Block Tool tips
Moderator:PywareTechSupport
The block tool is not the easiest tool to use at first glance. We are planning on creating a new block tool in a future version that will be easier to create squares and triangles. When using the block tool it is recommended that you do not set the number of people in the block but set the horizontal and vertical intervals. This will allow the block to be created with more ease. Once you have accepted the Block it may seem that the block is not lined up properly with the grid. If this is the case select the block and go to the Edit menu and choose Snap to. Then snap to the nearest step size that applies to your block. This will firm the block up and align it to the grid.
Re: Block Tool tips
Hi All,
I am a long-time user of DrillQuest (actually, from it's inception). I've evaluated versions of Pyware over the years, and I've always found some show-stoppers that prevented me from moving over to Pyware. With the 4.X updates to Pyware, I see that some key functionalities in DrillQuest are now available in Pyware. I've tried out the demo version of v4.2.12 and I'm almost ready to make the plunge.
I still see that Pyware still has room for optimizing the user-interface and allowing users to do simple, common tasks faster than is currently possible. I'll be providing some suggestions on this forum and/or to the Pyware folks, not to start a Drillquest vs. Pyware war (especially since Drillquest has been dead for several years
) , but rather to hopefully help Pyware be the best that it can be.
I'm posting my first post here, under the Block Tool tips post, because I'm struggling with this tool specifically in the area of matching players. First, the auto/default matching is not of much value - I don't see how the program could ever correctly guess the desired matching. Second, I find that matching players one-by-one to be time-consuming, error-prone, difficult, and in-flexible. Actually, the inflexibility that I see is more in the process of matching players - specifically, as far as I can tell, I don't see a way to adjust player matchings after the initial drawing of a form, and the associated matching process. I find the ability to change player matchings at any point in time a KEY feature. It's especially important to be able to experiment with having different players go to different positions within a block form, as it's hard to know the best way to design the transition (i.e. what looks best, what avoids collisions) on the first attempt at matching players.
So, here's what I do in DrillQuest:
- Draw a block form
- Go the previous page and select the players/forms in the order that I'll be matching them to the block form
- Go to the page with the block from & select the players in the same order (NOTE: I don’t have to do this all at once, and I can do this section by section)
- Match the players from the previous page to the block form
- View the paths and the animation to see what it looks like
- If there are some players that I want to swap, select those players, and match them to different locations in the block. Repeat this process until I'm happy with how the transition looks.
I will adjust matchings even after I’ve written an entire songs-worth of drill, for both the transitions into, as well as the transitions out of a block form.
Can anyone tell me if there’s a way to adjust some of the player matchings from form to form AFTER the initial drawing/matching process has been done? I don’t see anything in the users guide. This may be my last barrier to moving over to Pyware.
Thanks in advance.
-Bill Jindrich
I am a long-time user of DrillQuest (actually, from it's inception). I've evaluated versions of Pyware over the years, and I've always found some show-stoppers that prevented me from moving over to Pyware. With the 4.X updates to Pyware, I see that some key functionalities in DrillQuest are now available in Pyware. I've tried out the demo version of v4.2.12 and I'm almost ready to make the plunge.
I still see that Pyware still has room for optimizing the user-interface and allowing users to do simple, common tasks faster than is currently possible. I'll be providing some suggestions on this forum and/or to the Pyware folks, not to start a Drillquest vs. Pyware war (especially since Drillquest has been dead for several years
) , but rather to hopefully help Pyware be the best that it can be.I'm posting my first post here, under the Block Tool tips post, because I'm struggling with this tool specifically in the area of matching players. First, the auto/default matching is not of much value - I don't see how the program could ever correctly guess the desired matching. Second, I find that matching players one-by-one to be time-consuming, error-prone, difficult, and in-flexible. Actually, the inflexibility that I see is more in the process of matching players - specifically, as far as I can tell, I don't see a way to adjust player matchings after the initial drawing of a form, and the associated matching process. I find the ability to change player matchings at any point in time a KEY feature. It's especially important to be able to experiment with having different players go to different positions within a block form, as it's hard to know the best way to design the transition (i.e. what looks best, what avoids collisions) on the first attempt at matching players.
So, here's what I do in DrillQuest:
- Draw a block form
- Go the previous page and select the players/forms in the order that I'll be matching them to the block form
- Go to the page with the block from & select the players in the same order (NOTE: I don’t have to do this all at once, and I can do this section by section)
- Match the players from the previous page to the block form
- View the paths and the animation to see what it looks like
- If there are some players that I want to swap, select those players, and match them to different locations in the block. Repeat this process until I'm happy with how the transition looks.
I will adjust matchings even after I’ve written an entire songs-worth of drill, for both the transitions into, as well as the transitions out of a block form.
Can anyone tell me if there’s a way to adjust some of the player matchings from form to form AFTER the initial drawing/matching process has been done? I don’t see anything in the users guide. This may be my last barrier to moving over to Pyware.
Thanks in advance.
-Bill Jindrich
Re: Block Tool tips
Bill
Once you have selected the performers and drawn your block the software attempt to match the performers according to the order entered. For most block formations this is not adequate so you would press the clear button on the matching options dialog. At this point you may click on each position to match it to where you want it to go. At any point in time while you are in the Block tool control you may click and drag an already matched position to another location in the block and it will swap the 2 positions pathways. This functionality is available in all drawing tools where you can custom match performers.
As for readjusting the matching lines after you have accepted the form you have 2 different options. You can do a copy and paste of the form and then choose to paste with a different matching order at that point you are back to the custom matching screen. You may also use the adjuster tool to click and drag the performers to any location that you choose. These 2 options will work for any forms that you create in the 3D software.
Please let me know if you need further explaination of anything.
Dustin
Pyware Technical Support
Once you have selected the performers and drawn your block the software attempt to match the performers according to the order entered. For most block formations this is not adequate so you would press the clear button on the matching options dialog. At this point you may click on each position to match it to where you want it to go. At any point in time while you are in the Block tool control you may click and drag an already matched position to another location in the block and it will swap the 2 positions pathways. This functionality is available in all drawing tools where you can custom match performers.
As for readjusting the matching lines after you have accepted the form you have 2 different options. You can do a copy and paste of the form and then choose to paste with a different matching order at that point you are back to the custom matching screen. You may also use the adjuster tool to click and drag the performers to any location that you choose. These 2 options will work for any forms that you create in the 3D software.
Please let me know if you need further explaination of anything.
Dustin
Pyware Technical Support
Re: Block Tool tips
Thanks Dustin. The copy/paste option seems to work OK when you just need to tweak a few players (but see below for an issue I'm seeing with labels & symbols getting out of sync).pygraph wrote:Bill
Once you have selected the performers and drawn your block the software attempt to match the performers according to the order entered. For most block formations this is not adequate so you would press the clear button on the matching options dialog. At this point you may click on each position to match it to where you want it to go. At any point in time while you are in the Block tool control you may click and drag an already matched position to another location in the block and it will swap the 2 positions pathways. This functionality is available in all drawing tools where you can custom match performers.
As for readjusting the matching lines after you have accepted the form you have 2 different options. You can do a copy and paste of the form and then choose to paste with a different matching order at that point you are back to the custom matching screen. You may also use the adjuster tool to click and drag the performers to any location that you choose. These 2 options will work for any forms that you create in the 3D software.
Please let me know if you need further explaination of anything.
Dustin
Pyware Technical Support
I'm not sure I follow how the adjuster tool can be used. My scenario is coming back to a set of transitions which include a move into a block form and then out of the block form. How can the adjuster be used to swap a few spots going into or out of the block?
A question on using the copy/paste approach to swapping positions on a transtion: is there a way to display labels and/or symbols (of both the previous form and the current form) during the matching process?
A question on swaping spots using the copy/paste approach: when I did this, my labels/symbols/colors are now out of sync - by this, I mean that the labels/symbols/colors seem be OK up through the block form (I used copy/paste to swap some positions going into the block form. But on the 1st count moving out of the block, the labels/symbols/colors suddenly change (the form movement is correct, it's just the labels/symbols/colors that suddenly change) - is there a way to go back to a form and say "use these symbols throughout the drill, correcting the symbols along the way"? I've tried the copy/paste option several times, and the symbol/label seems to get out of sync each time.
Lastly (for now), when viewing a start and end postion for a drill, is there a way to see the paths displayed on the screen?
Re: Block Tool tips
Bill
After modifying existing drill you will need to refloat the transition after the set you modified. To do this select the set directly after the block set you changed, then select all of the performers you changed. Select the morph tool and press accept. This will refloat the positions to the new locations and create the pathways from their new locations to the next set.
If this is not what you are looking for and you want to swap two positions for the remainder of the drill then you will need to use the swap two positions option in the edit menu. This will allow you to swap two performers from any point of the drill to the beginning or the end.
As for seeing pathways you will need spread your anchors over a range of counts then select the performers you want to view the pathways of and click on the adjuster tool and enable the show pathways option. This will then display the entire pathway for the performers you have selected over the range of counts you have selected.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
-Dustin
After modifying existing drill you will need to refloat the transition after the set you modified. To do this select the set directly after the block set you changed, then select all of the performers you changed. Select the morph tool and press accept. This will refloat the positions to the new locations and create the pathways from their new locations to the next set.
If this is not what you are looking for and you want to swap two positions for the remainder of the drill then you will need to use the swap two positions option in the edit menu. This will allow you to swap two performers from any point of the drill to the beginning or the end.
As for seeing pathways you will need spread your anchors over a range of counts then select the performers you want to view the pathways of and click on the adjuster tool and enable the show pathways option. This will then display the entire pathway for the performers you have selected over the range of counts you have selected.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
-Dustin
Re: Block Tool tips
- Maybe I did this wrong, but when I did the "refloat", the players got matched up all wrong. Where should I put the yellow & red markers?pygraph wrote:Bill
After modifying existing drill you will need to refloat the transition after the set you modified. To do this select the set directly after the block set you changed, then select all of the performers you changed. Select the morph tool and press accept. This will refloat the positions to the new locations and create the pathways from their new locations to the next set.
If this is not what you are looking for and you want to swap two positions for the remainder of the drill then you will need to use the swap two positions option in the edit menu. This will allow you to swap two performers from any point of the drill to the beginning or the end.
As for seeing pathways you will need spread your anchors over a range of counts then select the performers you want to view the pathways of and click on the adjuster tool and enable the show pathways option. This will then display the entire pathway for the performers you have selected over the range of counts you have selected.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
-Dustin
- I can't test the swap 2, since the program wants to save the file first, which can't be done with the trial software.