Trouble with Motion Effects on Mega Tree Prop

[Rapajez]

All,

I'm new to Smart Pixels this year, so please bear with me. 😊 I updated my Preview with a new Mega Tree Prop, 16 x 100, or 32 strands using wedges, and 2 of the all-in-one trees from Light-o-rama's store.

I'm able to fire up Motion Effects and see them on the previews, but I'm having trouble getting things to look "right". It's hard to describe, (I'll add pictures when I can), but a good example is the Marquee Effect. I expected an outline of the tree. Instead of showing an effect along the edges, it's picking one "wedge" in the back of the tree. I noticed pictures and GIFs tend to warp around the tree in a different manner than the mega tree props in the Luminous Harmony video tutorials online. Did I create the prop incorrectly? Is it better to use "up and over"?

Follow-up question -- how do people get effects to look consistent across the front of their their mega trees? I've seen effects wipe across multiple trees, house outlines, and pixel matrices. For example, I created a motion effect group with my 3 trees. I try to have something fly left-to-right across all 3, it ends up rotating around each of them once instead. I'm not 100% sure how to achieve that effect. What am I missing?

[k6ccc]

If you think about a 360 degree mega tree, an effect across the front does not cover all of the tree.  Your marquee effect sounds like it is using the entire prop (as expected) so generally the back has the up and down part of the marquee scroll.  To get the marquee to only appear on part of the tree, I think you would have to create a prop group that is only part of the tree.  For example, only strings 8 - 16.  I don't have a 360 degree tree, so I'm sort of guessing here.  My 26 x 100 tree is flat.  Same concept for an effect that spans the front only of multiple trees.

 

[Rapajez]

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. I guess what threw me was the way the tree in video tutorial just kinda "worked". I'm assuming they did the same thing off-camera (or I missed it) (or it was flat tree).  

I guess with Group Motion Effects you can still limit which pixels display in that group? 

[Rapajez]

Follow up question. This is kinda related, maybe needs a new thread:

I have a sequence I created last year, Version 5.5-ish. I can't seem to use any Audio effects in the generator. Whether it's the Audio effect itself, or tying changes to the waveform. If I create a new sequence it seems to work fine. Is there some kind of "conversation" I need to do? 

[PhilMassey]

In Sequence/Sequence Info click in Audio Info and choose the audio type you want. Save, exit and restart the sequence to effect the change.

[Box on Rails]

In regards to the motion effect for the tree issue. You just need to add a Custom motion effect row on each tree that only includes the front pixels of tree. I did a quick video on creating custom motion effects for a mega tree. this explains how to create what you want to do. you just have to create the custom effects row you need in the mega tree prop.