I’ve done a few small shows with two lasers, but now I got 2 more, very nice 40kpps 5W lasers.
So far I havent gotten deep into editting clips and even grouping, as with 2 lasers I didnt really need it for what I’m doing.
Now I’m learning more about groups, and maybe I should do some more reading first, but I can’t get it to work what I want intuitively, and maybe it isn’t possible.
How I understand it, every clip is bound to a specific group, which defines what lasers should be used etc. But I can’t find how I might easily launch for instance: first; pattern A on laser 1 and 4 and later, pattern A on 2 and 3. do I need to make a new clip, dedicated to a new group, in order to make this work? manually turning on/off specific beams from the APC is also too much of a hassle to quickly do during a show. Also for designing timelines, I’d love to be able to easily use a clip for different lasers, without the hussle to create lots of clips to accomplish a relatively simple pattern.
I’m interested to hear what would be the best workflow to launch, ideally, the same clip, onto different groups (of lasers), It would create such a clip-clutter if that’s the way it is.
Again, maybe i’m completely missing the idea behind the workflow, but it feels like something that should make things easier? → Launch pattern A with group config X.
You’re right that every clip belongs to a specific group (shown by the colour). But groups are an extremely flexible way of managing sets of clips together. Groups were initially a way to run different clips on different lasers without affecting each other - as clips in the same group “override” each other [1]. But they can also be used to quickly assign zones and x/y flips across all zones in the group, but remember that actually you can have completely different zone allocations per clip.
If you want to play the same pattern on different sets of lasers (for example, lasers 1+4, then later 2+3), you have a couple of options:
Duplicate the clip and assign the different versions to different zone sets. You can even put them in different groups if it helps you keep track visually.
Or, during a show, you can toggle zones live using the zone buttons (BEAM 1–8 etc). It’s quick once you get used to it - especially if you use the buttons on the APC 40, but honestly I tend to not do that live.
So although you can change all the zones for every clip in a group at once, you don’t have to. With only four lasers, it’s still pretty easy to handle per clip, but once you get to larger rigs (say 16 or 24), grouping by laser sets becomes more useful.
In short - groups are for managing clips together, not for switching routing of a single clip on the fly. But with a few strategic duplicates (and live zone toggling if you fancy it), you can get exactly the flexibility you’re after without too much clutter.
Hope that helps!
Seb
note that in the next build you have flexibility in how groups affect / override each other. More soon! ↩︎