Universal crossfade overview
What is Universal crossfade?
Universal crossfade allows you to smoothly dissolve / fade between any two points in a show.
Up to r11.3, the only way to transition from one point in a track to another, or to another track, was a hard cut. In r12 onwards, you can jump from any point in a track to any other point, or to another track, with a smooth dissolve.
Crossfade duration
Controlling the duration of the dissolve can be done in three ways:
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Globally across the entire project: open the state manager by right clicking the d3 icon on the top left of the gui, navigate to Project Settings and see option Global Crossfade Duration.
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Per-track: right-click on the track title bar, select Special settings, switch Default Crossfade to Fade or TrackSection, and select the transition time you want to use.
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Per section: right-click on the first bar of the section, under the Crossfade tab, select either Fade or TrackSection and configure the parameters accordingly.
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Fade transitions is the mode universal crossfade has always used.
These can be set at either a global level, track level or section level. Each overriding the last in order of precedence.
To access the fade settings:
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Right click a section
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Set the crossfade from Undefined to Fade.
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Set the duration to be whatever time you wish the fade to occur over.
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The first second of each section shows a triangular indentation to indicate that jumping into the section will initiate a dissolve of that duration. The duration is always controlled by the destination section.
The fade is started under two circumstances :
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Jumping to another point on the timeline
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Holding at the end of a section and going forward into the next section
Please note: that playing across a section boundary will not start the dissolve. Only an action that forces the playhead to another location on the timeline will trigger the crossfade.
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When in loop section playmode, the playhead can crossfade to the beginning of the current section x seconds before the end of the section. Where x is the duration of the fade or the length of the specified track section used to render the transition. This helps create a more seamless fade back to the start of a section rather than a hard cut.
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Right click on a section and set the transition to fade.
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Check Loop XFade box.
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The section will now fade back to the beginning using the duration set.
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As of r17.1, you can sequence a transition instead of using universal crossfade which only allows a straight dissolve. Note that sequenced transitions can only be used at the section level currently.
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Individual RGBA components are actually transitioned independently.
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During a transition, all layer types are expected to work except those which deal with transport commands or status. Examples include:
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TransportVolumeLocal
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TransportBrightnessLocal
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TransportControl
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TrackJump
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Readout
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Audio is played back during transitions. This is to allow an audio component to the transition.
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Prefetch is not performed - any 'heavy' video files will likely fail on the first frame. A workaround would be to offset the transition video forward by a frame or two.
Setting up a sequenced transition
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Create a track called “transitions”.
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Create sections within the track that define your transition lengths.
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Within your section, sequence a video file or texture starting black, and ending white. Playmode should be set to “pause at end”.
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Give the section a name by using a note.
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On your main show track, right click a section to define a section based crossfade. This can also be set via Telnet when using the Multi-transport API.
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Choose “Track Section” in place of the crossfade override.
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Choose the transition section to use.