Mixed channel effect in an RGB prop

[Eric Roberts]

I recently upgraded to S5 and email support has been stellar in helping me with things I couldn't find in the docs or forum.

However, I found a new issue and have been waiting about a week - so I thought I would also ask here.

(copy and paste from my support ticket)

"... 

In some sequences, I'll use a solid color and an effect like shimmer or twinkle in a single RGB channel with cool effect.  

For example, I'll have the red set to solid then twinkle at the same time on green.  The effect is almost flame-like.  Set this across my display and it's a rather nice fire effect.  

Or, on my skeletons eyes, I'll have steady red and I'll shimmer green and blue.  This makes his eyes strobe white while staying red in the off time of the white.  

 

Now in S5, his eyes simply turn on white. No shimmer, no red, just white.  

 

I loaded some of my Christmas sequences that use the method heavily.  The preview window renders these moments as a solid color.  

 

How can I recover or fix this?   A few sequences are built around the effect entirely and this is kind of devistating if this ability has been done away with.  ..."

 

Has anyone else used solid, shimmer and/or twinkle in an RGB channel set before?  It works in S4, but I cannot find a way to make it work in S5.

 

Thanks in advance for your time,

Eric

 

[PhilMassey]

You are correct. 

I posted  about this a while back, but you and I must be the only ones who use different effects in the RGB channels. I'll try and dig out my original post.

In S4 you could have a shimmer in R and intensity in G and a shimmer in B for example.

Now you can only have one effect for all three. The program will also change different effects to the same when you save the sequence.

The effect which is highest in the three channels will become a sort of master effect  for all three channels. 

If you hover over the master channel the tooltip tells the tale.

I suspect it is a programming shortcut to keep filesize down and simplify the code.  After all, who could possibly want to do this..........  

Virtually all my sequences got changed.

A lot of intensities got changed to shimmers, because there was a shimmer in the channel above. Looked terrible, so I had to do a mass change in every sequence from shimmer to intensity. It looked OK then, but was not the effect I really wanted.

I first thought it was a copy, paste thing.

Then I found that it was the way the file was being saved.

It is very difficult to explain how it now works, and I guess we are the only two to notice the change.

It's all about motion effects now. Sequencing is too hard.

Found the post.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by PhilMassey
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[Eric Roberts]

Thank you for this - you described the glitch.

I am going to go read your post now.

__________________________________

Yes yes yes!  That is what I need back - some sequences can get by with the conversion, others were written around that exact effect.

I will make a new thread I guess asking for it as a fix or feature update.

 

If it can't be fixed, I have to downgrade to S4.  I don't use motion effects, nor smart pixels or whatever... I really enjoy hand animating, and this effect was part of it.

 

Thank you for responding and linking that thread, it did not come up when I was trying to search for this over the past week.

-Eric

Edited February 3, 2020 by Eric Roberts

[Box on Rails]

On 2/2/2020 at 3:44 PM, Eric Roberts said:

In some sequences, I'll use a solid color and an effect like shimmer or twinkle in a single RGB channel with cool effect.  

For example, I'll have the red set to solid then twinkle at the same time on green.  The effect is almost flame-like.  Set this across my display and it's a rather nice fire effect.  

Or, on my skeletons eyes, I'll have steady red and I'll shimmer green and blue.  This makes his eyes strobe white while staying red in the off time of the white.  

 

Now in S5, his eyes simply turn on white. No shimmer, no red, just white.  

 

I loaded some of my Christmas sequences that use the method heavily.  The preview window renders these moments as a solid color.  

 

How can I recover or fix this?   A few sequences are built around the effect entirely and this is kind of devistating if this ability has been done away with.  ..."

 

Has anyone else used solid, shimmer and/or twinkle in an RGB channel set before?  It works in S4, but I cannot find a way to make it work in S5.

 

Thanks in advance for your time,

Eric

 

Hi Eric I tried to duplicate what you are describing and had no success in the R.G.B. channel level in S5  but I was able to duplicate the effect you mentioned using the Motion effect feature in S5. and I must say this effect is quite awesome for eye effects... I used 2 motion effects Channels assigned to the Prop fixture  that controls the eyes. On my eye fixture I use 20 smart pixels per eye. 40 total pixels are controlled by the 2 motion effects channels.  effect 1 is set to a color wash effect of solid red. Effect channel 2 is set to the standard white shimmer. this produces the same effect you describe above. I guess this does not solve your issue but is a back up plan if the old way of creating the effect is lost. one positive thing about using motion effects is you can stack as many effects on top of each other as you want. there is no limit to the number of effects channels us use. hope this helps a little.

[Eric Roberts]

On 2/4/2020 at 11:19 AM, Box on Rails said:

Hi Eric I tried to duplicate what you are describing and had no success in the R.G.B. channel level in S5  but I was able to duplicate the effect you mentioned using the Motion effect feature in S5. and I must say this effect is quite awesome for eye effects... I used 2 motion effects Channels assigned to the Prop fixture  that controls the eyes. On my eye fixture I use 20 smart pixels per eye. 40 total pixels are controlled by the 2 motion effects channels.  effect 1 is set to a color wash effect of solid red. Effect channel 2 is set to the standard white shimmer. this produces the same effect you describe above. I guess this does not solve your issue but is a back up plan if the old way of creating the effect is lost. one positive thing about using motion effects is you can stack as many effects on top of each other as you want. there is no limit to the number of effects channels us use. hope this helps a little.

I'm glad to hear it can be reproduced without having to change props.... But I do not have the pro level,so no motion effects for me.  

Matt did suggest a work around of making RGB aggregates for each prop.  And this saves the integrity of the channel effects when entered on top of each other.   The bummer part is having to remake the RGB props into single channel red, green and blue props.  But I saved the other preview, so it'll be an easy copy and paste when they address this in the future. 

It doesn't render /perfectly/ but it's close enough for upgrading existing sequences and some learning while ticketing in S5

[Eric Roberts]

Oops, I meant tinkering in S5.