Graphics

I was wondering if it were possible to take an XPression scene, and essentially run it as a texture on a quad in a different scene? Why would I want to do that, you ask? Well, we have a request for a transitional device in a very stat/datalink heavy scene. The requested transition would necessitate employing many masks which would at times bisect some areas of stat text. This would mean making duplicates and tying their values into the original via VL, but that process is really unwieldy in a scene with so many stats, and so many ways in which said stats can be displayed. It seems that if I could take that functioning, working scene, and essentially project it into another, the splits would then just be texture-based, and not directly impact the text text objects in the nested scene.

I seriously doubt its possible, but if you're gonna dream, dream big, I say!

Use RenderView to texture a quad with a scene...
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Intriguing... Where can I learn more about this? The Help doc comes up empty when I search for it.
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Documentation is scarce. I've had some experience with this, so I'll share what I learned. This is back in 6.7 days, not 7.x, so YMMV, and if there's anything new I'll let the developers share with us.

Trying to upload a simple example, but I'm getting an "Invalid File" error from the website, so here's a link. I hope it works.

Essentially, you create the scene you want a texture from (call it "source"), and then create a material to use in the "destination" scene that uses a "RenderView" shader. It's one of the options when you add a new shader. Then you pick the scene you want the renderview of ("source").

Things will get tricky if you're expecting to have a live scene - for example, something you are playing out on fb 2, because if you put that online with the sequencer, it will be a COPY of the scene. So if you need datalinqs and stuff filled in, stuff that happens through events or datalinq key changes, it may not work as expected.

One solution is to, instead of selecting a specific scene, to select "," which gives you a live view of the current scene, so you are guaranteed to be live and updating since it's the same scene that is online. It also makes it work if you have some tricky animations or something in the scene that need to be triggered at certain times.

The idea is to create a new camera and place it off to side, or somewhere way out of the way, and build your "source" "scene" to be viewable by that camera. Then everything is in the same scene, but essentially doing what you want. I use a variant of this to make reflections for my augmented reality scenes.

One caveat - your renderview will be a frame behind.

EDIT: This version of the scene includes a single scene example.
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That's very interesting, even with its pitfalls and limitations. I need to carve out some time to do some tests. Thank you.

I am often flummoxed by the GIANT gaps in documentation for XPression features. I've had equal difficulty in finding documentation on Transition Logic, apart from that one video on XPression U, which is a good start toward understanding the basics in broad strokes, but is certainly no substitute for complete and thorough documentation. This software is capable of doing some cool things, but too much of it is inaccessible owing to the incomplete user manual.
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WillieFrazier, hello. Maybe You will be enough if create material with "RenderView" and this material add to quad and put "RenderView" material to need SceneDirector? This quick and simple.
What about Transition Logic. I crated scene L3 and this scene have 13 rules. I wanted to adding more rules, but I broken my mind when created this. Very small manual and bugs in TL. But I was able to do it, though not all what I wanted. But this very interesting and I waiting manual for Major-designer )
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Willie, Render View can be a very powerful tool to simply "get things done". For example I have a full screen with sponsor logo and a text field that is tied to a spreadsheet that changes with each day. I built a scene with the logo and text field, tied the text field to datalinq and called it "Toyota_Name". Then I made a new material and render view of the "Toyota_Name" scene. All of my full screens animate on so by using transition logic I can dissolve between scenes. If I had built the Toyota Name scene it would have been a different scene name and Transition Logic would not have worked. It's a great way to work. Good Luck
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Does anyone have any suggestion to get this working with text fields? I'm using xpression v 5.7 - looking for some kind of workaround to get text fields updating correctly - thanks!
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@fmj71 Let's take a lower third name super with two lines. If you build the lower third and have each line tied to different fields in a spreadsheet via datalinq then half the work is done. This scene then becomes a RenderView source for use as a new material. In a new comp you would create a quad and when it comes time to build a material to map to this quad you would select "RenderView" when setting the material source. Then you would find the scene where the names are and select this scene as your material source. Apply this new "material" to the quad in your new scene and everything that is happening in the scene where you have text fields is mapped to this quad in the new scene. Hope this makes sense.
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@fmj71 At first I had a slight problem with text fields updating on the final scene. I don't know if they can "live update" as my scenes work differently. Good Luck
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