In Preview Design, you can create groups of props. This enables you to apply effects to the entire group. For example, if you have 4 arches in row, you could put them in a group. A curtain effect applied to the group will be different than the same curtain effect applied to each prop individually.
Preview Group Definition Window
Items In The Group
Place a check mark next to each prop that you want included in the group. You can use the Select All button to check all of the boxes, and the Clear All button to clear all of the boxes.
Arrangement
There are different ways to group props. In the arch example above, you would set the arrangement to “horizontal stack” because arches are usually arranged horizontally. There is also a “use preview” arrangement setting which applies effects according to the way the props are laid out in the preview. You can even put all of your RGB elements in a single preview group and then apply effects to that group and your entire display will appear to move together.
None
The group will only be used to keep items together in the sequence grid. You cannot create motion effect rows for groups with an arrangement of "none".
Horizontal Stack Align Bottoms
Members of the group are arranged side-by-side. If there are members with varying heights, they will be arranged using the bottom as a reference.
Horizontal Stack Align Tops
Members of the group are arranged side-by-side. If there are members with varying heights, they will be arranged using the top as a reference.
H Stack, V Fill
Members of the group are arranged side-by-side. If there are members with varying heights, items with shorter heights are stretched to match the tallest item.
Vertical Stack
Members of the group are arranged bottom to top. If there are members with varying widths, they will be arranged using the left side as a reference.
Nested
Members of the group are arranged bottom to top. If there are members with varying widths, items with shorter widths are stretched to match the widest item.
V Stack, H Fill
This is like the "nested" arrangement, except that when items are stretched, pixels are repeated in the buffer so that there are no gaps.
Custom
When you click the "Custom" button, 2 additional columns are added to the member grid: Top and Left. You can use these columns to specify where the effect buffer should be placed. Specifying 0, 0 will place the effect buffer for that group in the upper left corner. This arrangement can be useful for who users who want to sequence all of their props at the same time in SuperStar.
Custom Arrangement
Use the "Channel Layout" button to visualize how the props are arranged. Here is a portion of the layout for the custom arrangement shown above:
The Channel Layout
Use Preview
Pixels are arranged according to their placement in the preview. The slider associated with this arrangement can be used to adjust the granularity of the placement. Coarser (low res) granularity results in faster performance, but might make your effects look "blocky" if you have many pixels. Finer (high res) granularity will eliminate the "blockiness" but takes more memory and takes longer to calculate the effects.
The "Treat props as dumb RGB" option is a special case, where each prop in the group gets a single color when a motion effect is applied. Different props can be different colors, but all of the pixels in a single prop will be the same color. For example, if the group has 50 small props of 10 pixels each and you apply a butterfly effect to the group, each prop will be a different color, but the 10 pixels that make up a single prop will all be the same color.
Channel Layout
Use the channel layout to view the results of the arrangement setting. This is the pixel configuration that will be used when motion effects are applied.
Motion Effect Rows
Use the "Default Motion Rows" button to define default motion effect rows that will be incorporated into new sequences (this setting has no effect on existing sequences). The number in parentheses on the button reflects the number of default motion effect rows that have already been defined for the group. The dialog for adding default motion rows to a group works just the same way as the dialog for adding motion effect rows to an existing sequence. See the Motion Effect Rows Dialog topic for more information.
Tag
Every group in a Light-O-Rama "RGB Plus" sequence is assigned a tag. These tags are available in the Tag drop-down. You can assign tags to groups in your own preview that are similar to props in an RGB Plus sequence. For example, if you have a pixel-based matrix in your display, you could assign it to tag "LOR Group-RGB Matrix 20x40".
Why go through the trouble of tagging?
If you purchase an RGB Plus sequence, open it in the Sequencer, and then assign your preview to the RGB Plus sequence, props and groups that are tagged will automatically match up. This can make customizing a purchased sequence to your display much easier.