Layer question V3.3

C

Cmschleich

New member
Thanks to those involved with this product and the continued evolution. I started in this scene for the first time earlier this year and I feel the tools are significant.

I've been experimenting with layers. I've proved the basic premise of each of the 5 layer operations via testing with two layers.

In my real sequence I have one layer called "Red" which I'm using to slowly wash everything out to red before a shift in the song. That works.
I've added a third layer called FadeIn that I just want an intensity overlay for using a pulse effect ramping up (see pic 1 for my layers). The pulse effect is working, but the color from the pulse (blue in this case, I've tried others same problem) is bleeding into the elements, I'm testing with real lights. In my basic testing before this "bleed" did not occur. Am I using this right?

One other thing I noticed with 3.2 & 3.3 is when I do bulk effect copy/paste (or clone) I get a lot of time artifacts, with the effects increasing or decreasing in duration. For example I might copy 20+ pulses that I have going to an EDM drum and when I paste them they don't line up with the markers. The markers seem to be solid. Don't know if it is a user or software issue.

Thanks for any help.

Pic 1 (layer definitions)
Layers.PNG

Pic 2 (effects, the long blue pulse is in "FadeIn" layer, it is affecting the intensity of the South Circle effects, but the blue is also being displayed on my real lights)
Effects.PNG
 
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I may have answered it with another read of the help file. The effects I'm trying to do an intensity overlay on are themselves pulses. As their light fades the overlay "bleeds" in. I did another test doing an intesity overlay on top of an alternating affect and it worked.
 
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I suspect you are seeing intermittent bleed through because there has to be continuous effects underneath the effect in the overlay layer. You have lots of small pulses there and if there are gaps between them you may see the blue bleed through if it hits in the right spots. Those are still real effects and if there is nothing to mix with in the lower layer it just acts as if it we're the real effect. I am not sure if you created all those pulses intentionally or it was from some converted sequence. You should look into using the colorwash effect to do the color sweep you are doing with all the pulses. You can configure the gradient In it to have those colors. This will give a continuous effect to apply the overlay fade in to.


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I suspect that Jeff's advice is right on target in that the blue is likely bleeding thru the areas where there are gaps. A few bits of advice.
First off, whenever you find yourself building a pattern with lots of little effects, you should ask yourself (or ask us) if there's an effect that does this for you. In many cases there is already an effect that does it in a more efficient manner. If there isn't one, maybe there should be and we'd like to know about that.
It's interesting that you used the blue as your intensify overlay effect. The intensity overlay only uses the intensity part of that effect and disregards the color. There's no reason to use anything but the default white. It doesn't hurt to give it a color, but it's a wasted step that doesn't do anything.
If you do need to use several back to back small effects to get the job done, you can use the close gaps tool to tighten up the effects and eliminate blank space between them.
EDM music is usually very fixed tempo. By not always. They often use very subtle gradual tempo shifts to blend sections of music together. Are you sure you're not running into this kind of music section when pasting your effects?
I've not run into any sort of time anomaly when doing copy paste operations. But I have run into many cases where the tempo has changed in a way I wouldn't have noticed.


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A solution that should work if you really want the gaps and the color changes need to be pulses, then you can add a set level effect in parallel with the pulse you are using for the fade. Set the intensity on the that set level to zero and leave it in the same layer as the colored pulses. This will ensure there is data in the gaps and allow the fade to be applied as you wish.
 
jeffu231 said:
A solution that should work if you really want the gaps and the color changes need to be pulses, then you can add a set level effect in parallel with the pulse you are using for the fade. Set the intensity on the that set level to zero and leave it in the same layer as the colored pulses. This will ensure there is data in the gaps and allow the fade to be applied as you wish.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response and suggestion, that explains what I see exactly. Those effects are a creating a sweep across rings of a circle assembly to do an in-to-out vibration looking type of effect with the each bass drum hit. It's all highly christmas-ish.
 
I have not tried the close gap tool, I will try that. I want different start delays for each pulse, but you two have me thinking I can handle that through the intensity curve and keep all the effects a standard duration. I could be running into rhythm variations, if so they are certainly subtle. The blue was the end result of me troubleshooting what I was seeing, I started with white. I like Jeff's idea of a zero intensity effect.

I've had a few neighbors say "you're starting this in August?!"... to which I say, "I started the R&D process in January, and I feel out of time". This is such a cool end result though. Thanks again for this tool and the support. I will keep in mind about the effects question. I suspect I'm at the front end of a "less is more" lesson with sequencing.

Attached is a picture of my test setup. It's been a long road to get here but man what an interesting end result. I should also thank you in advance for helping provide a medium to have this type of impact. Both of my two yo daughter's faces lit up with excitement last year walking our neighborhood with basic/traditional displays. Our neighborhood is stuffed with kids. Can't wait.
IMG_8058.jpg
 
If you can make a video of the results on your prop that you are after it might inspire a new effect. We have incorporated audio into some of the effects and this might be another opportunity to do something.
 
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