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Anyone experience problems when creating a chase track for say leaping arches. Columns set at .05 and .09 using pop fade at settings I thought look good. I then went further down in that track and created programming for a 16 channel megatree. Chasing one way and another and thought using ramp at selected settings looked best. When I ran a test my arches which looked good before were now not chasing correctly. Deleted the megatree programming and all was well. Got to thinking maybe I needed to create a track for the megatree, for the arches and one for any mini trees I want to chase. Anybody have a line on what the best way to go about this. Just a new guy fumbling in the dark.
ps This is a new song so multiple tracks didn't seem to be a problem, but I want to take some stock shows and create a chase track via Mike Animated Moving company and Ken Good wasn't sure creating multiple tracks would work. So I'd like to know if I can get all the above in one track. Thanks for any help you can provide.
I have a couple of suggestions. I have heard someone say that that .05 is the quickest you can go on chases. The program will not recognize anything under that speed. Also, if you are setting the margins that can make the programming look off when you run a test. I would suggest that you show all tracks, release all margins and run the test from the beginning of the song. This will give you the truest reading on the programming.
There should be no problem with what you have set out. The program should do it fine.
Ken W. Good wrote: I have a couple of suggestions. I have heard someone say that that .05 is the quickest you can go on chases. The program will not recognize anything under that speed. Also, if you are setting the margins that can make the programming look off when you run a test. I would suggest that you show all tracks, release all margins and run the test from the beginning of the song. This will give you the truest reading on the programming.
There should be no problem with what you have set out. The program should do it fine.
Actually not true. I had problems with a multifade bug and the fix was to separate different fade rates that appear to be at the same time but did it in a separate column with only 0.01 difference. It cleared up the multifade problems for me and got the mixed simultanious fades working. (Where one thing fades long, but want something else to have no fade at all and turn immediately off, well this is the fix for that situation). I find trying to use multiple fades in different rows in same column, the first fade rate fades the same in all rows at same rates and ignores the additional entries.
Thanks Joe, I seem to be mucking my through the whole process for my first song. I'm just not having much luck putting it together. Had my chase track in place last night and went to another track to toss in some programming for the rest of the song (more of a test song) and after tapping out the columns and running into a spot that I wanted programming, but no columns I tried to insert a few and the whole thing blew up. Read through some post on the AL forum and saw your steps to set up a new show adding so many columns per sec and then tapping out the columns and removing them and setting to the nearest time column i believe. Do you normally program each track the same way? As i said, i'm sure even my old brain will get to the point i can program my own songs, but at some point in time (because of time an the fact i really liked the stock programming i had last year) i want to add a chase track to my stock shows to juice them up a little for this year. Thanks for any suggestion you can come with.
socrnet wrote: Thanks Joe, I seem to be mucking my through the whole process for my first song. I'm just not having much luck putting it together. Had my chase track in place last night and went to another track to toss in some programming for the rest of the song (more of a test song) and after tapping out the columns and running into a spot that I wanted programming, but no columns I tried to insert a few and the whole thing blew up. Read through some post on the AL forum and saw your steps to set up a new show adding so many columns per sec and then tapping out the columns and removing them and setting to the nearest time column i believe. Do you normally program each track the same way? As i said, i'm sure even my old brain will get to the point i can program my own songs, but at some point in time (because of time an the fact i really liked the stock programming i had last year) i want to add a chase track to my stock shows to juice them up a little for this year. Thanks for any suggestion you can come with.
Yes this is standard practice for me in the past was exactly that... I do all grids at 10 frames a second and only during spots I need 20 frames a second, I insert columns 1 by one and its long and tedious. I never inserted a batch of columns, just 1 at a time between other frames otherwise it can distort the timing from your insert point on and after if it affects the timing there on.
You might also try Mike's Animated Moving Company, it can insert a consistent steady paced columns on something like 10 frames a second into pre-tapped grids. Also on chasing sequences... well I never use the autochase, speller or random features... I do all chasing motions by hand... there are so many ways to chase instead of one light at a time rolling. In fact for 4 or more channels there are over 64 ways to chase which can include forwards and backward of all features, then there are duration on and off differences, overlaps, blinks, back and forth (circle patterns) and flash chasing to consider so I do all that by hand to give the light show some versitility. Fades tend to be bad news for low channel chases (3 or 4 channels) but OK with large channel chases like 10 or more channels.
Thanks Ken, hope i'm not wearing out my welcome. I'm sure trying to get a jump on this process. As i replied to Joe A. I set up my chase track and programmed a chase for a test arch and megatree sitting in my living room (wife loves it). Trying out the various looks, so I got brave and went to another track and tapped out the columns for some more programming. Ran into a spot in the nutcracker that i didn't tap out and thought i'd insert some columns to add some programming and the whole thing blew up. So I've been digging around through the forums to get a line on how others are programming. I've gone through your classes a few times and will watch the 3rd video again. So i do thank you for all you do, but i haven't got a line on the bringing it together yet. It's kind of lonely here in Ks. nobody using AL equipment that I've run into yet.
ps. Back to my original post. I deleted and changed ramps to pop fade and most of the problems cleared. Something seems to affect the pop fades for the arch in one part of the song. The programming below (next 16 channels) for the megatree (ramps) seems to make my arch pop and kind of twinkle (no fade) as the 7 channels move from one side to another. Deleted the megatree (four side turn programming) and all goes back to normal. Go figure. Do you program your megatree in a different track then say your arches?
socrnet wrote: Thanks Ken, hope i'm not wearing out my welcome. I'm sure trying to get a jump on this process. As i replied to Joe A. I set up my chase track and programmed a chase for a test arch and megatree sitting in my living room (wife loves it). Trying out the various looks, so I got brave and went to another track and tapped out the columns for some more programming. Ran into a spot in the nutcracker that i didn't tap out and thought i'd insert some columns to add some programming and the whole thing blew up. So I've been digging around through the forums to get a line on how others are programming. I've gone through your classes a few times and will watch the 3rd video again. So i do thank you for all you do, but i haven't got a line on the bringing it together yet. It's kind of lonely here in Ks. nobody using AL equipment that I've run into yet.
ps. Back to my original post. I deleted and changed ramps to pop fade and most of the problems cleared. Something seems to affect the pop fades for the arch in one part of the song. The programming below (next 16 channels) for the megatree (ramps) seems to make my arch pop and kind of twinkle (no fade) as the 7 channels move from one side to another. Deleted the megatree (four side turn programming) and all goes back to normal. Go figure. Do you program your megatree in a different track then say your arches?
I dont like pop fade much... for one you have to plan fades out to continue the fade started with pop fade... try using just plain ole RAMP and set a fade value in the column that follows the RAMP... at 10 frames a second, the RAMP will hold the ON duraction for 1/10th a second and then the fade command following will continue the fade. Use caution mixing like FADE 0.3 on some columns and FADE 0.0 on other rows... seems you can only have 1 fade rate for all rows in the same time slice (hense the way around when you have a conflict is to insert an extra column + 0.01 timing to allow the variant fade but seemingly at the same time slice).
Your defect with the megatree sounds like you might have bumped into the multifade bug... I am not really sure which fade it gets but get used to examining the fade command after the light command.. you have to pay attention to that. POP FADE with a 1/2 second fade wont continue fading for the full 1/2 second if the fade command following it says 0.0... popfade starts fading before the end of the column it was initiated in... ramp works similarly but wont start fading until the next column.
Lets say you have 10 frames a second timing set up. If you have a RAMP with FADE 0.3, this means to complete the fade, it will continue fading for 3 columns. A Popfade 0.3 with a following FADE of 0.0 means you get 1/3 a fade in 1/10 a second and then OFF... if you have a Popfade 0.3, you have to count the time slice of the pop fade column and then add a FADE 0.2 to have it fade correctly. I dont like the extra calculation work and possible mishaps from using multiple fade commands in same command so I avoid the POPFADE entirely since 1/10th second timing is quite sufficient for similar effect, so I just use ramp and worry about the fade rate that follows... simplifies life a whole lot and your mega tree works correctly. Got to reduce the little details you have to be on your toes with or else you miss things galore that require error correction on later and a big headache.
Last edited on Thursday March 13th, 2008 09:29 pm by Joseph Ayo
