Layers across multiple mixes

[Trench117]

Hi,

I often have requests to 'map' media across 4 or 5 surfaces (which currently are 4 or 5 individual mixes) on stage.

I am trying to achieve the effect of masking all the gaps between the surfaces and only display content on my mixes. But rather than one piece of content be duplicated 4 or 5 times I want it to appear as a whole across the 4 or 5 mixes.

Is this something to do with Exact Map?

[kiwi]

Hi,

I often have requests to 'map' media across 4 or 5 surfaces (which currently are 4 or 5 individual mixes) on stage.

I am trying to achieve the effect of masking all the gaps between the surfaces and only display content on my mixes. But rather than one piece of content be duplicated 4 or 5 times I want it to appear as a whole across the 4 or 5 mixes.

Is this something to do with Exact Map?

You can create a canvas of mixes by offsetting mixes from each other. Doesn't matter what mix type it is.
Route the layer to all mixes
in the mix options window adjust the x and y offset (a mix is 2 units wide and tall)
you can now move the content around mixes or spread it across all of them.

For example: mixes 1 2 and 3 side by side. (this will work whatever the resolution of the mixes)
give mix 1 a x offset of -2.000
give mix 3 a x offset of +2.000
leave mix 2 with an x offset of 0

put your one piece of content onto a single layer
route the layer to mixes 1, 2 and 3
now adjust x position on the layer and the content should pan across all the mixes. Adjust scale and you can fill all 3 mixes with a single image.

[MattMills]

I would like to jump in on this as well. Lets say I have 2 LED walls. One stage right, one stage left. What I would usually do is set mix 1 to take care of the SR wall, Mix 2 to take care of the SL wall, and Mix 3 to cover both walls. I have run into the problem of one of the mixes "stepping" on the other mixes. I usually have to set the mix that is doing that to "Flat - locked to corners", and at that point it will allow the other mixes to be seen. Am I going about this the right way? Its working for me, just thought there might be a better way of doing that.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I thought this will add to the topic. Thanks

[Trench117]

Thanks Paul that works great.

If I now want to send a layer direct to one of those mixes I have to offset the layer to compensate for the mix offset. Is it worth setting up another set of mixes that are not offset for times when I don't want to have content across all outputs? Perhaps this is making it more complex than it needs to be.

Cheers.

[Mr_P]

could do - or just set up a preset to change between offset and not offset...


s

[Sandals512]

I would like to jump in on this as well. Lets say I have 2 LED walls. One stage right, one stage left. What I would usually do is set mix 1 to take care of the SR wall, Mix 2 to take care of the SL wall, and Mix 3 to cover both walls. I have run into the problem of one of the mixes "stepping" on the other mixes. I usually have to set the mix that is doing that to "Flat - locked to corners", and at that point it will allow the other mixes to be seen. Am I going about this the right way? Its working for me, just thought there might be a better way of doing that.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I thought this will add to the topic. Thanks


Hey Matt, That's currently How i've always done it as well, for me seems to work the easiest for on the fly changes that way.

I avoid using Mix's 1 and 2 as those are default tied to Screen 1 and 2 IIRC, but it always gives issues so I normally start at mix 3.

[kiwi]

I would like to jump in on this as well. Lets say I have 2 LED walls. One stage right, one stage left. What I would usually do is set mix 1 to take care of the SR wall, Mix 2 to take care of the SL wall, and Mix 3 to cover both walls. I have run into the problem of one of the mixes "stepping" on the other mixes. I usually have to set the mix that is doing that to "Flat - locked to corners", and at that point it will allow the other mixes to be seen. Am I going about this the right way? Its working for me, just thought there might be a better way of doing that.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I thought this will add to the topic. Thanks

Matt, do you have screen shots of your mix set up?

[kiwi]

Thanks Paul that works great.

If I now want to send a layer direct to one of those mixes I have to offset the layer to compensate for the mix offset. Is it worth setting up another set of mixes that are not offset for times when I don't want to have content across all outputs? Perhaps this is making it more complex than it needs to be.

Cheers.

It depends on how your programming and how you like to work. Catalyst is very flexible so there can be multiple ways of achieving the same result.

I usually program in a theatrical environment using a hog 3.
Using offsets means I can create positioning palettes in the hog and not have to worry about routing and de-routing mixes from layers.
However if you're programming in presets then you would understandably want a quicker way to position content on a mix, in which case creating a second set of mixes without offsets is a very viable solution. Or as Simon pointed out you can change what the offsets are storing them into a preset.

You have to experiment a bit to find what suits your programming style, system and the requirements of your production best.

Paul

[kiwi]

I avoid using Mix's 1 and 2 as those are default tied to Screen 1 and 2 IIRC, but it always gives issues so I normally start at mix 3.

Mix 1 and 2 are tied to screen 1 and 2 if you have them in "full screen mix" mode, but they aren't set to this by default.
Otherwise they function the same as any other mix.

[SourceChild]

For about 5 years now I have been stacking mixes. Imagine the following scenario:

3 screens on a stage

For content:

Mix 3 is a mix spanning all 3 screens
Mix 4 is screen 1
Mix 5 screen 2
Mix 6 screen 3


For IMAG through phoenix capture:

Mix 7 is a mix spanning all 3 screens
Mix 8 is screen 1
Mix 9 screen 2
Mix 10 screen 3


Layer Assignments:

Mix 3 Layers 1-5
Mix 4 Layers 6-10
Mix 5 Layers 11-15
Mix 6 Layers 16-20
Mix 7 Layers 21-25
Mix 8 Layers 26,27
Mix 9 Layers 28,29
Mix 10 Layers 30,31


In this scenario, the three screens can be any size and any distance between each other including 1 big screen. It's the perfect festival style because a daily workflow is adjusting each mix to each new wall. Then there is practically no reprogramming of palettes.

In all cases, my cue stack had all layers of each mix 4,5,6 pointing to the same stack number from mix three. IE 6,11,16 reference 1, 7,12,17 reference layer 2 etc. Then all it takes is bump buttons and dimmer effects to create dynamics.

This is all programmed from a lighting desk. If you notice I did not use Mix Layer Assigns as it would just over complicate. Actually this is a bit of a lie because I would mix layer assign to group IMAG layers on to mix 7 when I needed more than 2 full screen effects. However, this was only for specific needs.

This is exactly how I programmed GnR six months ago and the show is bullet proof no matter what operator comes on after me because I kept it simple and intuitive.

[Trench117]

For about 5 years now I have been stacking mixes.

I would like to do this in my current setup as well. But I have 5 screens onstage. Three of which are on Cat 1 and the other two on Cat 2. I dont think there is a way to get a mix to span all 5, I guess I would have to have 1 mix span the first three screens and a second mix span the last two screens. Then somehow use offsets to make that look right?

Thanks for all the comments.

[5th Element]

I use a setup that is similar since I have noticed when using offsets, if you do things like Z rotation across borders you run into problems. I like the idea of having mix 3 in as a flood all mix window but I have noticed the same thing Matt said. Mix 3 in this case would have to be flat locked to corners, not flat locked aspect ratio in order to be transparent. Is there a specific reason for this? I have always wondered.

[kiwi]

If I remember correctly the Flat constant aspect ratio mix type works slightly differently to the other mix types in that it doesn't go via a secondary graphics buffer (I think that's correct)
Hence you can't do some stuff with it that you can do with the other mix types.

[mlorenz]

Paul you are right!
Flat constant aspect ratio, there is no calcualtions done... So thats why it is not transparent... Just in and out again...

[5th Element]

One more question while I am thinking about it. I used a similar setup that todd had the other day where I had 3 LED walls. I had...
Mix 3 - across all 3 screens
Mix 4 - screen 1
Mix 5 - screen 2
Mix 6 - screen 3

Mix 4,5,6 are transparent and flat locked to corners.
What I had was a situation where I wanted to put IMAG into one screen, say screen 3, (Mix 6), and leave content running in screen 1 and 2. I needed to fade in the IMAG while the content was running in the background.

The simplest way was to have something running in mix 3 across all 3 screens and then just bring up mix 6 over it.
The problem though is when I would bring up mix 6 to something less than full intensity I would see a blend between the background Mix 3 and Mix 6.
To try and fix this I put a layer of black at full in mix 6 "behind" the IMAG and "on top" of Mix 3. I would still see through mix 6 and see a blend of Mix 3 and Mix 6. My IMAG would get slightly "brighter" when this layer of black was added but it would not act as an opaque layer as I hoped. I even tried making it a mask and that didn't seem to work either.
It would only work if put a scaled layer of black on Mix 3 on top of the video content and "behind" mix 6.
Is there a better way of doing this or am I setting this up wrong for this situation.
Thanks

[Mr_P]

The simplest way was to have something running in mix 3 across all 3 screens and then just bring up mix 6 over it.
The problem though is when I would bring up mix 6 to something less than full intensity I would see a blend between the background Mix 3 and Mix 6.


That would be the expected result


To try and fix this I put a layer of black at full in mix 6 "behind" the IMAG and "on top" of Mix 3. I would still see through mix 6 and see a blend of Mix 3 and Mix 6. My IMAG would get slightly "brighter" when this layer of black was added but it would not act as an opaque layer as I hoped. I even tried making it a mask and that didn't seem to work either.
It would only work if put a scaled layer of black on Mix 3 on top of the video content and "behind" mix 6.


I thought that Blend Glitch C should fix this - but it doesn't...?
So using Blend Glitch A (or B)

Try using custom colour effect: 'HSB Mix' on the IMAG layer in Mix 6 and reduce the brightness controller as necessary - it seems to work without making the image transparent...

S

[5th Element]

I will try it,
thanks