Chasing arches

[Ted W]

Last year was great, this year I am adding arches. I see many videos where it looks as if iit is water flowing from one channel to the next. I unserstand how to program the basic, where one channel is on and when it goes off the next comes on and so fourth. How do I make look like it is flowing.

Is it fading, or overlapping the lights, or both?

[wschlatt]

I use clear mini-lights for my arches - 6 channels of 150 lights each. And I do both! [in most cases] they fade up, stay on, then fade down. The next channel overlaps it, starting its cycle slightly afterwards. The trick, of course, is to time the entire group of channels (the end-to-end movement) to the music as appropriate.

[TJ Hvasta]

Ted, I had actually typed how to do this, but you will learn more watching the video. go to the Menu Bar at the very top of this Forum, S3 Video Tutorials, select Chase, watch. recreate yours..

Edited September 12, 2012 by TJ Hvasta

[Orville]

Well let;s see if this works. Here's a screen shot of one section of my 2012 Halloween sequence "Born To Be Alive" where my arches, 3 arches x 3 Channels per arch {total 9 channles} flow smoothly like you're talking about. Anyway this is how I get my arches to flow and fade from one to the next section of each arch.

[dgrant]

For a slower chase, what I'm doing on a couple of tunes is to instant on, then slowly fade while doing the next one instant on. Therefore more than one is on at the same time...Now if I'm doing a fast tune, then I might chase it quickly, therefore the fade to off is quicker by far. In my case, it all depends on the tempo of the song and the type of impact I'm trying to achieve. One tune I've done was very difficult with this, Over the Rainbow, from the Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland, because the chase is so very slow and there's no effective "beat" to the song.

[Orville]

EDIT: had to remove the screen shot to post the sequence. Think I prefer the old forum where posting sequences in a post didn't require having to go and delete other/photo's info that may be pertinent to a discussion!

Here is my 80 channel "Born To Be Alive" sequence that uses slow, moderate and fast moving arches in the song.

Hopefully this will help you see how I did it and possibly help you to get your arches moving the way you want them.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Orville

[Orville]

Accidentally deleted the Born to Be Alive sequence. So here it is again. DOH!

[james campbell]

the chase tool is your best friend,make super smooth chases