Working on my first Beyond beam show.. have questions.

[HankLloydRight]

So I'm really starting from scratch here. I have my audio track broken up into segments, and I want to use this cue 4 times in sequence (maybe changing it each time).. how do I set the cue to only run one iteration/round in the span of the segment? Each of the four segments are slightly different lengths, and the cues don't match up evenly so the lines jump a little bit between the transitions between each segment. I'd like the animation to just run once (up and down) the duration of the segment, regardless of how long the segment is. How can I do that?
Thanks.

[buffo]

Not exactly sure what you're doing here, as you don't have a picture of the timeline...

But assuming that you want to flip between the 5 frames shown in your picture exactly one time for each of the 4 sequences, you would drag the cue onto the timeline and stretch it out so it's length matches the length of the musical segment.

How did you do it, and what happens when you run it?

Adam

PS: Not sure if you saw it, but I finally finished that Rising tutorial you were asking about. It's posted in this sub-forum. Only problem is that the Rising show was done using Showtime, not Beyond...

[HankLloydRight]

That cue above has 5 lines that just bounce up and down, continually. It's a standard Beyond cue.

I want each segment of the song (there are four such segments) to have ONE iteration of the up/down cue. I want it to look continuous, but since each song segment is slightly different in duration, the "bounce" won't line up with the beat, so I can't just stretch the one cue across all four segments. I have each of the four identical cues stretched across each segment, but again, since they are different durations, each cue does not end where the next one begins (at the bottom of the bounce, where the cue begins).

Does that make more sense?

[hitekvoop]

Step 1: Convert music to .wav and load into timeline
Step 2: Mark the music as it plays in order to have a rough outline of where you want your cues
Step 3: Drag cues to the timeline and adjust duration as necessary
Step 4: repeat Step 3 until you're satisfied
Step 5: Profit!

[White-Light]

The only way you can sync complete cycles is to adjust the speed to match the duration of each song segment.

However, no easy way to do that as the cue you've picked is actually 5 separate elements.

What's involved at 1st glance therefore, is:

1. Right click on the cue on the timeline and select "Make the cue a local cue" - this prevents you altering the original in the workspace

2. Edit cue in the synth editor and select the middle horizontal line in the cue (as this is the one that signifies 1 complete cycle in this particular cues (it leads the others follow))

3. Adjust the Oscillating Effect for speed until the line rises and falls 1 complete cycle in the song segment. If it's beat controlled, you may need to vary the number of beats per cycle instead.

4. Note the new speed and go into each element of the cue in turn, and enter in the new speed, so each and every element retains its original position relative to every other element.

Now repeat for every occurrence in every segment.

You should now be left with cues that each complete 1 complete cycle per segment. HOWEVER, the speed will not be the same - this is the price to pay for adjusting to individual segments that are uneven in size.

The other way is to stretch the cue over all the segments and then speed it up if necessary or increase the numbers of cycles if that's determined to maintain the speed.

HOWEVER, as you have already noticed, if the segments contain different numbers of beats, then the number of complete cycles per segment will be different. No way around that I'm afraid.

Your other choice is to vary the cues used. So if you have 4 segments why not use this cue for 2 segments and a different cue for the other 2 (inter spacing them alternatively)? That way you can use method 1 and the difference in speed will not be noticeable due to the cue change unless the segments are massively different in size.

Best advice I can offer off the top.

[HankLloydRight]

thanks, that helps alot! Especially the last suggestion of varying the cues. Sounds like an easier way to go until I get more proficient.