Where to Begin

[mark obermiller]

I am having a tough time with superstar. Is there a beginners tutorial. Something that starts from the very beginning. I have watched the videos. I have done alot of reading. When I get right down to it, I am having problems on where to begin.

I have no problems whatsoever with the sequence editor. Superstar is so much different, well I just am having trouble grasping it. Where do I begin? To prove i'm not a dope, I have already done 10 sequences with 696 channels. I guess I am the old dog that has trouble learning new tricks.

Thanks!

[Ron Boyd]

The best thing I did when I first started with Superstar this year was purchase one of Brian's sequences. I was struggling just like you say you are. I studied the sequence and once I had the "aha" moment, it's actually quite simple to sequence with. I sequenced ~15 songs with 8 CCP strings (4 units) and a set of DMX Rainbow Pixels at the same time. 1326 total channels and it only took about an hour per minute as opposed to about 4 hours for 112 regular LOR channels.

Keep at it. It will happen. If you would like to see how things are done in a sequence, let me know and I'll send you an instant sequence that has about everything, morphs, twinkles and others. If interested, send me an email address.

Ron.

[BrianBruderer]

If you haven't already watched, the "SuperStar Basic Scenes" tutorial is meant to be the first one to watch. It goes through and shows you how to create the first part of the "Carol of the Bells" sequence. The bars at the top confuse people at first, but the concept is that everything is an effect with attributs like start time, end time, start color and end color, and which pixels to turn on. With CCRs there are so many pixels that it is hard to display them all on one screen, so superStar represents each effect with a single bar. To see what pixels the bar controls you click on the bar and you will see them on the sequencing grid.

If you have alread watched "SuperStar Basic Scenes" and are still at a loss for where to start, let me know because I want to understand where the tutorial is not clear, or where I can explain things better.

[mark obermiller]

Hi Brian, I have watched the video several times. I guess I'm having trouble with the initial setup and various settings. For instance I'm doing 4 circles with 1 ccr per circle. I have been able to get the circles to show on superstar but I have no idea about the settings. For instance my 4 circles and the horizontal pixel bars are so small they are very difficult to work with. I do not know how to tell superstar where pixel 1 is located.

This is what I'm having trouble with is inital settings and what the different popup boxes are for. I need the absolute beginning description and set up of superstar.

Thanks!

[mark obermiller]

OK, I have leaned a few things since my last posting. What I cannot find is enlarging the bars for choosing the pixels and display image, circles.

[BrianBruderer]

You can do circles in "ccr mode" or "visualization mode." In CCR mode you go to the layout dialog box and set as follows:

CCR Mode

Nbr of CCRs 12

Light Type CCRs

Ribbon Orientation Horizontal

Ribbon Shape Circle

Ribbon Length Full

Location of Ribbon Controller Left

You probably have already done the steps above. I call the little green squares the "sequencing grid." It sounds like the green squares on the sequencing grid are very small on your screen. What resolution is your screen?

One rule I wanted to follow with the software is to have everything on one screen. With SuperStar the sequencing grid is like the big grid of squares on the LOR Sequence Editor. Above the sequencing grid, I have the time layers where all the bars are that represent the effects. There are also the color select controls, and there is sort of a built in visualizer so you see your sequence played. All of these are one screen, and it makes development of a sequence much faster as opposed to having to switch back and forth between a sequencing screen and a visualization screen. So that is why the sequencing grid is small.

But it sounds like I may have made the sequencing grid so small that it is unusable in some cases. One solution is to get a larger video screen, but I realize that may not be an option. If the green squares are so small you can't click in them, then I apologize and the software is basically unusable.

You mention that you "do not know how to tell superstar where pixel 1 is." In CCR mode, all the layouts are "premade" and the location of the pixels is preset and it requires that you set up your hardware to match the "premade" layouts. This makes things easy at the beginning because you don't have to specify where things are, but it has the draw back of being inflexible and requires you set your hardware up in certain ways.

In the case of the circles, click on pixel 1 (the leftmost pixel) on the green sequencing rows. A pixel on the circle will light up, and that is where pixel 1 is, and it means you have to set up your circles to match that layout.

I mentioned that there is also a visualiztion mode in SuperStar. Do the following:

Click on the File menu and select "Import Visualization"

In the visualization dialog box, set the Sequencing Grid "Max Length" to 100

Click on "Ok"

Navigate to the "Samples" folder and open "Circles_4.lee"

You should see 4 circles on the screen, but this time the 4 circles are being created from a visualization file that I created in the visualizer. To see a sample sequence do the following:

Click on the File menu and select "Open"

navigate to the "Samples" folder and open "Circles_4.sup"

You will see some bars at the top showing some sample effects on the circles. I recommend using this visualization for doing a circle sequence. I have laid out the circles so that the top half of each circle is on the top sequencing row, and the bottom half of each circle is on the bottom sequencing row. This may seem weird at first but if you want to do effects that weave around the circles this is much easier to work with that how the circles are in "CCR mode"

Hope the above helps and makes sense. I just recently put in the ability to do the circles with a visualization like outlined above and I need to do a tutorial on that.

[mark obermiller]

OK I have my resolution on my computer set at 1280 X 768. I did turn down the resolution and it helped. I then decided to close superstar and restart it. The sequencing grid enlarged to a usable size. Problem solved. I will start sequencing and see how things go. Thanks!