Groups is a new and different way to control your laser shows live, using a mix of our
older ProTracks and a widely understood lighting design style, we have created a really powerful
tool which will make many of your live control dreams come true.
Groups work by removing the idea of cue destinations, and separates the content, from where it will
output.
It also allows you to quickly change your workspace to a new zone setup making setup
quicker and more reliable on site.
In this video we will show you 3 different ways to use groups, and the basics of the
actual elements of using groups selections.
Plus my favorite way to setup and use groups.
You can enable groups by selecting groups on the top bar, this enables the group features
you have set in your workspace.
Your previously set group designs will be maintained in your workspace file, so be sure
to always save your workspace file after you have modified your groups.
Here you can decide a few options about an automatic grouping BEYOND can do for you.
This is an easy tool when you first start out, but you will quickly outgrow as we will
show soon.
Align vertically, horizontally, and decide how many rows or columns per group.
In our first example, we will use the default vertical columns, and do one zone per group.
Let’s take a quick look at our zones for this example show, we have 8 total projectors,
and zones.
4 lower, two on each side, and 4 in the middle, a bit higher then the sides.
And they are named accordingly.
In our first example, we have assigned columns, and we have made all content on each column
the same.
We will then right click on groups, and go to default group destination.
Here we will assign each group to have only one zone left to right, this means each column
will be for each zone.
Now when we play back cues from each column it will display that content only onto that
group, which we have set to be each zone.
And you can create looks just by selecting different content for each zone like so.
In our second example, we refine this and create 3 main groups of lasers instead of
one group for each zone.
So in our default settings here, we will set group 1 to be the left zones;
group 2 to be our center zones; and our 3rd group to be the right zones.
Now when we select content from these groups we will select for those zones.
This is super useful if you generally use 3 channels of control, and just want to choose
where those channels will go after you set your zones up.
This is consistent, easy, and flexible.
Let’s move on to our 3rd example.
In this setup we are using only two groups, and we are using a special cue type called
“destination cues” To make the groups custom like this, you can click on your upper
right, and then your lower left cue while holding shift to select a block of cues, right
click, and assign the group number here.
Before we look at the destination cue type, let’s go look at our default group destinations,
on group 9, and group 10, we have all zones assigned.
This will allow us to pick from those lists later.
Now in my grid, I have assigned these 4 columns to be group 9, and these 4 columns to be group 10.
This will act as two channels of control for you to select and run.
Now at the bottom we have these destination cues.
Let’s make one.
Right click on an empty cell within the group you are working with, and click “new destination”.
This window, which is similar to our zone selection type effects, will list all of your
zones, and allow you to select them to make a group.
You can also add steps to this if you want to create zone chases, but for now we will
just make 1 step and select a set of projectors, lets do an evens group.
After that we can press ok and it will create the group.
Remember how we made group 9 be all 8 of our zones?
Well if we select any of these cues without selecting one of these group cues, it will
output that to all of those zones like so.
But, using these destination cues, we can reroute that content to those zone selections
like so.
This allows you to determine where content will go, on the fly, based on your groups
you created before.
From there we can go to our right side, which is our channel two, or our group 10 area,
to create a full look.
Just select which groups of zones you want to output to, and select two pieces of content
from each list.
This will be very familiar to those using lighting consoles, or are use to the classic
ProTracks style of control.
And as you can imagine, you can scale this up and have up to 10 channels of control.
In our last example, this is how I like to set up for my shows, sometimes using 3 channels
of control, but for this setup I will stick with two channels of control,
so I have groups 9 and 10 on either side, filled with content, that is the same on each side,
I would fill multiple pages up with content in my workspace and then I would make a last page, for my
zone selections and FX.
I then would use the 2nd workspace tab to display my destination selections, and my
effects, while viewing content on the upper workspace.
This gives me the most room for my selections, and I can change my content pages quickly
without loosing my place for destinations.
As well, I have my FX using the “multi effect” cue type listed here as well for effects I
may want to use.
These are covered in a separate video.
This setup allows for a workflow that is easy for me to pick a destination, a cue, and FX,
while doing so for two separate output channels at once allowing for some really diverse live
control, which makes much more sense for large projector count shows.
Thanks for watching our quick hints video on Groups in BEYOND, if you still need support,
you can contact our support line by emailing support@pangolin.com.