Organizing Scenes - Folders? And live performance ideas

[beastraeatsall]

Hi! I'm a new Magic user and I love it. I'm running into something though that I think could use improvement. After reading through the manual and looking at the example projects I've gotten the hang of using scenes in other scenes, as well as scene inputs for global effects. I've been using Magic to create an AV show to accompany a live band performance, so I've also been using scenes to create, well, different scenes of what will actually be shown during different sections of the songs.

I like the scene concept, but it can be a bit messy navigating the scenes because of their dual purposes. I would suggest maybe "folders" for organizing scenes. For example, I have scenes labeled "verse", "chorus", and so on, which correspond to the different sections, but then I also have a utility scenes, like "FX" or scenes that just have a video file so I avoid having two instances of it in the same project. It would be great to have folders to keep my utility scenes separate from my song section scenes. Otherwise I end up with 25 to 30 scenes per project and that means a lot of scrolling with the little bar on top.

Another related idea – would it be possible to make some kind of "quickload" feature in Magic to quickly load different projects? Like I said, I would like to use Magic for live band performances. A set consists of multiple songs. I'm already using scenes in projects for the different sections of each song, so every song has its own project file. This means I would have to quickly close and open files between songs. I realize one workaround would be to create one gigantic file with the whole set, but that would mean literally hundreds of scenes and might be too taxing on the program or my computer (or would that be feasible?). What about some kind of quickload feature, like a window where you could quickly launch or open a customizable list of projects? Would that be doable?

While I'm at it, what about a live performance mode - the default view is geared towards editing where you can see all the modules, but maybe there could be another "mode" or "view" for live performance, where the workspace was minimized and all you saw would be the tabs at the top so you knew what scene was active, then you'd have more uncluttered window space for the playlist (and the quickload window ).

Just some ideas! I'm really enjoying Magic so far. I find it really useful and powerful, and any improvements would just be icing on the cake.

[Magic]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments . Some of your ideas have been on my to-do list and I just haven't gotten around to implementing them yet. But they are all good ones.

I realize one workaround would be to create one gigantic file with the whole set, but that would mean literally hundreds of scenes and might be too taxing on the program or my computer (or would that be feasible?).

Magic doesn't actually use a lot of normal system memory (RAM), and it doesn't use the CPU too heavily either. The GPU speed is more important, but the real constraint is the GPU's memory (VRAM). Coincidentally, in one of the next versions of Magic (1.65 I think), I'm planning to add an option to *not* load all the scenes into VRAM together (which is what currently happens). You will be able to have only one scene loaded into VRAM at a time (or perhaps a customizable group of scenes). There will be a slight performance hit -- the frame rate will drop a tiny bit as graphics resources are loaded/unloaded during scene changes -- but it won't be overly noticeable. Assuming I implement a better way to organize scenes as you suggested earlier, it should be feasible to have hundreds of them in one project.

So, question: with a better way to organize scenes and an option to not load them all into VRAM, would you still want a "quickload" window? Or would the problem be solved?

While I'm at it, what about a live performance mode - the default view is geared towards editing where you can see all the modules, but maybe there could be another "mode" or "view" for live performance, where the workspace was minimized and all you saw would be the tabs at the top so you knew what scene was active, then you'd have more uncluttered window space for the playlist (and the quickload window ).

Interesting idea. I think a quick and simple way to achieve this would be to have an option for minimizing the Editor window *without* minimizing the Playlist window. Currently, when you minimize the Editor, it minimizes all the other windows, but maybe that's not the best behavior. Would having the Playlist by itself be sufficient for telling you what scene is active? The current scene has its button highlighted in cyan in the Playlist window.

[beastraeatsall]

Magic doesn't actually use a lot of normal system memory (RAM), and it doesn't use the CPU too heavily either. The GPU speed is more important, but the real constraint is the GPU's memory (VRAM). Coincidentally, in one of the next versions of Magic (1.65 I think), I'm planning to add an option to *not* load all the scenes into VRAM together (which is what currently happens). You will be able to have only one scene loaded into VRAM at a time (or perhaps a customizable group of scenes). There will be a slight performance hit -- the frame rate will drop a tiny bit as graphics resources are loaded/unloaded during scene changes -- but it won't be overly noticeable. Assuming I implement a better way to organize scenes as you suggested earlier, it should be feasible to have hundreds of them in one project.

So, question: with a better way to organize scenes and an option to not load them all into VRAM, would you still want a "quickload" window? Or would the problem be solved?

This sounds nice! One problem I've had with closing and opening files during a gig is with the Magic window resetting. Sometimes it takes a moment for me to get the Magic window back onto the project. Your solution sounds good! Especially it it were combined with better scene organization - folders, subfolders, maybe a separate closable window where you could only see/manipulate/organize scenes and their hierarchy.

Even with this solution, I think the key would be scene organization, so the abilities to have folders and subfolders. That way you could have a project -> setlist ->song -> song sections/utility, media, & effect scenes. And maybe a way to quickly navigate many hundreds of scenes.

Interesting idea. I think a quick and simple way to achieve this would be to have an option for minimizing the Editor window *without* minimizing the Playlist window. Currently, when you minimize the Editor, it minimizes all the other windows, but maybe that's not the best behavior. Would having the Playlist by itself be sufficient for telling you what scene is active? The current scene has its button highlighted in cyan in the Playlist window.

Yes, definitely! Being able to see the playlist window and maybe the audio/midi window WITHOUT the editor window would definitely solve this.

Another suggestion that I have related to windows – right now if you close a project (I'm using a Mac) Magic shuts down. I wish that Magic would stay open so I could close a project then reopen another one.

Thanks for your response!

[Magic]

Another suggestion that I have related to windows – right now if you close a project (I'm using a Mac) Magic shuts down. I wish that Magic would stay open so I could close a project then reopen another one.

Sure. The only reason I did it that way is to have the same behavior on Mac and PC. But I guess it makes more sense to do it the Mac way on Mac .