PE multiple issues

[John Z]

Please let me know if it is inappropriate to post multiple issues in one post....NOOBIE ALERT!

Here goes:

Background: Building for a Parade of Lights Float with lights synced to a live band via click track. Basic layout is vertical and horizontal 2811 segments of 85 pixels each. 44 segments in all. Plus a couple of misc props like a 144x12 matrix and a 2x100 pixel starfields. right side is a mirror of left side of float. Right side of float and left side of float are separately build in Visualizer as mirror images of each other with of course unique universe addressing. Both imported into PE. Other Props built in PE.

Issues:

Preview overlays the visualizer imported props over each other and I cannot resize them to show them side by side including using ctrl up/down. There are no resizing points when they are selected individually or as a group. As a matter of fact I cannot resize any prop or fixture in PE that was imported from Vis. Furthermore, I am unable to move any prop created in vis.

Several effects do not work on an individual prop. Fire and meteor do not work on a prop that is simply a vertical 85 pixel segment. Fire just shows it as solid-ish color. Meteor kind of just do a random blinky thing. If I group several vert segments and apply the effects it works fine.  Why can I not get a single string to do a meteor or fire?

Most of my effects that I have created and used in a track just show as a black box in the effects history window. sometimes they show up but most the times I have to guess what I am selecting.

Is there any way to re organize sequence tracks other than by renaming with AAA...etc or by hiding them altogether.

and of course... I am behind the time curve as this happens in 2 weeks.

Thank you in advance for any insight and input any of you fine folks have

John

 

 

 

 

 

[MattBrown]

Importing from Visualizer isn't perfect - it works pretty well for traditional strings, but pixels get converted to individual bulbs instead of a string or matrix or tree or arch. Therefore, I recommend you delete the pixel-based props that got imported from Visualizer recreate them as "native" Pixel Editor props using the predefined shapes list in the Prop Definition window. Effects will look much better that way.

Matt