Layer text on a matrix over a whole-house effect

[deonb]

Let's say I have a whole-house effect (e.g. Snowfall).
I want to have that snow also fall at the back of my "Tune to <blah>" sign.

How can I accomplish this?


If I just add another snow-fall effect as a layer into the "Tune to" sign itself, then it's not position-ally accurate with the rest of the house's snowfall.

[Boof63]

its all in the render order, your matrix needs to be higher than your whm selection, go into edit display selection (right click on a timing track or model name )on the sequencer page  and re-order your timing models so that the matrix is above the WHM and then the matrix will have its effect override the WHM.
CHeers Boof63

[deonb]

its all in the render order, your matrix needs to be higher than your whm selection, go into edit display selection (right click on a timing track or model name )on the sequencer page  and re-order your timing models so that the matrix is above the WHM and then the matrix will have its effect override the WHM.
CHeers Boof63

If I do that, I just see the snowflakes. If I put the matrix at the bottom, I just see the text.

[keithsw1111]

That's right models don't combine. Only layers within a model.

[pixelpuppy]

I haven't tried, but is this a case where setting Render Mode to "Canvas" would help accomplish this?  Possibly use the default mode first to render the whole house, then add the text and re-render in canvas mode?

"Render Mode
If the Render Mode is set to Erase (which is the default value), then the fseq file is erased before every render. If set to Canvas Mode, then the data in the fseq is not cleared before a render, rendering is done over the old data."

I don't know if that's a solution, I'm just throwing out ideas.  It is an interesting scenario that I've wanted a few times too but I just accepted the "non-positionally accurate" snowfall on the matrix" for now.

[deonb]

Ok, I just took the utility I wrote that turns off partially dead pixels, and modified it that you can merge one fseq file with another to give an overlay.

It will overlay anything with a > 0 value.


If anybody is interested, binary and source on:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y40moacu4rlpd4d/AAB7EPymqCD5y6Xep1h_LjkOa?dl=0

Just drop fseqfix.exe and fseqfix.json into the same folder as the fseq's, modify fseqfix.json as needed and run fseqfix.exe before uploading to FPP.

E.g.
[{
    "files": [
        "All I want for Christmas.fseq",
        "Kiss Me Babe.fseq"
    ],
    "merge": [
        "TuneTo.fseq"
    ],
    "rules": {
    }
}]


Make backups! This modifies your fseq files in place.

[Gilrock]

Yes its true that effects don't "blend" between models but we are only talking about transparency blending there.  While we don't try to blend the Text effect we also should not be writing black to everything surrounding the text so whatever was already rendered from a model group should still be visible.

Do this test:  Drop a butterfly on a whole house model group.  Then drop Text on a model within the group.  Assuming you have the model group rendering before the model with the Text you should still see the Butterfly effect on the model with Text overlayed on top of it.

[deonb]

Yes its true that effects don't "blend" between models but we are only talking about transparency blending there.  While we don't try to blend the Text effect we also should not be writing black to everything surrounding the text so whatever was already rendered from a model group should still be visible.

Do this test:  Drop a butterfly on a whole house model group.  Then drop Text on a model within the group.  Assuming you have the model group rendering before the model with the Text you should still see the Butterfly effect on the model with Text overlayed on top of it.

My text definitely writes black to the surrounding area of the model - it doesn't do a transparency blend.

[Gilrock]

Yep I was wrong.  I thought our effects only wrote to the pixels that got color I didn't realize we had it clearing out the entire buffer to zero (black) before starting to render on a model.