Author Topic: Setting up nested arches?  (Read 1592 times)

Offline battle79

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Setting up nested arches?
« on: May 23, 2017, 05:28:01 AM »
One for the brains trust as mine is lacking,

How would I set up my arches? I have a 4 sets of large, medium, and small arches, with the medium nesting inside the large, and the smaller nesting inside the medium. See attached photo.

The standard arch works fine for the largest arches as the ends of them are close enough to touching. But when I use the arch feature to create the four medium sized ones there doesn't seem to be a setting to specify how big of a gap is between the arches. As such I can't get the arches to line up.

What would you suggest as the best option, thinking I'll have to set each arch up one at a time then group them.
Another question is can I group them multiple time to allow for different effects.
IE:-
Group 1: Large, Med, & Small arch from arch 1
Group 2: Large arch from Arch 1, 2, 3, & 4

Hoping that makes sense to someone,
Rowan
« Last Edit: May 23, 2017, 05:37:13 AM by battle79 »

Offline ozaz

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2017, 06:30:35 AM »
as far as I know, and I'm far from an expert, you can have as many groups as you like, so you could have:

Arches Group - all arches

Arch 1 Group - large, medium, small  arch 1
Arch 2 Group - large, medium, small  arch 2
Arch 3 Group - large, medium, small  arch 3
Arch 4 Group - large, medium, small  arch 4

Arch Large Group - large arches 1,2,3,4
Arch Medium Group - medium arches 1,2,3,4
Arch Small Group - small arches 1,2,3,4

It might be nice for us OCD people if there was some sort of grid you could overlay on the layout picture to help line up props, but the best you can get is by sight and then adjustment in the Size/Location field. As it is, your arches in the pic looks pretty lined up to me. The layout is only an approximation anyway, once your props are out they won't look exactly like your house preview anyway.

When your props are out this year take a photo and then use that for the layout pic background and you can then adjust the props on screen to match.

 IMHO
I know just enough to be dangerous :0

Offline Gilrock

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2017, 08:26:36 AM »
It might be nice for us OCD people if there was some sort of grid you could overlay on the layout picture to help line up props, but the best you can get is by sight and then adjustment in the Size/Location field.

You just need to get OCD about learning the program.  You can select a group of models and use Alignment features to make then line up horizontally, vertically, etc.

Offline battle79

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2017, 12:35:19 AM »
Should qualify that the picture is from <cough> another program and not xLights.

Would other people benefit in a setting to add a gap in between arches?

Should I put in a feature request? Or should I just live with them being individual models?

Regards,
Rowan

Offline jeremy0203

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2017, 05:02:18 AM »
All my arches are individual. Why would you need anything else?

Offline Ebuechner

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2017, 05:16:19 AM »
I think you definitely want to set them up as individual models so you have options with grouping. As Gill said you use the alignment features to get them to act how you want in the group. And on your layout you want to use the X Y coordinates and type in the values to satisfy your OCD.

Offline Phrog30

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2017, 05:39:37 AM »


Should qualify that the picture is from <cough> another program and not xLights.

Would other people benefit in a setting to add a gap in between arches?

Should I put in a feature request? Or should I just live with them being individual models?

Regards,
Rowan

Use arrow keys to move models around. That will be good enough. I have nested arches just like you. The software has all of the features you need to do what you want. So no need for a feature request.

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Offline danj

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Re: Setting up nested arches?
« Reply #7 on: May 24, 2017, 11:19:21 AM »
I have my arches setup as individual arches and as two groups of six; they are staggered on either side of my sidewalk.  I like using the groups sometimes to put chase effects across the arches like single strand--I frequently will run one left to right with the other running right to left.  I like that look....  I used to have an "all arches" group, but I never used it so I deleted that one...