Background Animation

[mjdamico23]

When I add a background animation, do I make it the length of the show to stay on?  I notice there is no option under background animation to repeat or loop unlike the regular animation.  I want to dedicate 4 channels to my Tune To signs and stay lit through the whole show.

Thanks.................

[k6ccc]

Can be any length.  The background animation will play whenever the show is running.  I have a single channel that controls the amplifiers for my yard speakers that runs in a background animation sequence.  I just looked and it's a 10 minute animation - one channel always on.

[Don]

Also, make 100% sure those 4 channels are not even configured in your regular sequences. If you have 64 channels, and you want 4 to be background, your sequences would have 60 channels in them. 

[dgrant]

I run 6 channels in background animation which are just slow fades on side tomato cage trees. But, I can control them during a sequence and when I stop controlling them, after "x" number of seconds, they return to the background animation. I don't remember the number of seconds but its probably like 5 secs or so.

[Orville]

Yep, some really funky lighting effects can occur if you have the channels in your background sequence programmed in your actual show sequences, they can be there, just make sure they have ON commands of any intensity to keep the background lights on, Show Sequences DO take precedence OVER a background sequence! 

 

I learned that this past Halloween when I was doing a 3 channel background sequence to control the walkway lights on my ramp and my Tune To sign and had them programmed in the show sequence as well as a background sequence.   Again, the actual show sequence WILL TAKE PRECEDENCE over the background sequence, and BOTH will be running at the same time, so if the show has OFF commands, the background lights WILL turn OFF!

 

However, I did use the walkway lighting in a few of my Halloween show sequences to create a strobe/lightning effect during thunder sounds, so it is possible to have them and use them in a show sequence, HOWEVER, in most show sequences they need to also be ON{any intensity works, I ran mine at 40%}, if OFF, the background lighting WILL GO DARK!  And if you try to do other effects in the main sequence with the background sequence lighting, sometimes you'll have some very strange lighting effects that could drive you nuts just trying to figure out what you did to cause these erratic lighting events.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Orville

[bob]

Neither takes precedence over the other.  All lighting commands in all running sequences will be executed.  Depending on what those sequences attempt to do at what points in time, it might appear to the human eye in some specific case that some particular one is taking precedence over the other, but no general, consistent rule like "this one takes precedence over that one" is correct.

[Steven]

I run 6 channels in background animation which are just slow fades on side tomato cage trees. But, I can control them during a sequence and when I stop controlling them, after "x" number of seconds, they return to the background animation. I don't remember the number of seconds but its probably like 5 secs or so.

'X' depends on the length of your background sequence, how many events it has, and how far along it is when the musical sequence turns it off.

 

For example, if your background sequence has a 10-second fade down, followed by a 10-second fade up, then repeats the 10-second fade down, etc., and your musical sequence turns that channel off right when the background sequence is in the exact middle of a 10-second fade up, then 5 seconds later, when the background sequence starts the fade down, the channel will turn on and fade down.

 

This makes it appear that the background sequence "takes over", but what really is happening is that both sequences are sending events, and the last one "wins". For example, if the channel gets a 10-second fade down, but in the middle of this fade, it gets an "shimmer" event (from a different sequence), then it will interrupt the fade and immediately switch to a shimmer.

 

If I assume correctly, this interaction between different sequences controlling the same channel at once happens at the controller itself. The show player simply sends the events in the order scheduled, and the controller always uses the last one received. For DMX universes, this interaction probably happens in the comm listener, but that's just a wild guess.

[Orville]

Interesting to know Bob.  Because it sure seems to me that the main show sequence always took precedence over the background sequence when I was playing around with it to see what would happen if used in both the background and the main show sequences.

 

My background sequence was only 1 minute long, the main show sequences were 2-5 minutes long, many times the erratic "lightning/strobe" effects were done in the main show sequence at specific times to interrupt the background sequence steady on lighting for the strobing/lightning effect.   This is why I believed the main show sequence took precedence over the background one.   Every test I ran using different main show sequences ALWAYS interrupted the background sequence with the effect I wanted and at the same time in whichever sequence I wanted the background interrupted at a specific point, and I run my shows under the shuffle option, so the main show sequence doesn't play at the same time in each show run.

 

So definitely interesting to know neither take precedence, but it sure appears to work that way from my tests and experience with it.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Orville