Need some input on a morphing effectg please.

[David Barnett]

Howdy folks, working on a seq. of tocatta. One effect I'm trying to create:

I have a tree with 10 chnnnels, 5 purple 5 orange. They are laid out with 2 sets on the trunk, and then low,mid,hi lights.

I want to have the tree turn on on 4 seperate beats, which I have looks fine.

However, As the music is fading down, I want the purple lights to slowly morph into orange, and then fade off.

Well, I have that effect...sort of. The purple lights look great, but the transition is not that good. It's more of a purple fading away, then fairly quickly the orange comes in.

Also, I have it set up, when the orange does fade in; it starts from the top and fades ON down to the bottom of the trunk.

So, what is the best way to seq. a morphing type fade IN/OUT. IE as the purple is fading aay the orange is fading IN. But, I want the effect to be as if the orange is "painting" over the purple from top to bottom, then totally fade off.

I'm close, jsut not quite there yet. It's too fast of a transition.

Any ideas appreciated.

Best,

David

[HowardShank]

Here's my suggestion.

You determine the start time and the end time where you want the transition to take place.

You then determine the fade out rate for your first color. It can be a straight fade out from 100% to 0% or whatever curve you'd like it to be.

Then simultaneous with your fade out, you determine the start time for your fade in color and the end time and you perform the same fade going from 0% to 100% (or whatever intensity you require).

Basically, somewhere in the middle you now have a crossover point where the 2nd color equals the intensity of the 1st color. Depending on the tempo of the music this will probably be somewhere dead center of your start and end fade range.


This represents an equal fade out and in to change colors. The attached image shows a 2 second crossover from 1 second to 3 second. The crossover is at 2 second. I could do the fade down from 1 second to 2.5 second and the fade up from 1.5 second to 3 second on the time line. It all depends on your intended result.

1. Begin your fade down
2. Begin your fade up
3. End your fade up
4. End your fade down
X - Crossover represents the point where the colors are equal intensity

Hope this helps.


Attached files

[HowardShank]

This screenshot displays an fade where the color 1 begins lowering intensity before color 2 begins increasing intensity.


Attached files

[HowardShank]

This screenshot represents a fade where color 1 lowers intensity quickly and color 2 increases intensity slower. This can be reversed if you want to decrease intensity of color 1 slower and then increase color 2 quicker.

The primary thing here is to determine the start and stop range of the fade in and fade out and determine at what point during that time range you want the 2nd color to begin dominating the intensity.


Attached files

[HowardShank]

Here would be a representation of 3 different layers going from top to bottom. The start time and end time of each fade should be adjusted to achieve your goal.

This will give a layered transition from top to bottom with fading at each layer.


Attached files

[HowardShank]

You can also try a variation of this pattern. It will give a fade from bottom to top. Adjust the timings so it looks good for your sequencing.

This will perform more of a fade from bottom to top (or top to bottom if you change your channels). This is probably the closest transition you are looking for.


Attached files

[Brian Mitchell]

I find sometimes the overall light level drops during a crossover like the above examples, so instead of spreading the fades out more, I will overlap them more by starting the second color's fade up before I start to fade down the first color.

The light level drops off a lot faster below 50% than above.

[HowardShank]

So what you are saying Brian is it could end up looking something like this...



Attached files

[Brian Mitchell]

Exactly.

[Charles Belcher]

And if the fades are too slow, sometime you will get an unintentional third color from the combination of the two you are fading depending on the position of the two original colors. This is often unacceptable.

Charles

[LENNY RUEL]

Also remember the orange may show up quicker than the purple is off. Hot color vs cool so you may want to drop off the purple quicker or start the orange a pinch later.

Lenny

I was contemplating this or Moonlight and madness or whatever it's called. The five new songs are decent though, pretty hard driving. But compared to their other stuff we all use for Christmas these are out there.

[-klb-]

You can also have the first color fade out a bit, say to 70% in advance of the change, if you want more of an effect of the second color overpowering, or pushing out the first. I would personally do the fade to 70% over a long time, then once the second color is up over 50%, drop out the first color pretty fast.

Unfortunately, the characteristics of the individual strings and colors will play in quite a bit, so you are going to have to play with it some, to find out what looks right with the lights you actually have.

[David Barnett]

Howard etal...I knew I could count on ya.

Your examples is pretty much what I have done Howard.

Only difference.......instead of doing trunk,low,mid,hi on the purple; I combined the purple and mid on beat 3. This gives more time for the transition to orange and fade. I think it looks pretty good..at least in the sequencer and HLD 4:D

Many Thanks for all your input. klb, hope to be able to meet you someday. we live pretty close to each other.

Best, David