This tutorial is going to cover using the Organizer tab
to import data from one showfile into another.
We are going to focus on the details of importing data into new show files
and also into existing show files, and where you need to be careful.
The easiest way to do importing, of course,
is to import into a brand new empty show file, because there are no conflicts.
If you import from an existing show file into another existing show file,
it is possible that the numbers are going to conflict because they are the same:
the same preset number, the same Palette number, the same group number – and so on.
I am going to show you a few tricks to getting around those conflicts
and how you can tell the system not to be so careful about protecting your data,
if that is what you want to have happen.
We're going to start off very quickly with a new show file
just to prove that we have nothing in the system: no patch, completely empty,
start from the beginning.
For work I am doing later I am going to change
this bottom dock to the Direct Select dock, and we will come back to that later.
Then I am going to import information that in this case goes along with our visualization file.
I am going to go to the Browser and open that up.
Under files, Import From, I am going to pick my show file
that goes with this visualization file from my Play Archive
It could also be on my USB memory or on a file server or anywhere on the system,
but I am going to pick this one on the hard drive.
What is going to happen is I am going to get two organizer views.
(I'll close the Browser to get a little more room on the screen. )
The left organizer view is called Organizer Import From,
and if you look in the middle of the screen
you'll see that there is a file path – Play Archive – and then the name of my show file.
On the right-hand side
this is the organizer that is the show file in memory, the current show file in other words,
the completely empty show file we are starting from.
You see no names and no path name or anything like that because that is the current state of the console.
Everything that is in the left-hand tab is on my hard drive, USB stick, et cetera.
Everything that is in the right-hand side is in current memory.
What I am going to do first, very simply, is I am going to start by importing my patch.
The patch can be imported, very simply, by dragging the patch item from the left
onto the patch item on the right.
We always copy when we are importing.
We are not moving information from the show file on the hard drive;
we are simply copying information from that original source.
I am going to hit {Copy}.
In this case it is a very big show file and my dialogue is going to be very long,
but it is going to basically take the entire patch of the system in one fell swoop
and bring it over into my current show file.
I can scroll down and show you all the stuff that just came in,
including all the definitions of the lights, the definition of our capture camera,
all the patch information for that and our dimmers.
Basically, everything that is underneath this patch node was dragged over and dropped into the new show file
at once, and you saw that our
visualization file popped into existence because the patch now matches between the two systems.
What I am going to do next, because now I have some channels –
so for example if I look at my live view,
zoom in a little bit – you can see I have all of these channels in the system
and I can turn some lights on, as you can see.
But, let's say that I also want to have some groups
because patching and groups normally fit together quite nicely.
Now I am going to just take pieces. I could, if I wanted to, drag the entire group segment
into the new show file by clicking here and dragging to there.
That would bring every group in the original file into my new file.
But, in this case, I am going to do some playful things.
I am going to select using my shift key and the arrows on my normal keypad.
I could also use the Select key and the arrows on my console keypad
to select multiple items in this particular view, in this case, continuously numbered items.
I can then drag them on over onto groups in my current show file.
You can see now I have a list in this dialogue of the three groups that I had originally selected,
which channels are going to be included in those groups,
and I can just make a copy,
Very simple. Now I have groups one, two, three and here I have groups one, two, three.
But what if I also wanted to have, for example, some other groups, and at other numbers?
I could do the same thing: shift and the arrow or select and the arrow,
drag them over, but let's say I don't want to start them at group 6; I want to start them at group...
something else – let's say 11 in my current show file.
What I can do is come into the Advanced tab
and I can use this renumber mode.
Keep original spacing and gaps,
which in this case doesn't matter because they are consecutively numbered anyway,
and I want to start them at number 11.
Then I press Copy.
Now you can see group number 6 in the original file
has become group number 11 in my current show file.
So this is a way you can move things around.
But wait, there is more.
I can, just for grins let's say, select using the control key instead
these odd-number groups – 11, 13, 17, and 19 –
and drag them over
and go into my Advanced tab.
If I want to keep the gap,
keep them as odd numbers but start them, let's say, at number 31, I can do that.
Now you can see number 11 has become 31. Number 13 has become number 33, and so on.
Or, again just as an example, I can select the evens, bring them over here
and now instead of keeping the original spacings and gaps,
I want to convert to consecutive numbers.
This is a way to get rid of gaps that might have been created in the original show file,
and, I will start at number 41.
Now you can see the original group 12 LED front, has become group 41 LED front.
The original group16 has become group 42 and so on.
So this is a way of completely rearranging
how your show has been organized, if that is the kind of thing you would like to do.
This works for groups or Palettes, and also for presets
Just to show what happened here, I am going to open up my Direct Select dock
and show you the hundred button array of the group set.
Now you can see we imported the first three; they are at 1,2,3.
Then, you can see these other groups have been imported and show up now on their new numbers.
Just as always –
because the patch was there and the groups came in second –
I have the ability to control those groups now directly from my Direct Select panel.
Going back to our organizer view, I am going to talk a little bit about importing presets.
I am going to roll down here, out of the way, and pick a few presets
to import directly into the preset list. Here is just a set of four presets,
numbered, unfortunately, consecutively, so I'm going to cheat,
and select some presets to import but I am going to skip a few so that we have some gaps.
I have 220, 222, and 230.
I am going to bring them over into the preset section here. As you can see,
once again I get an indication of what it is I am copying.
You can see we have the same types of options in the advanced tab of the drop dialogue.
I can keep the original spacing and gaps;
I can convert these to consecutive numbers, for example;
and, I can start at some nice ridiculous number like 1,001
just to have dramatic numbering,
and hit Copy. You can see this is what has been brought over.
This is dependent information.
Presets contain intensity information and attribute data, and that includes Palette data.
In this particular show file, what have we done so far? We've imported the Patch, we've imported some Groups,
and now I've imported some Presets.
We never once stopped and imported any Palettes.
The act of importing a Preset in this case brings the dependent data with it
and that ensures that when you play what is now going to become Preset 1,001
that you get a look on stage that looks like the original Preset that you copied from.
This is just giving you an indication of all that extra data, that non-Preset data, that came along with.
I am going to close that and we are going to look at our Preset list now and we are going to see
we had three original presets here and we said, "Renumber them please.
Get rid of the gaps.
Use consecutive numbers." So, I have a nice clean set of new Preset numbers: 1,001, 1,002, and 1,003
that are copies of the original.
If we look at Sequences – one step up from Presets – and I want to bring a Sequence over,
it is going to do the same thing. When I look at Sequence 105 you can see it has 3 Presets in it.
When I drag Sequence 105 over into my Sequences segment of my current showfile,
I don't have the renumbering options; it's going to keep the Sequence intact.
There are a lot of relationships established in that Sequence.
But, I do get here the choice of looking at how I am going to bring data in from this Sequence.
The system's default is to protect you from overwriting things inadvertently.
The default, the first item here, is to bring in all data
but protect from dependencies conflicts, which means that it will not,
by dragging these Presets in, override existing Palettes (for example),
or by dragging this Sequence in, if it is using Presets that have the same number
as something that exists in your showfile it is going to stop and say there is a conflict here.
This is especially true – not in this case necessarily where we're importing into a brand new show file –
but if you are importing into an existing show file
where you bring in a Sequence that uses numbers that are similar to what already exists in your showfile.
The protect from dependencies conflicts option is keeping you safe.
The second option, all data ignoring dependencies conflicts, will overwrite information.
It will take the new Palette and overwrite the old Palette of the same number.
It'll take the new Preset and overwrite the existing Preset of the same number in the current show file.
This is a brute force import, used with care.
I suggest before doing these kinds of imports, please, that you save a copy of your show file.
Save with revision. Save often through these steps
because if you do bring something in that overwrites something that you didn't intend to overwrite
you can just go back one step, basically, and get back to where you were.
If you don't save in between,
you could be playing with fire by importing data over other data as you go forward.
So, just be careful as you are working; or, always be aware of what you are doing.
The third option here is
to allow you to import just the intensity information from a Sequence into a new showfile
and ignore all the moving light data, ignore the Palettes, ignore all the parameter data, et cetera.
It could be because you are moving from one house to the next and using
a different lighting rig with different Palettes that might already exist in your show file;
you just need to get the intensity information from your old show file into the new one.
Those are the three options when importing a Sequence across.
We'll just keep ourselves nice and safe, and then I am going to hit Copy.
It brings over – you'll notice –
Focus Palettes,
Focus Palette number 3 in this case,
because Focus Palette number 3 is referenced by one of the presets 120, 121, and 122.
Now I have an empty Sequence 1 in my current show file
and a new Sequence 105 that looks just the same as my original Sequence 105 that I imported.
I can just carry on, dragging those Sequences in
with or without brute force until I am happy. And you'll notice
more bits and pieces of my show file are arriving as I import more and more chunks of the data
into the current show file.
Anything you see in the organizer is an importable thing.
You can import layouts, scroller rolls, dimmer curves, fade curves, independents, macros, patch effects...
I'll just say it again:
Save your data often as you are doing this work and it will keep you sane.
This is a very powerful tool.
It does use a mouse for dragging and dropping. You can also do this with a keypad,
but in all honesty, the mouse is much faster for this type of editing function.
That is how you use the organizers to import partial show data from one show into another.