do some testing and I think we'll have some polls at some point.

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Urs wrote:I am afraid that vector graphics are a pretty tough sell, still. They might work with fancy gradients and stuff but rendering those is ultimately more CPU consuming than just blitting bitmaps.

However, we're experimenting a lot. We'll do some testing and I think we'll have some polls at some point.
Can you elaborate a little? I use some Melda plugs and they have a mode for GPU acceleration, where the graphics card handles the GUI. And they are freely resizable...however, Melda plug-ins are simply not as luscious looking as Hive!

Let me ask it this way: How close are we to beautifully rendered, 3D photo-realistic GUIs that are as easy to stretch and resize like an elastic band?

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Urs wrote:
Grizzellda wrote:Urs, aren't vectors really the way to go, ultimately? I'm thinking in terms of fundamental flexibility, the best user experience interacting with the GUI of a plug-in. Do you think that improving this type of technology is worth the effort?

I do! :hihi:
I am afraid that vector graphics are a pretty tough sell, still. They might work with fancy gradients and stuff but rendering those is ultimately more CPU consuming than just blitting bitmaps.

However, we're experimenting a lot. We'll do some testing and I think we'll have some polls at some point.
Hhmmm, FL Studio is using vector based graphics and nothing is running slow in there. Except the U-He plugins, with their big bitmaps. Other synths like Dune2, Serum, Oddity2, don't have issues in terms of graphical performance. I must add the performance of U-He vst's is pretty solid, but dragging and opening those vst's is just substantial slower by comparison.

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Interesting, I'll take a look at Fruity. It just seems to me that the whole concept of vector graphics is the future for all this stuff.

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Grizzellda wrote:Interesting, I'll take a look at Fruity. It just seems to me that the whole concept of vector graphics is the future for all this stuff.
I certainly hope so :)

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V0RT3X wrote:I find that out of all the U-he plugins I own, that bazilles GUI takes the longest to load.

It's slightly annoying everytime i need to do an adjustment and have to wait half a minute for the GUI to load before i can adjust a control. Maybe this is just in Bitwig?

I havn't tried it in any of my other DAWs.
I'm guessing it is a Bitwig problem

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pdxindy wrote:
V0RT3X wrote:I find that out of all the U-he plugins I own, that bazilles GUI takes the longest to load.

It's slightly annoying everytime i need to do an adjustment and have to wait half a minute for the GUI to load before i can adjust a control. Maybe this is just in Bitwig?

I havn't tried it in any of my other DAWs.
I'm guessing it is a Bitwig problem
I'm guessing it might be, I'll have to update to 1.3.4 and test it again.
:borg:

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exmatproton wrote:Hhmmm, FL Studio is using vector based graphics and nothing is running slow in there.

They probably use hardware acceleration (fast for vector, not as fast for bitmaps), while...
Except the U-He plugins, with their big bitmaps.

.. yes, we use bitmaps, hence no hardware acceleration...

... but still, we have crispy clear and stunning graphics even at 200% UI size while...
Other synths like Dune2, Serum, Oddity2, don't have issues in terms of graphical performance.
... they don't because they can't resize.

Furthermore. look at Diva, Presswerk or Satin. There are many different types of knobs. Bazille and ACE have cables. Zebra has thousands of parameters with lots of complex editors in a highly adaptive UI. We simply make more complex plug-ins than others with a much higher feature diversity. Therefore, yes, our visual requirements are probably a bit higher.

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Grizzellda wrote:
Urs wrote:I am afraid that vector graphics are a pretty tough sell, still. They might work with fancy gradients and stuff but rendering those is ultimately more CPU consuming than just blitting bitmaps.

However, we're experimenting a lot. We'll do some testing and I think we'll have some polls at some point.
Can you elaborate a little? I use some Melda plugs and they have a mode for GPU acceleration, where the graphics card handles the GUI. And they are freely resizable...however, Melda plug-ins are simply not as luscious looking as Hive!

Let me ask it this way: How close are we to beautifully rendered, 3D photo-realistic GUIs that are as easy to stretch and resize like an elastic band?
My stance: Vector graphics are only good for performance when rendered on the GPU and when flat (2D). Flat vector graphics don't sell, with the single (!) exeption of Ableton Live. Another exception may be Fabfilter, but they go through lengths to make their stuff look more interesting than fully flat stuff. Both companies have nailed 2D vector graphics by creating their individual style.

3D vector graphics are possible, but may be as CPU taxing as bitmap graphics if they are supposed to look right. They require a magnifold of development time. Expect product cycles and updates to take twice the time.

Nicely done bitmap graphics sell. Because this is what people want. Hence we do nicely done bitmap graphics. And also because I simply don't like flat stuff.

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The DivaGUI.png is 3.20 MB and has 48633 colors. And this is only the background which holds all other png's in place. Nice wooden panels, but can I hear them in the mix?
Reduce size by 50%, save as 256 colors PNG - goes down to 273 KB. And it still looks good on a laptop monitor.

I demoed Hive a while ago and its UI was just too heavy. Seemed even worse than Largo but this one has 4 layers, sub-panels, etc.

So yes, maybe just make official lightweight UIs.

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scintillator wrote:Nice wooden panels, but can I hear them in the mix?
Unfortunately, yes, you do.

There were multiple tests where people got the same audio algorithm with different UIs, and people favoured the sound of the better looking ones. So yes, the UI changes the perception of the sound of plug-ins. Which is why Diva is our best selling plug-in and which is also why we work on a redesign of Zebra.

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Btw... with all the things people say here. It would be helpful if we could distinguish "gui opening time" vs. "CPU consumption" once the UI is opened. That is, you need to be more specific. Just saying "it's too heavy" doesn't mean much to us.

One also has to factor "plug-in loading time in", which in our case should be shorter (!) than those who have their resources embedded into the plug-in binary. Furthermore, our UIs are optimized for updating only as much as necessary. Dragging a UI may be more taxing in our case while the steady UI with a bit of mousing around may be totally fine.

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Urs wrote:
scintillator wrote:Nice wooden panels, but can I hear them in the mix?
Unfortunately, yes, you do.
:shock:

Urs wrote:Just saying "it's too heavy" doesn't mean much to us.
Ha, it's not just plug-in loading time. Moving knobs and sliders, dragging around, cables, the UI just staying open - leaves the same impression: from almost to really too heavy.

Just buy a few low to middle spec'ed laptops for testing purposes and see for yourself/ves. I expect you're using only supercomputers at your office, that's why you act surprised that some people complain about this.

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I'm curious too as with my current studio computer, a 2011 MacPro with average graphics card, I don't see any lagging around with UI with either Zebra, Hive nor Diva. Loading is fast, too. This is with latest Logic and Ableton Live. I'm still using 10.10 as I was lazy upgrading (thank to NI being late with their plugins fixed for 10.11.)

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