superstar "background"

[Quad]

I've been using superstar for a few months now and really like it.

I was wondering if there was a way to specify a background other than black (off). All of my superstar sequences seem to generate with a black background. What I'd like to do is have some have a white background or some other color background. I've tried playing around with the "background" tool in the sequence editor with "fill" and it just seems to smudge all the channels together. Is there any way to just change the background in superstar before it sequences the sequence?

If i could do this I think it would help alot. I've gotten some comments that my displays have alot of dead time or off time and if I could have an "on" background it would really make the display so much more vibrant. Changing this manually seems alot of needless work.

Quad

[Don]

Use the Sequence Editor, with the Background option set, to turn 'on' those cells you wan to have 'on'.

Since the background option will fill in any cell with nothing in in, applying the 'on' to those cells would simply have them 'on.' There would be no merging of colors, etc.

[BrianBruderer]

The ability to specify a background color would be a desirable feature in SuperStar. However, the current design does not make it easy to add such a feature.

Currently, if you try to create a background color by creating a scene that lasts a long time, and you do some effects in the foreground, you will not get the results you expect.

For example, if I create a 50% red background for several seconds using a scene, and then I place a short 100% red morph in the middle of the long scene, what happens is the morph gets ignored. This is because, currently the rule for "channel collisions" is to keep the longest command and throw out the short one.

And if you do a green morph on top of that same red background, what you get is a yellow morph. This is because red and green are two different channels, so there is no "channel collision" so they both go through and combine to make yellow.

What you want is to be able to specify a background color, and for any effects in the foreground to be played on top of that color. As mentioned, the current design just doesn't have anything in there to allow that.

However, in the case of text, when you specify a "Negative Mask" you can place any effect you want in the background and any effect you want in the foreground. But note that the text must be stationary. What you want is a way to have a background color and move anything you want in the foreground. That would be cool to be able to do that, but without going into the details it is very difficult to impliment in the code. It is difficult enough that I don't expect to add that next year, but maybe the year after that.

[Quad]

Don, I'll give it a shot.

Brian, i've seen demoes of a "black" spotlight moving across a CCR grid that is all on. I think that was done with superstar? Or was that done with the scene function?

[BrianBruderer]

I have two sequences that have "spotlights" moving but they are colored. If you can find the video with the spotlight you are thinking of I would be curious to see it.

[Quad]

Don, i tried your suggestion and it worked but it only makes a white background.... any other tricks to be able to do the same with a color?