Thread: sequencer add ons thought

After playing with the sequencer seriously last night. I thought of a couple of things that might be useful for V3 when it comes out.

One thing I noticed, was I did a lot of referring back to the video tuts the admin made. One thing that would be VERY useful, would be to be able to dock a mini player in the right hand side of the screen where the help bar is.

Another thing would be however redundant, a nice add for the newbie, and that is redo, delete, and undo buttons on the top of the screen tabs. This would aid in the sequencing work for the newb until the keyboard shortcuts get figured out.

Maybe a tut on saving effects into the sequencer for later easy grab on your next sequencing project?

And in the RGB DMX side, a fast track way of make wipes, and color transitions from left to right, vice versa, and up down, and down up over the whole of the project, or a given item. This would aid especially in eave wipes, and leaping arch effect handling.

Using DMX for the leaping arches is cheaper than using an entire 16 channel controller. If you wanted 4 colors, and 4 sections per arch that would be 4 small sections of RGB LED rope, 4 controllers, times say 4 arches. Then end product would be easier to assemble, and with more control and functionality than hand wrapping 16 strands of lights per arch, then chewing up the entire 16 channel controller with 4 arches.
Using DMX it would only use 4 RGB channels per arch. When you have 512 of them, that a lot less usage of available resources.

So far I love the sequencer. Its a little daunting just like any new program is. But I m sure once I get the hang of it, Ill be humping out tons of sequences. at my current pace though I may be taking the semester to get the first one completed.

Originally Posted by ydeardorff

After playing with the sequencer seriously last night. I thought of a couple of things that might be useful for V3 when it comes out.

One thing I noticed, was I did a lot of referring back to the video tuts the admin made. One thing that would be VERY useful, would be to be able to dock a mini player in the right hand side of the screen where the help bar is.

Cant you just open multiple windows, one for the sequencer and one for the video and size them to whatever size you want?

Another thing would be however redundant, a nice add for the newbie, and that is redo, delete, and undo buttons on the top of the screen tabs. This would aid in the sequencing work for the newb until the keyboard shortcuts get figured out.

The undo/redo buttons are on the effects tab and you can use the standard windows keys CTRL-Z,(undo) Ctrl-Y (redo)

Maybe a tut on saving effects into the sequencer for later easy grab on your next sequencing project?

Higlite the effects you want and then save as a new pattern which are then available to all sequences.

And in the RGB DMX side, a fast track way of make wipes, and color transitions from left to right, vice versa, and up down, and down up over the whole of the project, or a given item. This would aid especially in eave wipes, and leaping arch effect handling.

Do layers and transistions not do what you want?

Using DMX for the leaping arches is cheaper than using an entire 16 channel controller. If you wanted 4 colors, and 4 sections per arch that would be 4 small sections of RGB LED rope, 4 controllers, times say 4 arches. Then end product would be easier to assemble, and with more control and functionality than hand wrapping 16 strands of lights per arch, then chewing up the entire 16 channel controller with 4 arches.
Using DMX it would only use 4 RGB channels per arch. When you have 512 of them, that a lot less usage of available resources.

Maybe I am not understanding your question but you can just configure your controller to whatever number of channels you want. Once you configure your own controller save it to the library and your base sequence so it is not part of your controller arsenal.

Again Im new to this. So many of these functions may be there. I just dont know where, or how to use them yet.

Ill look into this layer transitions thing to see what your talking about. I tried to follow the RGB video but was using a downloaded sequence So I started from scratch with a new one when I got the DMX controller set up correctly (I think).

Yes currently I do the multiple window thing for referring to the video. It would just be a nice trick to have them docked into the sequencer.

I know many of these questions would come in time, as I play with it. I guess Im just anxious to get something going, even if I can only look at it in the demo window.

One thing I learned is that you can have channels be members of multiple layers. This may accomplish what you're needing. I had sections where I wanted transitions covering everything and other portions where I wanted custom transitions over certain components. I was able to combine the different transitions by using different layers and just rendering the large layer first, then re-rendering the custom components as necessary.

This may not make sense without seeing it / doing it.

For example, I had 1 layer that contained EVERYTHING. I had another layer that was just arches. Another with just landscape components. Another with the roofline. Another with windows. Render EVERYTHING first. Then if you want the windows to do something a little different later, put a transition on the window layer. Render that transition next. This gives you the ultimite in flexibility!

Thank you for the tip. Im having minor frustrations now with simple stuff, like say just deleting a single effect. Short of the cut function I cant seem to figure out how to just add and delete items in the time line. I managed to replicate the chase ribbon like in the video. But again simple grab and moving items to comply with the timeline is still on my have to learn curve.
Im new, hell Ive had two days with the sequencer. Im playing with the drifters, bing crosby white christmas song now. Its slow enough, and has a nice methodic bump to it.
When I did the chase effect with the RGB channels I found it added a ton of timeline marks. I tried to copy and paste the effect, which didnt work out right at first, then it did ok. But my bump fades slowly got more and more out of sequence with the music. So now the trick is how to delete those marks after they get out of sync and adjust them.

Its a learning curve I know.

Heres a quick ten seconds of what Ive gotten done so far. Only RGB effects, with one channel from a 16 channel controller running the icicles on the roofline. This in actuality was about an hour of actual progress.


The thought on the Video docked into the sequencer was, as a quick reference item. I know while doing my algebra classes having that link in mathlab to watch a video of it being done, makes a world of difference in getting through things with a minimal of fuss.