HUDGE short cut found for complicated sequencing

[cenote]

I hope I do this justices trying to explain. And if somebody else knew how to do this, and hasn't shared, I be pissed. I have even asked support to add this type of function in the past.

I wanted a way to make "macros" in the sequence editor for complicated chases and effects on mini trees, arches, and my century tree. Before, I would have to go threw every channel, every timing mark and turn on, off, fade, etc, each part. Just like everybody here, I think, for years. Than it came to me today...Why not somehow be able to do two or three clicks and have the whole tree do one spin to the right, trees chase from one side to another, etc. and the most important part, be able to change the timing durration for each effect for each situation. I hope this explains the problem. Now for the good part, HOW:

This example is for my mini trees

1) Open your sequence that you want to work on. Don't maximize, keep it 1/2 screen, I keep it up top, across the whole screen. (I wish I could master the screen capture thing to show here)

2) With in the sequencer again, I created a new animation only about 2 seconds long, and save it something like "Chase Up" The length is not to important, just make it large enough to include one effect.

3) In the new animation, make as many channels as mini trees and label accordingly. I used .10 second timing. Seems to work good for me.

4) Now create your effect, like I went threw and put a fade up, on, and fade down for each tree, all the way down threw.

5) Now it is important you edit your total time for this sequence to be the exact length of your effect. Also, turn OFF your timing marks. and save again.

6) Now the fun part, in your musical sequence you have open up top, make a custom timing track, freeform with no marks.

7) Using this timing track, insert a timing mark at the beginning, and one at the end of the part of the song you want the affect. Does not matter the time between...That's the great part.

8) Now from below, just select all the entire block of cells from your affect, copy, and paste in your sequence up top. Be sure you have a start and end timing mark. You can NOT the re-size the marks after pasting, does not change the affect. If you make a mistake on the timing, you have to delete the affect, move the timing marks, than re-paste. (This is where Bob could work his magic on next version)

9) Simple way around this would just toggle on and off the marks and test, that copy and past the affect.

10) Wa-Lie Fast easy way to drag and drop affects into your sequence. Works great on 100 channel trees after creating all your templates.

I am able to keep a descent amount of "affects" open at the bottom, to make inserting fast. I hope this help somebody out there, I know I am extremely excited I found this tonight.

[Amie]

This is awesome! I'm glad I was browsing a few threads tonight...thanks.

[ainsworth]

There was a thread almost 1 year ago on this topic. I have not gone through your method in detail yet, but it sound similar to this one;

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/view_topic.php?id=20043&forum_id=25&highlight=robin+wheel scroll down near the bottom and look at george's and klb's posts.

This is a huge time saver for me. I don't know how to make these tips easier to find. It's hell to have to keep reinventing the wheel. (pun intended). klb and george simmons helped me out a lot understanding how to use this method. I use it all the time now.

Sequence on, time for shows going live is near!

[bob]

I'm not 100% sure that I understand what you're trying to accomplish, but it sounds to me like you might be interested in the new "Clipboards" feature. If you haven't yet checked it out, I suggest doing so:

http://lightorama.com/help/index.html?clipboards.htm

You can now have multiple clipboards - i.e. several different things copied - and switch between them quickly, so that you can paste one to one area of the sequence, then switch to another and paste it to another area of the sequence.

You can save clipboards - i.e. save what you have copied - so that you can use them over and over again, even after closing the Sequence Editor and starting it up again.

[cenote]

Correct Bob, since the save clip option has come out, this is an excellent app to do the same.

[Amie]

I can see an advantage to both. With this technique, you can save a ton of different patterns in one file for chaser trees, for example. Then you could have another LOR sequence that had a bunch of patterns stored for arches, and another for a mega tree, etc. I haven't used the clipboard enough to know if it can handle 30-40 different patterns and then be able to sort them based on what they are, but with this method, organizating is pretty simple.

I've attached a simple file that I started today for my 16 chaser trees. For some reason I can't get rid of the final track's timings, but other than that, the file is ready to start using.

Attached files 16 trees template.las

[schristi69]

An even better solution would be to have the ability to build a library of clip files that are saved to disk. You could then just select the file and insert. Easier to organize and share.

[bob]

schristi69 wrote:

An even better solution would be to have the ability to build a library of clip files that are saved to disk. You could then just select the file and insert. Easier to organize and share.

Clipboards can be saved to disk. Right click on one of them, and select "Save Clipboard" from the popup menu.

[schristi69]

See, you learn something new everyday