Quick Tip Tuesday: Movement Paths
Ever have one of those cues where your lights move to their new position, but they seem to halt rather abruptly when they get there? No matter how much you play with timing, the cue still doesnt feel right for the song, and you might prefer a movement thats a bit more smooth. You can achieve this by using a Movement Path. These paths dont change your programming or your timing, but they can be used to smooth out or enhance your cue.
To apply a path, open the SEQUENCE EXECUTOR sheet and locate the column called MOVE PATH and right-click the cell in that column next to the cue you wish to change. A new menu will open showing you a variety of pre-made paths (along with the option to create your own). Path names indicate the path used at the beginning and the end of the cue. For example: if the path name is “NH Normal-Over”, that means, the movement will start normally, but will end by going just past the stopping position, then return to that stopping position.
In our example, we wanted to slow down the end of the movement path, so we could choose “NL Normal-Low.” This option will slow the movement down at the end of the path, giving our lights a more graceful, glide-like movement towards our stopping position. Prefer to have the start be a bit more graceful as well? Try applying “LL Low-Low” as your path.
The nice thing about paths are that they are easy to apply or change. If youre not sure how one will look, apply it and then play back the cue. If that wasnt the one you wanted, try another. Also, dont confuse the Movement Path column with the Dim Path column, which applies to changes in dimmer values.
Quick Tips are exactly what the name should imply. We’re adding these to our blog in an effort to help programmers and operators of all levels. If you’d like to suggest a Quick Tip, drop us a message on this blog, or on our Facebook page, or even via Twitter.
Tags: grandMA programming, tips, Training
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 11:50 am and is filed under MA Series 1 Consoles, Quick Tip Tuesday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.