Update: in 1.9.7 you don't need to import symbols anymore, they are now part of the built-in symbols library.
Update: Reset button for each engine added; this description is slightly rephrased (generators are now called engines).
Hello everyone,
Here are my two new plugins that allow you to easily create busking layouts for position and dimmer effects.
Everything is based on recipes and macros that modify recipe lines and MAtricks assigned to a recipes.
My approach here is a bit different compared to the one in the latest StartShow version.
Here you have two "engines" per layout and for each engine you can choose the involved groups, but MAtricks and all other settings (form, groups, blocks, mirroring, selection order...) are per engine.
The top left switch is a sequence. This sequence is also assigned to executor 101 of the first free page in your show file.
To the right of the sequence is the MAtricks object, which is assigned to the recipe lines of the sequence and is modified by the macros in the right part of the engine.
Middle left - group activation macros. These macros assign and unassign groups to recipes of the sequence.
Right side:
- forms selection macros - pan sine, tilt sine, circle, eight (or infinity) forms (sin, snapin, snapout, pwm for dimmer phasers)
- selection order macros (group order or shuffle), you can press the shuffle macro several times to get different shuffles
- mirror macros - to get symmetrically mirrored phasers
- phase macros - the phase_from setting is always 0, the phase_to setting changes according to the symbol text, the arrow macro changes the sign of the phase_to setting, so if the phase was 0 to 360, it will change to 0 to -360 and vice versa.
- others are pretty obvious I think.
Why two engines per layout? You can use them in two ways - create different effects for different groups and use them simultaneously, or use them for the same groups, prepare the second one while the first one is playing and then use the temp faders to "crossfade" between the two effects. Question - do we need more than two engines per layout?
As some of the symbols I use are missing in the predefined symbols library, you'll need to import symbols into your show file manually. On the onPC stations you can do this by copying the contents of the "symbols" folder in the archive to "C:\ProgramData\MALightingTechnology\gma3_1.9.3\shared\resource\lib_symbols\symbols\" (if you're using 1. 9.3.3), on the console you'll need to put it on a stick to "D:\grandMA3\gma3_library\media\symbols\symbols" and then import it to the show using the import/export menu.
To import the plugins themselves, you will need to copy the .lua and .xml files into the "C:\ProgramData\MALightingTechnology\gma3_library\datapools\plugins" folder or "D:\grandMA3\gma3_library\datapools\plugins" if you are using the stick to import plugins into the show file on a console.
This is the first version of the plugin, so not everything is done yet (progress bar for example, but do we really need it?), so I'd be happy to hear your feedback on what can be changed/improved.
Happy using/testing.
