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Using Tracks?


Tom B.

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pHar wrote:

Hopefully someone who has been playing with this for a while will see this question and reply...

How does export import of channel configuration work when using tracks? I have more then 200 channels and keeping them consistent with all my sequences is critical to me. So my concern is that I would need to keep the tracks consistent across all my sequences to still use the import and export feature correctly.

I.e. If I want to use a track for my mini trees in a certain order in one sequence and a different order in another sequence will the export/import break my channel assigments?

I suppose the work around is to have the same tracks in all of my sequences but that seems like it could bloat rather quickly (i.e. 4 different versions of my mini tree tracks in all sequences). Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You,

Frank



Frank,

I make my starting track with all my channels and import my channel config...



I then make a track of one new channel.. Create the beat using any of the many new tools. I then "Copy" my tree channels to this new track..... Be sure to read how to do this... Do not select a row and copy/paste...



You will see the mapping for the trees in all the track windows you have copied the tree channels too... If you make a change in a tree channel it is reflected in the other locations (tracks) you have it in. So you now have 2 windows showing the trees.... I only have 32 channels so to me the tracks is mostly for keeping up with the different beats in a song....



For you instead of copying to the new tracks you may want to choose the "move" function. And use the tracks to organize your sequence....

I think if you start with your master channel track and move them from there you should be OK..... I just checked... If you import your channel configs into a sequence it is applied to the track at the top of the page. If you make for example 2 tracks with 16 channels and import the same channel config to each track I am unsure if you just screwed up or does the program see them as copies of each other??? I think it is a screw up....
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Wow, these tracks are fantastic! I love being able to split out the different parts. For example, I've got my mega tree in a track and I can define the beat to be different than other tracks. The only problem is knowing when to stop. So far, on one song, I've got about 7 tracks and I'm about 1/2 way through.

I'd really like to suggest that there be a way to view in the animation a single track that you are working on. In otherwords, be able to turn an entire track off or on.

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Ah the beauty of it. I had always found myself torn between setting timings on the beat (works best for percussion) and just setting 0.04 sec timings across the whole song (works best for voices). Now I can do both! For one track, I use the beat wizard and place all my percussion channels and for the another track, I use the 0.04 sec grid for the less beat-driven channels.

Also, when using the beat wizard, be sure to identify any time signature changes in your song and use the beat wizard separately for each section. I found the beat wizard is remarkable good, but not perfect.

Also, regarding the question of whether to wait to move to LORII? After checking it out I immediately moved all my sequences to LORII. I'll keep the LORI backups, but all new sequencing are done on II.

RO

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Melwelch,

You got me thinking so I made a couple of tracks and export the configuration. Opening up the exported file in a text editor I was able to see that the tracks are defined using a refrence to teh original channel in the master track so your approach is perfect.

So now I understand tracks very well. Unfortunatley the tracks are included in the import export functionality so you can not have different tracks in different sequences and move the channel configurations around at will. You will overwrite teh track configurations in the sequence you import to.

However; given the XML layout you could conceivably cut and paste the main body (the section between and at the bregining of the file) of the XML between exported channel configurations for each sequence. This way you do not overwrite the track configurations in eachsequence but you can keep your channels in sync.

NOTE: I AM NOT AN LOR DEVELOPER SO TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK! back-up, back-up, back-up...

Frank

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Update -- Channel Usage:

I'm finding that I am making different channels to support specialized beats within the music.

Example:


  1. Track #1: The basic beat ... all the way through. Includes all Channels
  2. Track #2: Trumpet Line from current song, also includes all channels (duplicated first Track) ... essentially this is being used when I have elaborate sections in the music I want to follow precisely, with the confusion from other "events" or "beats"
  3. Track #3: Minute events in some sections ... this allows for chasing. i.e., for mini-trees. Again, duplicated track #1. But then in certain sections I divided some of the events from the basic beat into 4ths. This still kept to the music (4/4 time song) ... but allowed for finer sequencing.


Now, I find that I just back and forth between Tracks while sequencing the same item (i.e., the Z-Tree) depending upon when I need or want to mimic the timing I used earlier.

I know that may sound confusing ... but it seems to be speeding the sequencing.

T.

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I Tried tracks last night for the first time and LOVE IT.

I found my self adding tracks for my mini trees. I make one track all trees with the beat wizard, the next track I created again all mini trees than make it have a fast 0:00.05 timing marks. This seems to be a great timing mark for chase parts. Than I still have all the trees on the master track.

This allows me to very quickly change the way the tees react to the music. Who ever thought of this, I love them. I did 2 minutes of a song last night in a 1/4 amount of the time it was taking me. And the trees look alot better being exactly to the beat. Boy, I guess now I might see my wife more at night.

Chuck

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pHar wrote:

How does export import of channel configuration work when using tracks?

This is actually an important thing to be careful about. It's highly suggested that you do not import a multi-tracked channel config file into a sequence that already has multiple tracks, unless you're sure that the channels shared between tracks are in the same order in both the sequence and the channel config. Doing so otherwise may scramble your channels.

The help file contains more information about this: In the table of contents, expand the chapter "The Light-O-Rama Software Package", then "Sequence Editor", then "Menu Bar", then click on the page "Edit Menu". Look on that page for "Important note".

If you really need to do something like this, it's probably safer to do something along these lines:
  • Make an entirely new sequence, with a single track and no timings.
  • Import your multi-tracked channel config into that sequence, not into your existing multi-tracked sequence. The extra tracks (and channels, of course) will automatically be created.
  • Copy timings from your existing sequence into your new sequence.
  • Copy events from your existing sequence into your new sequence.
  • Start using the new sequence, leaving the old one behind.

We are currently considering ways to make this kind of thing safer and easier, but believe it or not, there are reasons for it being done the way it's currently done.

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Bob,

Maybe there should be a "master" Track. That includes all the channels. Much like the Director's version of a symphony that shows all the parts ... then each section, and parts have subsets.

This way all the channels have to tie back to the Master ... and perhaps the only place where new Tracks can be added. Then one one need to just "distribute/copy/duplicate" the new channel(s) into the Tracks where they should be.

I'm doing this for myself at this point. When updating last year's sequences, I load the new channel config onto the "only" track in the old LORI sequence. This overwrites all the channels, colors, etc., while leaving the prior event timing the same.

From this point, I make refinements ...

T.

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I found it kind of tedious to add channels to new tracks. Of course I could duplicate the track and get everything (which is what I ended up doing). But unless I'm missing something, you either have to add channels one by one (right-click, copy to track, select the proper track from the drop down (and it isn't sticky, so you always have to select it because you probably don't want "Track 1"), then hitting OK. Would be really nice if you could select a range of channels, and then say "copy to track"... Also would be nice if the track selection in the above-mentioned dialog was sticky.

Not trying to sound critical -- just trying to make a great feature really usable.

-Tim

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I think tracks are ingenious; kudos to the designers.

I've already found, for me, the best solution is to have the main track always stay the same and contain ALL the channels all the time. This is what I import for the beginning of all my sequences. Then I only copy channels to new tracks, I never move them. The main track ends up containing the entire sequence after it's all said and done.

I made the mistake of accidentally deleting instead of removing a few channels from one of my tracks. Oops, it deletes from the entire sequence and is no longer in the animation either. Now I have to go back and input all the information because I'm too far into adding tracks to re-import my original configuration. Maybe a major warning would be a good idea. Like, "This channel will be deleted throughout the entire sequence .. in 16 (or whatever the count is) different tracks. Are you sure?"

Or, only make the delete channel option valid in the main track, with a warning if it's in any other track.

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Jeff Millard wrote:

Not only is it tedious, there is an issue with selecting a channel by right clicking to get the menu that allows you to copy a channel to another track. Right clicking doesn't select that channel, so you don't have a reference of which channel you just copied. You can't workaround this by left clicking first because that opens the channel properties dialog box.




I noticed that too. I'd prefer that single-clicking a channel just selected it, nothing else. Then shift-click and control-click could select contiguous and discontiguous selections for mass operations, like adding to another track. Channel settings don't get changed often enough in my experience to really warrant a single-click to invoke that -- and that's doubly true in LOR II with the new mass channel settings dialog.


Jeff Millard wrote:
I found having to use the select track drop-down on every copy tedious too as it does't memorize the last selection but always defaults to the lowest available track #.


Yeah, that's what I meant by saying it needs to be "sticky". That's what we call it at work when dialogs remember settings from previous invocations... not sure how universal of a term that is or if it's just local lingo...

-Tim
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  • 2 weeks later...

I have created a Green Track, a Blue Track, a Red Track and a White Track. While the timings can be different for a channel depending on the track(s) it is in, it always shows the on/off/fade/shimmer/twinkle.

So, when I want JUST the green lights on, it is very easy to OFF the blue/red/white in their track and be immediately reflected in the main display track (which I renamed to "Main Display" :) )

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