Adding new props with existing sequence?

[vincerules]

So, I am starting to think towards next year. I have some ideas of some new props/fixtures I want to add to my display for next year and I am hoping to be able to using my existing sequences and just add the animations for the new props for next year. In LOR Sequence Editor, this is very easy to do since you would just assign the new channels to the new props and sequence them in. But in Superstar, I would have to use LOR Visualizer and add the props/fixtures then import the new visualization file into SSE. This is where I think everything will go wrong. The new props/fixtures will not be added to the end of the green bars, so my existing SSE sequences will be out of wack and I will have to go through every sequence to fix it. Am I thinking this through right? If so, that is a major bummer.

[BrianBruderer]

vincerules wrote:

So, I am starting to think towards next year.  I have some ideas of some new props/fixtures I want to add to my display for next year and I am hoping to be able to using my existing sequences and just add the animations for the new props for next year. In LOR Sequence Editor, this is very easy to do since you would just assign the new channels to the new props and sequence them in. But in Superstar, I would have to use LOR Visualizer and add the props/fixtures then import the new visualization file into SSE. This is where I think everything will go wrong. The new props/fixtures will not be added to the end of the green bars, so my existing SSE sequences will be out of wack and I will have to go through every sequence to fix it. Am I thinking this through right? If so, that is a major bummer.

You are very astute to realize this. The way to think of it is that the SuperStar program plays the sequence to the green sequencing grid, and then that gets translated to the lights assinged to the grid. This is what allows the instant sequence feature the ability to sequence to any set of lights. And it is what makes it easy to do a chase effect across a row of your lights. For instance if you have lights across your bushes and you add more channels of lights in your bushes, a chase effect should still start at the first bush and end on the last bush, and the start time and end time do not change, it should just run across more bushes. The SuperStar approach makes it easier to run that same chase across more bushes.

But the SuperStar approach has the drawback of making it so that if you insert a new fixture into the middle, then it changes the sequence.

I have faced this problem just when doing the sample visualizations. I wrote a short sequence as a sample, then I changed the sample, and I had to change the sequence to match the changes in the sample. It actually doesn't take as long as you think to change the sequence, because the timing of the effects don't change, but the assignment of the grid pixels does, but it is still a pain to do so.

It was also interesting that when I added to a visualization, it changed the sequence, but it sometimes still looked good. This is because it was still changing some lights to the beat of the song, it was just some different lights.

Nevertheless, what I need is a utility that would take an old visualization file and a new one, and convert an old sequence to fit the new one.

Another ongoing issue is the general problem of combining CCR sequences with the rest of the sequence. My idea of supporting visualization files was that you could then sequence all of your lights and wouldn't have to combine them anymore. But I now realize that most people don't want to write a new sequence from scratch because they already have some sequences they have written that match their lights very well. So what I need is a utility that will import an existing .lms sequence file into SuperStar, the utility would have to convert the commands in the .lms file into scenes and morphs. I might say that is no small task but it is definitely doable.

[vincerules]

Wow, thank you for understanding what i meant and explaining it in much more detail. It sounds like you know what I am talking about, and have ran across it also. I am still very new to SSE, but love it so far. I look forward to any and all updates over the next year.

Oh, and good luck with this one :-)

[vincerules]

Ok, so I have been thinking about this for weeks now trying to come up with a good recommendation on how to get this going. Since I am starting to think of next years show, I wanted to start doing some sequencing little by little throughout the year so I can have a bunch of songs done. The problem is that I know if I start now, over the next 11 months there will be many changes to props/fixtures in the display.

So here is what I am thinking, does it make any sense?

Instead of the utility you mentioned of importing a lms into SuperStar (which I am sure would be helpful for others) I would prefer a utility that would transition from one SSE/visualization file to a new visualization.

I have an SSE file, with the visualization loaded. I sequence the entire song, im good to go.
Now I want to add a big mega tree right in the middle of my display. I go to visualizer and add it in.
This super awesome new utility would allow me to load my SSE sequence and see side by side the old visualization and the new visualization.
One by one I can go through and reference or tell the utility which props are the same so that the utility can go through my sequence and change which green square is controlled from the old location to the new location.

This would have to be done for each SSE file, but when you do it, your new visualization file would function exactly as the old one did, but with your new props added. Now you can go through and sequence the new props in.

Let me know if this is unclear and I can try to explain my thoughts a little better...

[BrianBruderer]

vincerules wrote:

Ok, so I have been thinking about this for weeks now trying to come up with a good recommendation on how to get this going. Since I am starting to think of next years show, I wanted to start doing some sequencing little by little throughout the year so I can have a bunch of songs done. The problem is that I know if I start now, over the next 11 months there will be many changes to props/fixtures in the display.

So here is what I am thinking, does it make any sense?

Instead of the utility you mentioned of importing a lms into SuperStar (which I am sure would be helpful for others) I would prefer a utility that would transition from one SSE/visualization file to a new visualization.

I have an SSE file, with the visualization loaded. I sequence the entire song, im good to go.
Now I want to add a big mega tree right in the middle of my display. I go to visualizer and add it in.
This super awesome new utility would allow me to load my SSE sequence and see side by side the old visualization and the new visualization.
One by one I can go through and reference or tell the utility which props are the same so that the utility can go through my sequence and change which green square is controlled from the old location to the new location.

This would have to be done for each SSE file, but when you do it, your new visualization file would function exactly as the old one did, but with your new props added. Now you can go through and sequence the new props in.

Let me know if this is unclear and I can try to explain my thoughts a little better...

Yes, a utility that would take an old visualization file and a new visualization file, and convert a sequence to fit the new visualization file would be first priority. Next priority would be something that would import .lms files.
The utility should be able to convert most things without any input from the user. But there are things you may want to change. For example, there may be a morph that goes across the entire sequencing row and then you put your megatree in the middle. You may or may not want the morph to use the megatree. The utility would do its best, and then you would probably want to do some changes manually also.

[vincerules]

Yes, I totally agree with having to go through afterwards and tweak it, but this type of utility would be wonderful.

I just love using SSE for my entire sequence and dont want to go back to SE. I hope this utility seems possible. Thanks for the reply!