NOT restart video every time the scene changes?

[alt0182]

Good Afternoon,

I'm finally getting around to learning how to use the powerful multi-scene option in MMV, and it's COOL!

I have 3 videos, all correspond to the song I'm building the MMV video for. I'm able to use the scenes to switch back and forth between the videos during the song, no problem. That's a great feature.

So I can switch from dancing front view, to dancing side view, to dancing with flashing lights as the song progresses.

The problem is that every time MMV goes back to the scene I want, it RESTARTS the video in that scene. I want the 3 videos to play from start to finish, and MMV to simply switch between them at the points I designate.

So if you think of someone doing a dance routine from start to finish, but it's videoed from 3 angles, and you want to switch the angles as the routine and the song progress... ...at the moment, I can switch angles via MMV, but each time I do the song continues but the dance routine (the video of the dance routine from that angle) starts from the beginning.

I've tried turning off the "scene start" in each videofile module, and I've tried to synchronize modules (but not sure what that does), these have had no effect on getting the videos to play straight through.

Can you tell me how to get this to work? the only work-around I can think of is to create a new scene for every transition, and try telling the videofile module to "start time" to match with the song. But I think this will (be way too much work - like 100 scenes) make the dance routine very incongruous and no longer tie the routine to the music.

Any suggestions are very much appreciated. If you need me to upload files or other info, just let me know. I'm a big fan of MMV, thanks!

[alt0182]

Quick note, apparently the "start time" in the VideoFile module has nothing to do with the time in the video where you want it to start. It actually appears to have no effect on what is being played. Thus creating 100 scenes and trying to get the video to launch at the desired time doesn't work either.

[blackdot]

afaik if you switch between your movie files using either the input selector or using single scenes for your video files, the "scene start" toggle works like this: if toggeled, the movie files starts from the beginning upon playing it. if not toggled, the movie file playes from the time it was left off. So if you actually use the playlist to switch to a scene that contains a video module which has "scene start" ticked, it will play the video file from scratch upon switching to this scene. same goes for the input selector.

if you want your files to "keep playing" even if they arent actually played/visible, you could try the multimix module.
or you could just play them at the same time (as in plug them all into the magic output module) and control their visibility each with a ColorHSB module and its Brightness&Alpha values and eg. Sliders on your midi controller.

or... even better, just found this out, use buttons on your controller and in magic use their "control number" to activate 1 or deactivate 0 the Brightness and Alpha values. You can do it by using the espression modifier as "if (x = y, 1, 0)", while y being your desired control number. eg. three buttons on my midi controller send their control numbers 32.0, 48.0 and 64.0, so the three ColorHSB modules have each an expression modifier like "if (x = 32.0, 1, 0)" (that's the first one). So if the control number 32.0 get's through to this module, it'll output 1, and if not (when the contolnrs 48 and 64 come through), it'll output 0. That way each module outputs 0, until it's own specific controlnr gets to them. voila, you can switch between the visibility of your video files on the press (and release) of a button.

pic:

Capture.JPG (106.25 KiB) Viewed 6039 times

[Magic]

There are probably many different ways to solve this problem . What @blackdot said is a good solution. You can have all 3 videos playing in the same scene, and make the inactive ones completely transparent. Or, you could Scale them by 0, or Translate them off-screen, etc.

It sounds like you might be running v1.65 though? Unfortunately there is a bug with the Scene Start parameter in that version, which is fixed in v2.0. But, it won't affect the above solution.

However, if you are interesting in upgrading to v2.0, there is a much more elegant solution:

IncreasingStartTime.png (44.56 KiB) Viewed 6018 times

Using the new Global Parameters feature, you can have one global value which constantly increases regardless of switching scenes (the Increase modifier runs like a timer), and you can link to this value from the Start Time parameter in one or more VideoFile modules. Whenever a new scene is switched to, the video(s) will automatically start at the right time. Cool eh?

[artnik]

I've found that a simple way to have a persistent video is to place the video in it's own scene with nothing else, and place this scene in other scenes.

When you switch scenes, the video keeps playing without skipping or stopping, and stays in synch across scene transitions.

[blackdot]

I've found that a simple way to have a persistent video is to place the video in it's own scene with nothing else, and place this scene in other scenes.

When you switch scenes, the video keeps playing without skipping or stopping, and stays in synch across scene transitions.

put the scenes together with what though? input selector?

[artnik]

@blackdot Hmmm... that method is how I've kept scenes with ISF modules in sync, but I realized I might not have actually tested it with Video. My bad. Looks more complicated than I realized.

I did run some tests, and it seems as though the videos do pause with this method, but don't jump back to the start. I did find a kludgy workaround though:

If you include additional references to the scenes containing the movies wired up to the Magic Window, then the additional references keep the videos continuing to play when you switch between them with the InputSelector.

Screen Shot 2016-12-12 at 1.41.37 PM.png (93.12 KiB) Viewed 5991 times

Seems it's more complex than I thought. :-/

[alt0182]

Hey, I wanted to thank everyone for the quick responses and great advice. It's still not where I want it, but I think it's as close as I'll get. I ended up using several multimix modules to bring everything together. I think the ability to use scenes would make for a more interesting/less monotonous video, but I can find no way to make it work without chopping up the video putting the pieces into different scenes.

Now if you can tell me how to post pictures, I'll add the pic of how it's laid out.

Thanks again!

[Magic]

Now if you can tell me how to post pictures, I'll add the pic of how it's laid out.

You can use the "Upload attachment" link which is below the Submit button.