House Outline - Motion Effect - Chase

[gsmith37064]

I can get this chase effect in the channel level of the house outline, but does anyone know how to do this from a motion effect?

The chase colors are red and white or anything really. Just 2 colors.

 

[Steven]

How about "Bars"? Un-check "Show 3D", and turn the "Palette_Repeat" as high as you want. If the Palette_Repeat doesn't go as high as you want, then add another red and white to the palette, which will effectively double it. You might also want to experiment with "Show 3D" or adding black as one of the palette colors.

[gsmith37064]

7 hours ago, Steven said:

How about "Bars"? Un-check "Show 3D", and turn the "Palette_Repeat" as high as you want. If the Palette_Repeat doesn't go as high as you want, then add another red and white to the palette, which will effectively double it. You might also want to experiment with "Show 3D" or adding black as one of the palette colors.

That allows me to get the red/white/red/white but no movement thus no chase is happening. I did not think about doing doubling up on the colors. I will try that with a few other effects and see. This may be something that can't be done and will need to stay at channel level.

I am trying to find an easier way for people to use my sequences on their house without having to redo the chase portions to fit their number of nodes.

[gsmith37064]

I can get really close with the marquee effect. To do this, I had to break each roof line segment down into separate props. What I was trying to do in the beginning was a whole house effect including the windows. Which did not even come close to what I wanted. I also had to play with the clockwise/counter clockwise speed settings to get certain portions to scroll in the correct direction.

Now I will try to do a blended fade in to a chase and then a chase to a blended fade out to transition it to a different portion of the song. This is all easy at the channel level.

NOTE:  I am using strips on my house which is really 3 pixels per light while a normal pixel node is just 1 light. So that makes it a little odd. With that being said, I wonder if someone can take my sequence and drop it on their house, or if they would have to edit the size (inside the Marquee effect generator) to get the correct number of pixels lit for their house? This may not be as simple of a plug in play effect as I was hoping. I can get Dan, Chance, and JR to test this theory out so I will know 100% moving forward.

Edited December 31, 2023 by gsmith37064

[Steven]

3 hours ago, gsmith37064 said:

That allows me to get the red/white/red/white but no movement thus no chase is happening.

Bars should move. Try changing the "Direction" or "Speed". What kind of Prop is it?

[gsmith37064]

24 minutes ago, Steven said:

Bars should move. Try changing the "Direction" or "Speed". What kind of Prop is it?

I think the reason why it's not moving is because I am trying to do the whole house outline.

But if I use it on just one segment of the house outline, it does work, and it LOOKS BETTER than the marquee. So using bars may be a viable solution as well. I still need to test it out more as for some reason some of my segments seem to not work with bars but that is something I can play around with and see whats up.

[gsmith37064]

I got the bars effect to work correctly on a group prop for the house. It's doing exactly what I want so I am going to continue to play with this some more.

I had to create the correct motion row for the group was all.

Thanks so much for the tip Steven!!

[gsmith37064]

It seems the bars effect does not like my custom created windows. I had to change them to a built in LOR window prop. Once done, that portion is now working. I have blended color fade in's going to a chase and then the chase ending to a blended color fade out. Makes for a smooth transition to another part of the song.

Boy this turned out to be a pain.

I think channel level still looks better in the preview and they also look amazing live. I will test the house out tomorrow and see how the motion rows look live before making a decision with this. At least I now know it can be done.

[gsmith37064]

I just tested the new way with motion effects on the house and it's not all that impressive. I still think channel level offer's better effects on the house. This bites as I spent days trying to get it just right.

Oh well... Channel level here I come!

[Steven]

The issue is that motion effects need a direction like up, down, left, and right. Your house outline has some segments that are vertical and some that are horizontal, so the way that the Bars effect looks good on a horizontal string also makes it look pretty good on a slanted string, but it will just flash badly on a vertical string.

One way to solve this problem is to make your outline have a custom layout, in which you lie and say that your pixel are all in a horizontal row. I think this may be how the "Window" prop works internally. The problem is that the house outline is not a single continuous string with a beginning and end; there are several segments that have unconnected ends, so for example, where does the chase go after it falls off the end of the one of the sloping segments? The custom layout is also a pain to do, and has to be redone if you change the number of pixels in the prop.

The way I would do it is to group the segments of the house outline into a "horizontal" and a "vertical" group. The slanting roof outlines would probably look good as part of the horizontal group. Then when you apply the "Bars" effect to get the chase, you would have the direction of the effect be up or down in the vertical group and left or right in the horizontal group. No one will notice that the effect is not perfectly continuous at the right angles.

Edited January 2 by Steven

[gsmith37064]

I think I will create 2 motion rows to see if I can get the same effect as channel level.  The first will be for the bars doing the chase, and the 2nd will be the blended fade in's and out. Maybe this will work better than doing it all on 1 motion row.

On the plus side, I get to keep my house lights running for another night.

[gsmith37064]

2 motions row are not smooth either. You can see the jump in pixels as it transition from a fade to a chase. The transition from a chase to a fade at the end is better, but in the preview screen, it looks like it goes from 10mph to 100mph when it does the fade. I still say channel level is the way to go on some of the sequencing for the house.

[Steven]

Are you fading from a red/white chase to a solid (ColorWash)? This is how to get that to work smoothly:

1. The 2 motion effects (Bars and ColorWash) must be on 2 motion effect rows that are on the same prop (or group). If one of the effects is on a prop and the other is on a group containing that prop, then the effect on the prop takes control, which will not allow the cross fading to happen, and will cause a sudden switch.
2. Overlap the Bars and ColorWash on 2 motion effect rows. Do a cross fade by fading one out (Control-D) and the other in (Control-U) at the same time, or near the same time.

[gsmith37064]

That actually looks really good. And you are correct, there are no jumps in between transitions. I can get the end transition with using only 1 motion row.

Unfortunately i can't get the same effects as I can with channel level.

What I would like is the last chase color (red) to start to fill in the segment as solid red as it travels the length of the prop. I can get pretty close by using to 2 bar effects, but it still looks off and goes from 10mph to 100mph. It does not look natural. I think in time, it can happen, I just don't know if I want to spend days trying to get it the same. I know that a lot of people would be happy if I did get it right. It would make it so much easier to drop my work onto a different preview and have it work.

I am glad my hair is short... I would have pulled it out by now lol

Edited January 2 by gsmith37064

[Steven]

These steps are a little complicated, but it will give the effect you want:

1. Use 2 (identical) motion effect rows.
2. The blend mode must be set to "Overlay".
3. The chase effect will be put in the row near the "Background". (This means the upper row if the "Sequencer Preferences", "Motion Effects", "Motion Row Order" is set to "Foreground layer on bottom", or the lower row if it's set to "Foreground layer on top".)
4. On the next row (nearer the foreground) a short motion effect will be created that is long enough for the time it takes for one segment to chase from one side to the other. It can be longer, but the "filling" will start when this effect starts. The ends of both effects should be at the same time.
5. This new effect will be "ColorWash" red on the left, and "Curtain" on the right. The mixer is set to "Mix Rt Reveals Lt". Assuming the chase is right-to-left, the curtain edge will be left, and the movement will be close.  The repeat mode should be "once at speed".
6. Preview the effect to see how to tune the speed of the curtain to match the speed of the chase. It won't matter if it's a little off because no one will notice.
7. After these two effects, add a simple "ColorWash.
8. Repeat steps 1-7 for the vertical sections. (You probably want to have the curtain fill start a little later in order to give a "top to bottom" feel.)

I may have not explained something correctly so let me know where my instructions are confusing. Let me try with an example:

1. There are 2 "horizontal" motion effect rows that draw to the horizontal portions of the outline.
2. "Manage Motion Effect Rows" has the blend mode set to "Overlay".
3. The sequencer preferences has "Foreground layer on bottom".
4. The chase is red, black, white, black, direction left, palette repeat 2, speed 12. This effect is on the top "horizontal" row, and goes from 1:30 to 1:40.
5. The next effect goes from 1:37 to 1:40, on the row under the chase effect. It has a red ColorWash on the left and a Curtain on the right. The Mixer is set to "Mix Rt Reveals Lt", Curtain Edge is left, Movement is close, Repeat Mode is once at speed, Speed is 8. Color doesn't matter with "Mix Rt Reveals Lt".

[gsmith37064]

I had to change the LOR window props back to my custom window props. Some of the old motion rows would no longer work with the LOR window props.

I will test your directions out and see what it looks like, but I have decided to roll back to channel level.

I do thank you for the help getting there. If I feel froggy later on, maybe I will attempt it again. lol

[Steven]

I just emailed you an example of what I was talking about. I'm not sure if that's what you wanted, but let me know.

[gsmith37064]

16 hours ago, Steven said:

I just emailed you an example of what I was talking about. I'm not sure if that's what you wanted, but let me know.

Hi Steven,

Yes that is what I was after. It looked great and I will be playing around with it A LOT more. I now understand what the background and foreground rows used for in the motion rows editor.

Again thanks so much for getting me there. I would never have gotta it correct until I watched your animation sequence.

Greg

[Steven]

The sequence we were talking about is at BluebonnetLights.com/sequences/House Outline.loredit

Edit: Using left and right effects with "Mix Rt Reveals Lt" was not necessary. That was replaced with a Curtain effect.

Edited January 8 by Steven

[gsmith37064]

@Steven

I have been using the background/foreground effects like crazy on this current sequence I am working on. I wanted to say thanks once again for shedding light on all this. I am getting some really smooth transitions now while having room to add in an extra effect thanks to the other motion row. I am testing out the same technique on my spinner now.

Edited January 21 by gsmith37064