Whole House Effects

[Ponddude]

Is there a feature in S5 where you can apply RGB effects across the entire house?  For example, the pinwheel effect to be centered in the display and played across all RGB elements?

Thanks!

[MattBrown]

Sure - same method as in S4 Pixel Editor. This requires a Pro license...

In Preview Design, create a group that contains all of your RGB-based display elements/props. When creating the group, set the arrangement to "preview". The slider next to the preview arrangement controls the resolution - low resolution may result in "blocky" looking effects, but will calculate faster and take less memory. 

Then in your sequence, make sure the new group has a motion effect row. Now on that row insert your pinwheel effect, curtain effect, or any other effect.

Matt

[Ponddude]

Thanks Matt!  Exactly what I was looking for.

[Dave76]

Thanks you me also!

[default]

to illustrate what Matt is explaining, here's link to some videos that show this action. I made a Group of all my Smart LEDs and can apply Motion Effects, pics, avi's to all the pixels at once. It's an awesome feature.

The songs posted in this thread,  Witch Doctor and What a Wonderful World were both done this way.

Alan...

[Dave76]

Did anyone else get irregular results grouping props and doing an effect?  Everything looks perfect in my visualizer, but this weekend I hooked everything all up and when I play my sequence, it does not look like my virtualization.  Most of it does, with exception of two prop areas.  

One is a grouping of three props consisting of a vertical molding, gutter line, and a second vertical molding. These three props are on one run from the controller and I assign them to the same universe.  They consist of 25, 24, and 34 pixels.  I first is 1-75, then the next starts at 76 and so on. 

Any idea what is wrong? Can I do it this way? I did last year but wasn’t using prop groups and an effect on the group. 

 

This unfortunately is one of about six problems I have right now...

thanks for any assistance

Dave 

 

[default]

Yup, I had this problem also. Mine was with 3 circles that are really 6 arches formed to make 3 circles. As you say everything looked fine in the Preview, but when played on the actual props theses 3 circles did not work as I thought I had sequenced them.
I ended up going in and changing the start points and direction of travel for the props. If you are gong to do this I highly recommend you make a couple of copies of your existing Preview before doing any of this. That way you can always go back to your original Preview if it doesn't work for you.

What I found is that a group which is setup with a "Use Preview" for the arrangement acts on all the props differently. That is to say the left side of your display is left according to the way the Preview is displayed. So if a effect goes from left to right, but your starting point for a prop is on the right or middle it's doesn't always respond properly.

The way I finally figure out what was going on was to make a animation sequence using Bars (blended or bars) as an effect. Go out to the yard and watch the props in action. Pick a direction one at a time. ie. Left, right, up or down. Apply it to the Group with all your props. Watch what happens. If any props do not respond properly. (as you say yours are doing) Those are the props to work on.

Look at the setup for those props, is the start pixels right, left? Does changing it make a difference? Your base props (not group) should be layed out the way it is built and wired.

Because "Use Preview" doesn't allow you to change orientation of the props, I created a Group called Circle L (left circle) and picking "Vertical Stack" for an arrangement. Then I was able to flip_horizontialy the bottom part of the circle. This moved the starting pixel from left to right for me. I had to do this with all 3 circles, Then I created another Group with all 3 modifed circles and applied the "Use Preview" for this Group. This "Use Preview" group was then added to another group for all my RGB props. (whole house effect) This is the Group that I use to apply whole house effects.

See the pictures below that show the different groups.

This was maddening for me until I watched what the props were actually doing and where the starting pixel are on the props. Then I started to understand what S5 sequencer was doing and adjusted my props accordingly. As I said before the Bars effect is the easiest to see and understand the direction. I would start with left, right effects, then make sure up, down work also, if so then all the other effects should work properly in respects to direction or rotation.

This is hard to explain, but again it is easier to see when observing your props. It is good you are starting testing early, I fear others are going to have the same issue, becuase as you say it all looks good in Sequencer in the house.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Alan...

 

[Box on Rails]

You explained this perfectly. in a nutshell I should Get the local prop direction working correctly within it's local group then add it to the whole display group. Group within a group. This makes sense now because I have one string in my display of 19 pixels that are a part of a 100 pixel string that has another prop with 65 of those pixels The 65 pixels are a window and the 19 pixels are a vertical line edge of the house. At the window the sequencer was running the Bar effect side ways. left and right was up and down. So I changes the starting point and it fixed the issue with the window. With my current issue it is a couple up and down strings that are running backwards So I thought I had tried everything to correct it but after reading this thread I realized I didn't isolate the strings and make sure they function correctly alone. Because my show was running last night when I got home I looked at a preview on my inside computer to see how my working props were set up. What I found surprised me. what I did was look at the string that I mentioned earlier and found that the 19 pixel portion was an unconnected line prop which was set horizontally and not vertically and it works correctly. I expected it to be orientated vertically because the actual prop is a vertical pixel string.  So I'm guessing if I go out today and mess with the orientation and starting point in it's own string group I will find the Issue. Alan if I don't resolve the issue today I'll send you a copy of the preview. Thanks so much for your help.

[Nowerman2005]

I just want to say that I found this topic extremely educational. I've only gotten into this Hobby this past year. And I have been having such fun learning all this. But this right here will bring my displays to a whole new level. Thank you everyone