Global Animation change. Need HELP! please.

[Chadthedrummer7]

I need some help. We just moved and I am adding a picture of the new house so i can see how the show will look. So i opened one sequence and hit view animation. Then changed the pic, drew the new locations of my existing items. That is all fine, but it just changed it for that one song. How do i change the animation for ALL my projects? I need a global change for all projects. How can one go about doing this?

Thank you in advance for a quick reply.

[mcha]

Did you maintain the same channels or modify those to match the new layout? If you modified the channels, go into that sequence, copy channels and import the channel config into the others. You'll need to do it for each sequence.

[Orville]

Like mcha states, but you have to EXPORT your new channel config and layout first if everything is the same as it was at your old house and only your photo changed, just open the new sequence that has all the correct info, go to the Edit option at the top of the SE, drop down menu opens, select Export/Import Channel Config, another drop down will open, select Export and give the new channel settings a name, such as "New Home 2016" or any filename of your choice.   Once saved out{exported}, now if all your other sequences have kept the same channel ID's and locations, all you have to do is do the same as what I just stated, but instead of Export, SELECT Import and select your new channel config file. then once done, this will change everything to the new channel config file just imported into the SE.

You can also save this new channel config file to be set as your default when opening the LOR SE.   I have several different channel config files that I will set as a default when needed, I have one for Halloween, one for Christmas and two others that are single, 1 channel only config files for my Off-Hours music that plays during my displays off hours for Halloween and Christmas during the day, up until 5 minutes before showtime, and then starts the next morning at 7am.

But one of your best friends in the LOR SE is the channel config files, they save a lot of time and frustration.

The only pitfall with them are you have to open every single sequence you want to change and import them in one at a time to change each sequence to the new channel config.

Now I'm not positive about this and itsmebobo would have to chime in here, but I think he may have made a program that can import your channel config into multi sequences at one time.   Again, I'm not sure about it, but if he has, I'm sure he'll tell you about it, where to download it and how to use it.

I've just found it better for me to do it one sequence at a time, just in case one of those sequences isn't lined up exactly the same as the new channel config, then I can fix it then and there and not find a screwed up sequence when a show could be in operation.

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by Orville

[k6ccc]

14 hours ago, Chadthedrummer7 said:

I need some help. We just moved and I am adding a picture of the new house so i can see how the show will look. So i opened one sequence and hit view animation. Then changed the pic, drew the new locations of my existing items. That is all fine, but it just changed it for that one song. How do i change the animation for ALL my projects? I need a global change for all projects. How can one go about doing this?

I want to clarify what you are asking.  As I'm understanding it, you want to use the same channel configurations, but the physical layout is of course different and what you are changing is the layout in the Animator.  Did I get that right? 

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by k6ccc
Deleted incorrect information

[Orville]

19 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

I want to clarify what you are asking.  As I'm understanding it, you want to use the same channel configurations, but the physical layout is of course different and what you are changing is the layout in the Animator.  Did I get that right?  If that is correct, you don't need to update the configuration by exporting and importing as the previous posts instructed.  I know very little about the Animator since Visualizer came out right after I started and is vastly superior over the Animator.  Maybe this is the time to jump to Visualizer.

 

If he's using animator, which is also what I am using, the only way to update it is via the EXPORT and IMPORT of the channel configuration file, as that is where the info for the animator is stored, along with Controller ID/Channel ID's as well as descriptors for each channel.

So if the OP is using animator, what I stated is correct and the only way I know to accomplish it using the animator.

I don't use visualizer, so can't say how that works, but been using Animator for years and I *do know* how that works.

[k6ccc]

Thanks Orville.  As I said, I played with it briefly before moving to Visualizer.  I did not realize that a config export included the Animator data.  I thought is was only the channel data.

 

[Chadthedrummer7]

Yep, Orville is the MAN! And all you guys are awesome. Thanks for all your help. So, that is all i have to do, is just export it. Save it, open another sequence and import it in. AND, now that i know how to do that, I can now change up my channels to new controllers, move stuff around that has changed, Then just export the config again, open another sequence, import it in and BAM! Back in action. Once again, thank you ALL for the tips and advise. Now get back to sequencing. Only 94 more days until it is power up time. (Can't thank you all enough)

[Orville]

NOTE: if you move Channels around and then import this into an existing sequence that doesn't have the exact setup, you'll have to go and tell the SE to UNDO those changes!   Because it will make a mess of things!    This only works if you keep all Channel information in the EXACT same spot!

You can rename channels, you can even change the controller ID for that channel and it will reflect in the new sequence as long as you keep the channel count exactly the same, if you remove a channel, then import into a sequence with a config that does not have the deleted channel, but the channel still exists in the sequence you're importing into, the deleted channel WILL NOT go away, it will still be there and it will mess up that part of the sequence, if you use tracks, it's a little easier to fix as it will only mess up that one track, unless you've done some major changes in all tracks.

Unfortunately BEFORE you import a config file that you created from a sequence that you deleted a channel in, you will have to MANUALLY go into every sequence and MANUALLY DELETE that same channel from each, once deleted, then you can import the new config file and it will be correct.

There IS NO way to automate this, I go through this a few times when I update my display and move things around at times.

For example if you have a track 1 for blow molds and want to delete a channel at the top, delete it manually, then save your new config, on the next sequence that still has that channel, you will have to load it, then delete that top channel again manually, then import your channel config to keep everything lined up correctly.

If you ever add any new channels, *always* add them to the BOTTOM of the track or sequence channel list if you don't use tracks.   This way exporting and re-importing will make it a little easier and a lot less stressful getting things operating.

Unfortunately it does take a lot of work sometimes to get things configured just the way you want them in the SE

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Orville

[Orville]

20 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Thanks Orville.  As I said, I played with it briefly before moving to Visualizer.  I did not realize that a config export included the Animator data.  I thought is was only the channel data.

 

Yep, it includes the animation data as well. 

if I don't export the new config where I just made some channel and animation changes, the animation would stay the same as it was, which doesn't work very well if a channel was renamed and the controller ID changed, you can save the sequence, but it retains the original animation you drew until you export the new channel config file with the updated info from where you changed it in, then when loading another sequence and importing the new channel config file would update the animation file.  

When I re-import into an existing sequence with same channel count and everything still the same except the animation data was changed, the import updates just the animation file, leaving everything else as it is.   

At least it's worked that way every time I've changed the animation drawing, exported and saved it in an updated sequence then imported it into those sequences I wanted to just update the animation file in.

Learned that the hard way right after I started using the SE and changed things, but didn't change the animation to match the new setup.  What a mess it was watching a discombobulated animation. LOL

[Chadthedrummer7]

4 hours ago, Orville said:

NOTE: if you move Channels around and then import this into an existing sequence that doesn't have the exact setup, you'll have to go and tell the SE to UNDO those changes!   Because it will make a mess of things!    This only works if you keep all Channel information in the EXACT same spot!

You can rename channels, you can even change the controller ID for that channel and it will reflect in the new sequence as long as you keep the channel count exactly the same, if you remove a channel, then import into a sequence with a config that does not have the deleted channel, but the channel still exists in the sequence you're importing into, the deleted channel WILL NOT go away, it will still be there and it will mess up that part of the sequence, if you use tracks, it's a little easier to fix as it will only mess up that one track, unless you've done some major changes in all tracks.

Unfortunately BEFORE you import a config file that you created from a sequence that you deleted a channel in, you will have to MANUALLY go into every sequence and MANUALLY DELETE that same channel from each, once deleted, then you can import the new config file and it will be correct.

There IS NO way to automate this, I go through this a few times when I update my display and move things around at times.

For example if you have a track 1 for blow molds and want to delete a channel at the top, delete it manually, then save your new config, on the next sequence that still has that channel, you will have to load it, then delete that top channel again manually, then import your channel config to keep everything lined up correctly.

If you ever add any new channels, *always* add them to the BOTTOM of the track or sequence channel list if you don't use tracks.   This way exporting and re-importing will make it a little easier and a lot less stressful getting things operating.

Unfortunately it does take a lot of work sometimes to get things configured just the way you want them in the SE

 

ok, yeah it should work as planned because i am not deleting any channels from the sequences. So that is a good news to hear. BUT, i am changing the config up quite a bit (moving channels over to new controllers due to yard layout, renaming them (used to be window and now it is front door, etc.) So i feel i will have a mess? But let me see (i will be making copies of every sequence and play around with those in case i jack it up beyond belief, i will still have my originals. And having only 15 + sequences, maybe i will be done by Thanksgiving.   Well... thanks again for all the advise, sure do appreciate it.

 

[Orville]

On 8/23/2016 at 2:16 PM, Chadthedrummer7 said:

ok, yeah it should work as planned because i am not deleting any channels from the sequences. So that is a good news to hear. BUT, i am changing the config up quite a bit (moving channels over to new controllers due to yard layout, renaming them (used to be window and now it is front door, etc.) So i feel i will have a mess? But let me see (i will be making copies of every sequence and play around with those in case i jack it up beyond belief, i will still have my originals. And having only 15 + sequences, maybe i will be done by Thanksgiving.   Well... thanks again for all the advise, sure do appreciate it.

 

You can rename the channels, you can even change the controller ID's and re-export then re-import those changes into your sequences, and everything will still be the same, as long as the channel count is exactly the same, if you have a track 1 with 4 channels and rename each channel, not a problem!   No problem with changing the controller ID on each channel either.   As long as the channel count in each section is the exact same, you won't have a mess!

That only happens if you have 4 channels in track 1 and then add a channel above the first channel or between channels 1 and 4, but if you add the channel as #5 and to the bottom of track 1, after #4,  there won't be a problem, just export that change and you can import into all existing sequences and that/those extra channel{s} will be added to the sequence, again, as long as they were the last channel{s} added to the track.

From what you're doing, it should work fine and you should have no issues or any mess to clean up!

Sorry if that extra info might have confused you.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Orville