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 this arrangement can be used to adjust the granularity of the placement. Coarser granularity results in faster performance, but might make your effects look "blocky" if you have many pixels. Finer granularity will eliminate the "blockiness" but takes more memory and takes longer to calculate the effects.
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
You can define a set of motion effect rows that will be applied when the preview is used during the creation of a new sequence. Changes made to these motion effect rows do not affect existing sequences.
Tag
This field is used to identify groups that correspond to items in sequences purchased from the Light-O-Rama Sequence Store.