grandMA2 Tutorial 13: Effects

the grand multi is effects engine features new ways to control playback and program to understand the engine we'll go through a few variations on control to create the effects you desire in Grand Mel - an effect is a waveform applied to any parameter within a unit it can be applied to pan tilt gobo color etc as you like and as it was in series 1 a difference here however is that you will no longer find modulators as you did in series 1 everything will be in effect whether it's programmed into the pool or directly into a queue we have two key areas related to effects the effects pool showing us stored effects and the effects control at the bottom of the screen this allows us to apply effects information directly into the programmer and to apply information directly to attributes in a similar way that we would work with values you can also choose to take the effects information you create within the programmer and store it directly to a preset pool to be able to access again later you can also use the pool to create effects templates that you can manipulate as needed there are many ways to create effects but let's start with the basics for this example I'll select a group of lights and apply intensity now by hitting edit and touching an empty effects tile I can begin building a new effect in the directory from scratch this new window is similar to the series one as the concept of applying effect information over lines or beans the same will hit add to create a new line here we'll choose the attribute to apply the effect to in this case I'm choosing tilt because I have a group of lights currently selected in the programmer the console has automatically applied my selection to this effect the remaining cells in the line show you how this effect will be manipulated here's our attribute of tilt the waveform applied rate size direction and we'll talk about how these are related in a moment all of these cells can be edited directly from this window or I can choose to use the encoder wheels at the bottom of the screen alternatively you can hit edit effect line and you'll be presented with a more graph ethical interface to edit the same information you'll notice that the effect is not currently running while we're creating it we'll need to apply the effect in order for it to start this is as simple as touching the effect in the pool you can still edit this effect live press edit touch the effect and make your changes to see these take effect on your stage here you can choose the waveform to apply and there are a selection built into your console leader in this video I'll show you how to create your own Center and size differ depending upon whether your effect is absolute or relative and let's talk about the difference an absolute effect forces the values stored in the effect for example a movement effect that moves over a very specific space relative applies the values stored in the effect relative to the values currently assigned to the fixtures in other words a relative movement effect will look different based on where on stage the lights are positioned when the effect starts to change your effect between absolute and relative just toggle this button in absolute mode Center is the center of the waveform every time you run it if you make this a relative effect the center is offset based upon the value your attribute was last in for example a position preset size is how large the waveform is around that Center another option would be to set a low and high value which would be very useful in this positional effect we're creating because I can now assign exactly how much tilt I really want to apply and if your effect is absolute something very powerful you can do here is to set two precepts as your references for example if I want this effect to move between the upstage edge preset and the downstage edge preset and this isn't just for movement you can use color presets iris presets dimmer presets whichever you like the rate control affects the speed of the effect you can edit the speed in beats per minute here and then use a rate to quickly modify that for example doubling the speed face control is used to spread the offset over the selection of fixtures so from 0 to 360 the movement is spread evenly if I bring the phase down you'll see them become a little bit more aligned at zero they'll move together above 360 it will appear as if you have multiple waveforms applied width controls the width of the waveform and you can see this actually being applied to the waveform in this window with all of these controls you can tap the title and then type in a particular value we can add more to this effect by adding another line hit add choose another attribute and you'll edit this line the same as the last bear in mind that when you add or delete a line you will need to return to the effects pull and reapply the effect in order to see this take effect now because we have two lines in this effect when you enter the edit effect line window you'll have on-screen buttons that will allow you to scroll through the lines by hitting the next line or previous line buttons also if you like to set data over multiple lines simultaneously you can choose the attributes here on the right I want to apply the same speed to pan and tilt so with both selected I'll touch rate and type in a new value which shall be applied to both parameters you can also press all lines to do this other options at the bottom of the screen include directional control like forward backwards and also to bounce we can also access groups blocks and wings which can also be edited using the encoder wheels grip says as it was before for example two groups will offset the waveform between the odd and even selection of the fixtures a group of three was at the first of every three units the same followed by the second of every three units and so on block will pair up the lights by selection for example a block of two would set the first two in the selection together followed by the second set of two and so on wings is as it was before and will allow you to create symmetrical effects if you want to change the selection of fixtures in the line select the units in your fixture sheet then press take selection this effect will be referred to as selective if you clear all selection from your programmer and then press take selection the quantity will change to zero and this effect now becomes an effects template this means it can be applied to any fixture in your show that contains the parameters used in the effect in this example any unit that can pan and tilt could use this effect this can now be used as a base to create new effects or as a base to put effects information directly into a cue without creating a reference to an original effect back in the pool this effect shows an A and an S that means it's an absolute effect and also selective this effect shows an R and a teen meaning relative and template and you'll need to make a selection of lights before applying this template effect selective effects can be assigned directly to executors simply press a sign touch the effect then touch any button on the desired executor now I can just roll the fader up and down to apply the effect directly alternatively effects can be stored as part of a queue either apply the effect if it's selective or select the lights you wish to apply templated effect to and store it into a queue in the same way you would store any other value now if we look at the fixture sheet we can see how the effects are actually handled it's important to know that effects are now treated as data and are independent of other values this means you can have a value on pan and tilt and also have an effect or you can have an effect on pan and tilt without any base value and vice versa effects data will obey whatever timing data you apply in a cue so if you like your effect fade in or out simply set that time in the queue and the effect will take that timing information in our fixture sheet we're looking at the values layer so we don't see which effect is running in this view however if we go to effects I can see that there's an effect applied but obviously there's more to this effect than just that so by clicking the other options at the bottom we can learn more exact information about the effect we've applied to our parameters another way to control effects outside the pool is directly within the programmer for this we use the effect option built into our control here we can apply a waveform door parameter and set the other options like rate phase width and so on also you can edit timing information directly here on a perfect your basis which can of course be independent of the Q's time you can choose to set individual fade or delay times to your effect in the same manner as you would set timing information to any value in your programmer think of the effects as you would any other value that you can manipulate in the fixture sheet and think of the effects and the effects pool like presets in your other pools this data will track just as any other value would that means that at some point you might want to turn your effect off because effects are treated in the same manner as other values you can use release commands store that into your queue and your effect will fade out alternatively you can stop out the effect with your fixture selected hold the MA key and press at followed by touching a preset feature or attribute from the control bar you can also press MA and act and follow this with the preset containing the attributes that are also used in the effect for example to stomp a movement effect on pan and tilt I can select the fixtures hold MA with at and then touch position in the preset control bar or I could touch a new position preset save that information into your queue and this will also stop the effect in addition to the encoder controls you can also use the graphic interface press special dialog and you'll see a window that should look familiar to the Edit screen keep in mind though that this is just another way to access the information and edit it directly in the programmer it will still need to be stored or updated if you wish to use it later in playback of course if you store this information directly into a cue instead of into an effects preset if you wish to change it later you'll need to edit the cue directly as you would with any other value store directly into a cue a new window in the console is that of forms if you'd like to customize or create your form from scratch press edit and touch a blank title this starts us with a single line that we can work with or we can choose a predefined deformed to get us started and modify from there just grab a point and move it to suit your needs you can also add or delete points if we look at this in table mode we can be very specific about our point values once you're finished your new form will be available in the forms list when we create or edit effects you can also create multi-dimensional forms which is a form with more than one waveform when using these each waveform will be applied to a consecutive line within your effect this is a huge advantage in being able to create an effect that is exactly what you need it to do

Channel: Consoletrainer - Cat West

Views: 77,201

Keywords: grandMA2, grandma 2, consoletrainer, console trainer

Id: js4B4mTsyYM

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 02 2011