Trying to understand S5

[ed26105]

I have been using S4 for years, and have played a little in S5.  Trying to make the switch but am having trouble understanding how to insert a motion effect.  When I open a sequence previously done in S4, I can't see any way to open motion effects to apply to a section of the sequence, in this case on the bells.  I know i must be missing something pretty simple.  Any help is appreciated.

[default]

IMHO, your best bet is to watch the tutorials. Pay close attention to the Creation of a Preview. In S5, Previews must be setup correctly for things to work as you would expect.

Just because you converted a S4 Sequence into S5, that doesn't mean it will create a proper Preview in S5. You may have to tweak it, that's why I recommend you watch the tutorial videos to get a good handle on what a preview is in S5.

In your example above highlight an area with the left mouse button, then right click inside that area and choose "Insert Motion Effect" try adding Bars and see if it works.

If you have questions after watching the tutorials, ask away.

LOR S5 Tutorials

Alan...

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by default

[PJD]

I agree that some of the LOR Video Tutorials are helpful.  There were also some useful bits in the PDF on Upgrading from S4 to S5.  In my opinion, the most important thing you need to understand is the importance of the Preview.

I started really using LOR this past year.  My husband has been doing the lights on his own for many years, but we decided to split it up and he handles most of the hardware and I handle most of the software.  His old sequences are probably from S2 or S3.  I debated for a while whether to go with S4 or just to S5, but finally decided to make the plunge.

At first, I tried upgrading the old sequences and using that as the starting point for my Preview - finally decided that was causing more problems than it was helping.  Started from scratch and setup my Previews (one for Halloween and one for Xmas).  They are still being tweeked, but that is OK since all the sequences based on a Preview automatically update when you make those changes.  We were a week or so into the Xmas lights season when I decided the pixels had to be pulled back - they were so bright that you couldn't really see the pictures on the pixel trees.  Went into my Preview and updated the dimming curve for each prop and that was it, all the sequences in my show (about 12-15 at that time) were updated (and looked MUCH better).

Once I had a Preview setup, my basic workflow is to open an old sequence and temporarily use the automatically "upgraded" Preview created for it.  I have been naming those so they are easy to find and delete from the list of Previews when I am finished.  Then I open a new musical sequence for the same song using my brand new S5 Preview. The 2 tabs are open side by side and easy to go back and forth. From there, it is pretty much just copy/pasting the sequences over.  This might be a bigger deal if I had more channels and sequences than I did - but we had less than 20 sequences and most of them only had 48 or fewer regular channels.  This was our first year with pixels (2 16x50 trees and a gazebo covered in icicles and snowflakes - about 2800 total) so I didn't have any of that to copy over.  I used the same technique using the wonderful shared sequences from JR & James - open their file in its own tab with its own generated preview and copy to my new sequence that used my Preview.

I also found a lot of Alan's (default) posts and tutorial videos useful.  There are a number here on the forum, but I don't know if there is an easy way to search for them.  I've just watched them as came across them and pretty much always learn something new.  He also has a Vimeo channel (sometimes linked when he has posted a video to help answer someones questions.) and again, even if they are very specific in answering someone else's question/problem, I always seem to learn something new! (Thanks, Alan!)

As Alan mentioned in the post above, you can insert Motion Effects by right clicking on a selection and using "Insert Motion Effect".  It is also on the toolbar menu in the "Type" box.  However, I think the option may be grayed out if you do not have any "Motion Effect Rows" in your sequencing grid (again, something that is usually setup in the Preview).

Lastly, one of the things that helped me the most when I started learning S5 was reading the entire Help documentation.  It can be downloaded from the LOR site, so I just put it on my kindle and read it through.  

[TexasLights]

The key things are (a), you need to configure them in a preview and (b) group them together into a group (in your examples the 5 bells) so that you can assign a motion effect to them.    (c) Then once you have a motion effect row, select the part you want to have the effect and do Shift-A (or select from the menu).   You can then try the different effects and see which you like using the preview in the motion effects editor.