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Symmetrical effects

Posted: 15 Jun 2019, 09:22
by offirbh
Hi

How do i create a symetrical pan tilt circular effect with 2 or 4 wing?
Sorry for the ma terminology... :wink:
Im a new avo user.
Thank you for the help

Re: Symmetrical effects

Posted: 15 Jun 2019, 09:37
by niclights
To get a symmetrical circle reverse the shape and set the phase offset to 180° on the fixtures that are being mirrored. You can use this in conjunction with spread and fixture order etc. but the fundamentals are the reverse and phase offset. Use the [Restart Shapes] option in the shape gen menu to resync them in the programmer to check the effect.

Re: Symmetrical effects

Posted: 16 Jun 2019, 08:30
by sideshowbond
or use key frame shapes, make 2 palettes for pan only (left and right, no tilt values in the palette) and then just apply the palettes to the fixtures whichever way you want it (left half of rig start at left, right half of rig start at right etc)

Re: Symmetrical effects

Posted: 16 Jun 2019, 10:02
by niclights
That wouldn't be a circle though. And while it is possible to make a circle using key frame it is much harder and it would also be absolute so you couldn't apply it around an existing position.

Re: Symmetrical effects

Posted: 17 Jun 2019, 21:05
by sideshowbond
That wouldn't be a circle though

Depends on the Tilt values but yes it will more likely result in an ellipsoidal form. Doesn't bother me though as I have it spinning round my proscenium arch.

so you couldn't apply it around an existing position

yes and no. If you set the values to the absolute maximum you will ever use running it at 50% size will result in a weird but beatiful relation to the existing position. However if you choose to use a backdrop position this effect will not work as wanted. Again this is a matter of playing around and finding out what works best.

it is much harder

the best things are rarely the easiest :wink:

Again a reason to finally implement relative values in key frame shapes. Together with release frames (similar to cue release for chases) this would finish the ley frame feature and we could kill the generic shape generator (including the shapes as presets for KFS). The shape generator has done an outstanding job over the years but is hopelessly outdated by now...

Re: Symmetrical effects

Posted: 18 Jun 2019, 09:34
by niclights
sideshowbond wrote:Again a reason to finally implement relative values in key frame shapes. Together with release frames (similar to cue release for chases) this would finish the ley frame feature and we could kill the generic shape generator (including the shapes as presets for KFS). The shape generator has done an outstanding job over the years but is hopelessly outdated by now...


This is off-topic and I don't want to derail this thread but I'm aware you have mentioned this a number of times before and I wanted to respond. Key frame shapes are absolute by nature. It doesn't make any sense to me that they could be relative. And it would also be unnecessarily complex to setup some of the things that are possible with the shape generator even if they could. For example a circle requires a relative sine (or cosine) modifier where one of the controls is 270° out of phase with the other. This is done for you in the shape generator.

The shape generator is good at what it does and there's no reason to not have both options IMO. However, I think it could be really useful to have some separate predefined effects with adjustable parameters that used whichever effect was appropriate (including pixel mapping). And I agree about finding a way to implement release frames.