If I discover that some movement from Page 5 to Page 6 doesn't look good and I want to change how a certain set of performers get from 5 to 6, can I select any number of dots (not necessarily a full Form) in a specific order and match them to dots (also not necessarily a full Form) on the following page in a very specific order? If this is possible, I'm assuming that it's by using Switch Performers, Perhaps in combination with the Selection Ordering tool.
I don't see a video that outlines Switch Performer or Selection Ordering, and I'm not figuring this out on my own, so some step by step guidance would be appreciated. Details about what Selection Mode to be in, where to set the Timeline Markers, etc would also help.
On Switch Performer, the Rotate By seems to be the primary option, and I'm not clear on what that does. I'm hope to have full flexibility to "re-match" any number of performers to different dots, not just shift them all over.
And if the Selection Order tool can be used in conjunction with Switch Performer. I'm not 100% sure when the Selection Ordering tool should be used in general, so an overview would be helpful.
Thanks
Switch Performers
Re: Switch Performers
Hi bjindrich,
There are some good questions in here, I'll try to answer them as well as I can.
Firstly you should look at the EnVision Help Center on our website, it has detailed descriptions of each tool and how they work.
Lets first get a quick description of these tools and what their purpose is and then we can put some scenarios together that might accomplish what you are asking for.
Switch Performer Tool:
This tool allows you to switch the positions and drill of multiple performers over one or more sets. For example, if I have a line of performers ABCDE that are selected from A to E (more on selection ordering later) and I set the Switch Performer->Rotate By value to 1 then the positions of the performers will change to EABCD, if the rotate value is 2 then the order will change to DEABC etc.. So performer D will now be doing performer A's previous drill. This effect only lasts for the length of sets that you selected in the tool. The performers are switched starting on the current set (defined by the current Set Marker) until the selected set in the Switch Performers tool. You can also set the Until value by using the purple timeline marker.
Say we have 3 sets and we switch the performers for only the second set, the results will look like this:
Set 1: ABCDE
Set 2: DEABC
Set 3: ABCDE
So the positions are changed for the second set but return to normal for the third set, and their paths will adjust accordingly.
Say we have 4 sets and we switch the performers for the middle two sets:
Set 1: ABCDE
Set 2: DEABC
Set 3: DEABC
Set 4: ABCDE
So the positions of set 2 and 3 are changed and 4 remains the same. In this case the paths between set 2 and 3 are also swapped, so if the performers are doing a follow the leader or other non-linear motion then those changes will be applied to the new performer.
Selection Order:
As mentioned above, the order of the selected performers is important in a number of situations. Switching multiple performers is one of them, adding performers to forms is another as seen in our Moving Performers tutorial. The selection order is exactly what it sounds like: it is the order in which the performers are selected. The order is represented visually by going from Red as the beginning of the selection to pink/white as the end of the selection.
There are various ways to get performers selected into the order that you want. If you just use the normal rectangle selection tool then the performers are selected in the order that they were created (generally T1->T8, B1->B8 etc.) which isn't always what is wanted. You can manually select the order by individually selecting performers while holding the ctrl key (cmd key on Mac). You can also determine the order by using the proximity selection tool (Selection menu), which incrementally adds performers to the selection order. You can also hold shift while in any selection mode as a shortcut to the proximity selection tool. Lastly, clicking on a form will select the attached performers in form order.
Selection Order Tool:
This tool is designed for those times when manually selecting the order would take a long time or there are very clear horizontal or vertical components to the performers. For example if you have two side-by-side horizontal arcs of performers and you want to combine them into a single line, you can select the whole set then open the Selection Order tool and choose Sort Horizontal. If the order is opposite from what you want then you can select "Reverse Order".
The Current Selection portion of the tool allows you to change the order of members manually. Generally useful if you have a large selection and 1 or 2 of the performers are ordered wrong.
The A-B Straight and Loop options are admittedly a bit obtuse, they allow you to turn a straight selection into one that has every other performer selected.
Solution:
So as for your original question regarding matching performers to new dots, there is no tool that does what you are asking, which I think is to match performers from one set to arbitrary dots on a second set. However there are several options that can cover this ground. If you just have two members that are switched, or you have a group of performers that all need to be shifted down one or two spots then the Switch Performer Tool is a good option. Getting the performers in the right selection order before applying the switch is key here.
If the performers are attached to a form and you want them to be in a different order on that form, that is also very easy. If you pull performers off of a form their dots remain on that form, ready to be filled by new performers. All you have to do is order the performers the way you want them on the form and then reattach them by dragging them on to one of the empty dots. Remember to be in Performer selection mode for this. You should only be in Form mode when you want to edit a form, e.g. change its shape or position, the performers will come along with the changes. Otherwise you should almost always be in Performer mode. Note that if you add performers to a form or create a form then you are automatically switched to Form mode so you can make adjustments to that form. You can switch back easily using ctrl-tab.
If you add performers to a form and they are in reverse order you can easily fix this by selecting the Reverse Last Selection button on the opened Form Tool in the Ordering section. If there are empty dots then you can also fix this using the Expand to Fit button. Lastly, you can also add performers in between performers that are already attached to a form, even if there aren't any empty spaces on it. You just drag the selection to a dot on the side where you want the performers added and you will see the dot highlight blue as usual. The form will add dots (and shrink the interval) to accommodate the new performers.
This was quite a long winded post but I hope you found it useful. If you need any more clarification please feel free to ask.
William
There are some good questions in here, I'll try to answer them as well as I can.
Firstly you should look at the EnVision Help Center on our website, it has detailed descriptions of each tool and how they work.
Lets first get a quick description of these tools and what their purpose is and then we can put some scenarios together that might accomplish what you are asking for.
Switch Performer Tool:
This tool allows you to switch the positions and drill of multiple performers over one or more sets. For example, if I have a line of performers ABCDE that are selected from A to E (more on selection ordering later) and I set the Switch Performer->Rotate By value to 1 then the positions of the performers will change to EABCD, if the rotate value is 2 then the order will change to DEABC etc.. So performer D will now be doing performer A's previous drill. This effect only lasts for the length of sets that you selected in the tool. The performers are switched starting on the current set (defined by the current Set Marker) until the selected set in the Switch Performers tool. You can also set the Until value by using the purple timeline marker.
Say we have 3 sets and we switch the performers for only the second set, the results will look like this:
Set 1: ABCDE
Set 2: DEABC
Set 3: ABCDE
So the positions are changed for the second set but return to normal for the third set, and their paths will adjust accordingly.
Say we have 4 sets and we switch the performers for the middle two sets:
Set 1: ABCDE
Set 2: DEABC
Set 3: DEABC
Set 4: ABCDE
So the positions of set 2 and 3 are changed and 4 remains the same. In this case the paths between set 2 and 3 are also swapped, so if the performers are doing a follow the leader or other non-linear motion then those changes will be applied to the new performer.
Selection Order:
As mentioned above, the order of the selected performers is important in a number of situations. Switching multiple performers is one of them, adding performers to forms is another as seen in our Moving Performers tutorial. The selection order is exactly what it sounds like: it is the order in which the performers are selected. The order is represented visually by going from Red as the beginning of the selection to pink/white as the end of the selection.
There are various ways to get performers selected into the order that you want. If you just use the normal rectangle selection tool then the performers are selected in the order that they were created (generally T1->T8, B1->B8 etc.) which isn't always what is wanted. You can manually select the order by individually selecting performers while holding the ctrl key (cmd key on Mac). You can also determine the order by using the proximity selection tool (Selection menu), which incrementally adds performers to the selection order. You can also hold shift while in any selection mode as a shortcut to the proximity selection tool. Lastly, clicking on a form will select the attached performers in form order.
Selection Order Tool:
This tool is designed for those times when manually selecting the order would take a long time or there are very clear horizontal or vertical components to the performers. For example if you have two side-by-side horizontal arcs of performers and you want to combine them into a single line, you can select the whole set then open the Selection Order tool and choose Sort Horizontal. If the order is opposite from what you want then you can select "Reverse Order".
The Current Selection portion of the tool allows you to change the order of members manually. Generally useful if you have a large selection and 1 or 2 of the performers are ordered wrong.
The A-B Straight and Loop options are admittedly a bit obtuse, they allow you to turn a straight selection into one that has every other performer selected.
Solution:
So as for your original question regarding matching performers to new dots, there is no tool that does what you are asking, which I think is to match performers from one set to arbitrary dots on a second set. However there are several options that can cover this ground. If you just have two members that are switched, or you have a group of performers that all need to be shifted down one or two spots then the Switch Performer Tool is a good option. Getting the performers in the right selection order before applying the switch is key here.
If the performers are attached to a form and you want them to be in a different order on that form, that is also very easy. If you pull performers off of a form their dots remain on that form, ready to be filled by new performers. All you have to do is order the performers the way you want them on the form and then reattach them by dragging them on to one of the empty dots. Remember to be in Performer selection mode for this. You should only be in Form mode when you want to edit a form, e.g. change its shape or position, the performers will come along with the changes. Otherwise you should almost always be in Performer mode. Note that if you add performers to a form or create a form then you are automatically switched to Form mode so you can make adjustments to that form. You can switch back easily using ctrl-tab.
If you add performers to a form and they are in reverse order you can easily fix this by selecting the Reverse Last Selection button on the opened Form Tool in the Ordering section. If there are empty dots then you can also fix this using the Expand to Fit button. Lastly, you can also add performers in between performers that are already attached to a form, even if there aren't any empty spaces on it. You just drag the selection to a dot on the side where you want the performers added and you will see the dot highlight blue as usual. The form will add dots (and shrink the interval) to accommodate the new performers.
This was quite a long winded post but I hope you found it useful. If you need any more clarification please feel free to ask.
William
Re: Switch Performers
Thanks for the explanation, William. I'm starting to understand Envision more. The one thing I'm unclear on is with the Switch Performers tool: the Rotate By option seems specific to a line or curve, where there is a clear "order", but what about when the players that you want to swap aren't in a single line or a single curve? How does the order that the performers are selected tie to the Rotate By value?
Re: Switch Performers
Perhaps this will help clear things up for you; an answer in two parts:
Part 1:
Selection order is not always the same as the order that the performers were selected in. You can visually see the selection order by looking at the color of selection circles around the performers. Red is the beginning of the selection and the color gets lighter from there towards the end of the selection. If you are selecting performers with the rectangle selection tool then they will be selected in the order they were created, not necessarily the order they were added to the selection.
Part 2:
The Switch Performer tool is 100% based on the selection order, not on what form they are attached to or where they are on the canvas. That being said, defining the order for performers that are attached to a line or curve form tends to be easier than random performers on the field but this is where the selection ordering tool and the various other selection techniques come into play.
William
Part 1:
Selection order is not always the same as the order that the performers were selected in. You can visually see the selection order by looking at the color of selection circles around the performers. Red is the beginning of the selection and the color gets lighter from there towards the end of the selection. If you are selecting performers with the rectangle selection tool then they will be selected in the order they were created, not necessarily the order they were added to the selection.
Part 2:
The Switch Performer tool is 100% based on the selection order, not on what form they are attached to or where they are on the canvas. That being said, defining the order for performers that are attached to a line or curve form tends to be easier than random performers on the field but this is where the selection ordering tool and the various other selection techniques come into play.
William
Re: Switch Performers
OK - I think I got it. So, I need to know the order of the performers that I want to select, such that they will be rotated to get into the new desired spots. And the red-to-white colors will verify the order.
I can work with this in the short term, but my ideal is to be able to select any number of performers on page X and then go to page X+1 and select the performers in the new order that I want them to be "matched" to their new dots (or some other fast, easy way to rematch a collection of performers). Couple this with the Swap Selection Until (being able to carry the switch across multiple pages) and we'll have a lot of flexibility in evolving, revising and rewriting drill.
UPDATE: I just realized that selecting people in the right order, to switch their order, is hard because once you start selecting performers, only the paths of the selected performers are displayed. In this scenario, leaving everyone's paths displayed (at least the Previous Path, since that is key to seeing who you want to switch on a given page) would probably be helpful. If you want to swap 2 people, it's easy to see and remember which 2, but the more you want to switch, the harder it gets. This, among other things, is why I think the Switch tool needs to be enhanced, to make it fast and easy to switch larger quantities of people (which is what I tend to do, as part of my process).
I can work with this in the short term, but my ideal is to be able to select any number of performers on page X and then go to page X+1 and select the performers in the new order that I want them to be "matched" to their new dots (or some other fast, easy way to rematch a collection of performers). Couple this with the Swap Selection Until (being able to carry the switch across multiple pages) and we'll have a lot of flexibility in evolving, revising and rewriting drill.
UPDATE: I just realized that selecting people in the right order, to switch their order, is hard because once you start selecting performers, only the paths of the selected performers are displayed. In this scenario, leaving everyone's paths displayed (at least the Previous Path, since that is key to seeing who you want to switch on a given page) would probably be helpful. If you want to swap 2 people, it's easy to see and remember which 2, but the more you want to switch, the harder it gets. This, among other things, is why I think the Switch tool needs to be enhanced, to make it fast and easy to switch larger quantities of people (which is what I tend to do, as part of my process).
Re: Switch Performers
I might have to pick your brain a bit on this offline. This method of writing drill is foreign to me and I tend not to get into many situations where I need several performers to be rematched to different dots.
William
William