Expose Parameters as percentage
Understand the different ways of exposing parameters
This feature allows to easily bind parameters together and give them any king of behavior into a 0-100% range parameter. This parameter can then be easily learned into a midi controller or any kind of controllers.
Imagine that you have an unbounded parameter, like the resolution of a generated mesh. You can expose that parameter to the user, but what happens when, using the parameter bank, the user sets that one parameter too high ? The compo starts to seriously lag.
There is a solution to offer you more control over your parameters. You can bound unbounded parameters if you expose them as a percentage parameter. When you right click a parameter, if the right clicked parameter is not a percentage, two versions of the command will be shown to you. The first one forces exposition as percentage parameter, while the second simply exposes the parameter without altering its type. In the following example, we right clicked an Angle:
As-is, the percentage parameter has no effect (except in the case of exposing a percentage as a percentage obviously)
If you try to change it, nothing will happen to the target parameter. Exposition as percentage uses an internal
Function
to remap the values from the percentage to the target type. You can see that Function
Link Modifier
in the
Element Tree
by expanding the target of the parameter.
By selecting the percentage parameter in the
Element Tree
, the function inside will be selected in the Functions editor (in the center-bottom of the main window).
Inside the
Function Editor
you can then animate every parameters connected to your exposed Parameter.
Manipulations of the
Function Editor
work the same way than
Timeline
editor at the exception that it is expressed in % instead of time and cannot handle the
Track Block
Lot of other things uses the
Function Editor
in Smode, such as every Layer / Modifier with a Color Gradient or a Curve:
Here are some useful shortcuts:
- J / K : Previous / next key
- Ctrl + Click : Create Key
- Alt + Click : Change keys interpolation
- Ctrl + K : Create a key in current time
- Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V : Copy / paste
- Ctrl+D : Duplicate the block at the end of the selection (beware of superposed keys !!!)
- Ctrl+A : Select all keys
- Shift+Move : Snap keys on the grid or on other keys
- Shift+move on the edge of a multiple keys selection : Scale group of keys
- U : Switch view between Curves / Track
- F : Adapt editor view to selection
Note that if you want to see curves of a multidimensional parameter (like 2d position or 3d orientation) then you’ll have to split the track first inside the fx column (see image above)
You can connect as many parameters as you want inside of a exposed as percentage parameter. To do so :
-
Right clic on any parameter and choose “connect too” like on the image below
-
Drag and Drop any parameter inside the
Function Editor
while editing your percentage exposed parameter
- You can even drag and drop an element directly on the exposed parameter :
