How do I change what a trigger does half way through a timeline?

[PeterB]

Hello, i'm hoping that some of you could help me with something.

I am creating a setup that contains a pressure pad to trigger a video. It was pretty straight forward: hit the trigger and the video starts to play. Now I need to add the functionality of the trigger starting different timelines depending whats on the screen.

For example: There are 2 separate images that cycle on a standby state (image A and Image B). When image A is on the screen and the trigger is pressed, then Video A plays. If image B is on the screen, then that same trigger needs to trigger Video B.

I have currently got the videos in 2 different aux timelines to keep them separate. Is there a way to change the trigger at different points of the main timeline?

I also thought maybe I could have 4 timelines: Image A, Image B, Video A and Video B. When the Image A timeline is playing, the opacity of Video A is at 100% and Video B is at 0%. Then at the end of Image A timeline there's a play cue to play Image B timeline, which then changes to opacity to Video A at 0% and Video B at 100%. Basically the opacity changes depending which image is on screen, and the trigger plays both video timelines (but you only see the relevant one). Would this work? Is there a way to control tweens from play cues in a timeline?

Anyone got any other ideas of how I could make this work?

Thanks in advance!

[jfk]

On 8/2/2019 at 11:38 AM, PeterB said:

Hello, i'm hoping that some of you could help me with something.

I am creating a setup that contains a pressure pad to trigger a video. It was pretty straight forward: hit the trigger and the video starts to play. Now I need to add the functionality of the trigger starting different timelines depending whats on the screen.

For example: There are 2 separate images that cycle on a standby state (image A and Image B). When image A is on the screen and the trigger is pressed, then Video A plays. If image B is on the screen, then that same trigger needs to trigger Video B.

I have currently got the videos in 2 different aux timelines to keep them separate. Is there a way to change the trigger at different points of the main timeline?

I also thought maybe I could have 4 timelines: Image A, Image B, Video A and Video B. When the Image A timeline is playing, the opacity of Video A is at 100% and Video B is at 0%. Then at the end of Image A timeline there's a play cue to play Image B timeline, which then changes to opacity to Video A at 0% and Video B at 100%. Basically the opacity changes depending which image is on screen, and the trigger plays both video timelines (but you only see the relevant one). Would this work? Is there a way to control tweens from play cues in a timeline?

Anyone got any other ideas of how I could make this work?

Thanks in advance!

Stick with your current setup. No need to mess with opacity to achieve best result.

    " ... is there a way to change the trigger at different points of the main timeline? ..."

Yes, you need to have WATCHOUT talk to itself. There is not built-in method to do that. You need to get a little creative to arrive at a solution.  We will use WATCHOUT;s IP commands to accomplish it. Technique varies for production mode or cluster mode. I will describe the cluster mode solution.

Setup an Input object as Generic type and name it Active_Image, set its Limit to 2. For the purpose of this exercise, we will assign values: 0 = video playing / no active image, 1 = Image A, 2 = Image B. In your trigger field (assuming your pressure pad input is name Ppad) use the formulas:

run video A -

    Ppad && Active_Image=1

run video B - 

    Ppad && Active_Image=2

Setup a string output object with  name of Set_Image_Status , an IP address of 127.0.0.1 (localhost), port set to 3039 and protocol TCP.. There will be four cue objects to setup for the Set_Image_Status object.

authenticate 1$0D

setInput "Active_Image" 0$0D

setInput "Active_Image" 1$0D

setInput "Active_Image" 2$0D

Run the authenticate command before displaying the images and sending the commands to designate the current image. When running a video, using the Set_Image_Status output set the Active_Image to 0 so random inputs from the pressure pad will not interrupt the videos playing.

I suspect you can determine where to put the other two Set_Image_Status output cues

Note: do not place the Set_Image_Status output string cue to setInput "Active_Image" 0$0D before time 0:00.300 on you auxiliary timeline. Placing them to close to 0 will result in them being skipped / ignored. Same goes for the videos on that timeline, although the video will not be skipped, it would start late and stumble / skip on startup if it is to close to 0 time.

The TCP connection will timeout if no cues are sent for a period of 60 seconds, so you may need to send output Set_Image_Status the authenticate 1$0D command again if the connection closes. i.e. if your movie run is over 60 seconds, then you will need to send authenticate 1$0D again before the next Set_Image_Status output command used to change the Active_Image value.

 

[RBeddig]

On 8/2/2019 at 5:38 PM, PeterB said:

that cycle on a standby state (image A and Image

While Jim is, as always, is explaining a valid way to solve your issue, the "standby" state might be an issue to think of too. If you just toggle between normla state and standby state, the timeline usually does not run and can not trigger any cues to control WATCHOUT. So you need to start the timeline containing the stills as well to make the cue work. Of course an internal loop point to jump back just before those cues would work and of course, one cue needs to be in a standby layer too.

If you do not control any lights through ArtNet / DMX, you could also use DMX as a sort of variable. In this case I would use two variables since DMX cues increase to a certain value and not jump. You can set the IN and OUT universes to the same number and can use DMX out cues to control DMX in cues. The benefit would be that you do not have to care about loosing the authentication.

 

[jfk]

Yes, I did miss he was cycling on the standby state. Not my first choice for accomplishing that result. How is the standby state being triggered to make the images alternate in the first place?

Things get a little messy putting non-media cues on standby layers,  personally, would avoid standby for this application altogether. Since he is cycling stills, there is a clean way to run the still cycle using a control cue 'goto and and run' on the mainline timeline. Once an aux timeline is triggered, a control cue to reposition and pause the main timeline at the head and another to run the main timeline at the tail of each aux timeline should accomplish this cleanly.

[PeterB]

Thanks for the response!

 

@jfk I've managed to set up the generic input, output and output cues. If i press the trigger while setting the generic input value manually it works fine, and I can see the output cues changing the value of the string output, but I get an error message saying the string output has "Failed delivering data". I think it's an issue with the IP? I am running it in production mode as my triggers will be plugged in to the production machine and then trigger the videos on the display machine. Does this change what I need to set it as?

[jfk]

3 hours ago, PeterB said:

Thanks for the response!

 

@jfk I've managed to set up the generic input, output and output cues. If i press the trigger while setting the generic input value manually it works fine, and I can see the output cues changing the value of the string output, but I get an error message saying the string output has "Failed delivering data". I think it's an issue with the IP? I am running it in production mode as my triggers will be plugged in to the production machine and then trigger the videos on the display machine. Does this change what I need to set it as?

Yes, change the output device port number to 3040 for use with production and you can skip the authenticate command. Also, be sure to enable IP control in File - Preferences - Control.