Beyond General questions -
Why no link on the Pangolin website to take you to the "Beyond" pages directly?
We're in the process of re-doing our web site, and in fact even completely moving servers. So once this whole process is done (and it's a very big job), then you will be able to find a link to the BEYOND information from the main Pangolin site. In the mean time, anybody interested can find the BEYOND information at
www.pangolinbeyond.com
-What is "Physics" button?
It enables a physics engine which can smooth out the motion of certain user controls -- for example the position control in the Live Controls section.
-Somewhere I found an "Effects Based On Time" menu - list of channels 1-255, what is this?
Channels is a really cool concept originally found in LAStudio. Channels provides a kind of "pathway" for values to be routed to different parts of the program. For example, if you right-click and say "Create Abstraction", within the Abstraction editor, you will find that you can assign channels to slider values. So you can think of this as an "input".
Channels can then receive data from a variety of places -- for example, DMX or MIDI or other places. Even the user interface of BEYOND exposes some of the Channel sliders.
So, in this example, you can use Channels to externally influence an abstract, even after it's been created, and influence them in real time. Channels can do a lot of things, including controlling effects.
Advanced Multi Laser Control - looks like you can use this to pan one effect across an array of projectors - ? am I right?
Hehe. Yes and no... Yes, in the version you have, but not in future versions. That was an experimental concept, which has been replaced by something far better in the latest version. The latest version offers the ability to "group" projectors and then apply effects to the entire group, including a time shift and other things.
For now, the main thing you should observe about the Advanced Multi-laser Control Window is that you can arrange projectors and projected areas (i.e. screens or audience locations) just as they exist in real life, and then select those projectors and areas before sending cues to them. This is a newer way of doing what is done using zones in LivePRO.
The Dynamics tab can be found in QuickShow too. It controls the dynamic aspects of live control. For example, when you press "multi cue", exactly how many cues will the UI allow you to select? Well, that's controlled on the Dynamics tab.
The Dynamics tab also controls the rate at which things morph (i.e. when the "Transition" button is pressed on the main window) and also exactly what kind of transition is chosen.
Best regards,
William Benner
