I don't use groups much so I opened up
EOL and try this out just to make sure I didn't go telling lies....
Here's the deal. When you
call a group up at a
level you capture the channels in the group and move them to proportion of their recorded
level that corrisponds to the
level you brought the group up to. (Okay, read that three times... sorrry....)
When you
call up the group you capture ONLY the channels in the group - and you capture ALL of the channels in the group even if they were already captured.
So if:
Group 1 = Ch's 1-5 at FL and Ch's 6-10 at 50%.
Group 2 = Ch's 1-5 at 25% and Ch's 6-10 at FL.
Group 3 = Ch's 1-5 @ 75% and Ch's 11-15 @ 35%.
Then, with all at 0% to start....
Group 1@FL brings 1-5 FL, 6-10 @ 50.
Group 2@FL puts 1-5 @ 25, 6-10 FL.
Group 3@FL puts 1-5 @ 75, leaves 6-10 FL, puts 11-15 @35.
The first step, you'd see Group 1 as you saved it.
The second step, you'd see Group 2 as you saved it.
But the third step, you'd see Group 3 and Group 2 muddled together.
Addressing the group makes all the channels in that group active BUT it doesn't
release any active channels that aren't in the group.
Doing a
focus point is, indeed, a way around this, because "00" is a
level in a
focus point where as in a group it's just a "nothing".
Bummer is that you only get 99 focus points on the Expression where as you get 500 groups. So it goes. But with focus points you can selectively use only the channels you care about, so you can put multiple things
in one focus point.
Clear as mud? Okay, like, instead of saying "Group 1 FL" you can say "
Fixture 1 + 4 Only Position at FocusPoint 1". You haven't called up all the attributes that are part of the
point, only the ones you care about. So you could, for example tell your mover to put it's postion at fpoint 1 and it's color at fpoint 2 if you wanted.
Cool thing about fpoints is when you record several cues with a
focus point specified, if you go back and edit the
focus point, you've effectively edited all the cues. So if your director moves a
spike you just
call up any instruments focused on the
spike, adjust them, update the fpoint and wherever you used that
point in the show, they're all fixed.
Okay, gotta' get back to work....