Changing a production's end set

[bjindrich]

If I draft 3 productions and then I go back and make edits to the final set of a production, I know I can press the Update First Set button in the Show Manager to reset the first page of the following production, but how does that work exactly if I've written drill for that production? Will I then need to swap performers for the drill at the beginning of the following production to make sense?

[William]

I suppose it depends on how the set was changed. Its basically the same as editing the first set of the third production directly. If the performers that you changed have all new positions that don't jibe with the existing drill in production 3 then using the Swap Performers tool is probably your best bet.

[bjindrich]

Got it. If I swap performers in Production 1 and carry the swaps to the final set, will those swaps carry over to Production 2?

[William]

No, each Production is independent. You can only interact between multiple Productions using the Update Last and Update First buttons in the Show Manager as you already mentioned. Copying and pasting performer positions will also work between productions but that tends to be less useful.

[bjindrich]

Bummer - I tend to evolve all of my productions until I deliver them. If I want to be able to make best use of Swap across all productions, is my only option to create a single MP3 and have just a single production? Any drawbacks with this approach?

[William]

Yes that's your only option at this point. The only major drawback is the potential to screw up a large portion of your show using the switch or revert tools. If you have backup files and are careful about your approach this shouldn't be too big an issue.

Other potential concerns:
- Ending sets and Beginning sets of productions might have to get separate numbers.
- Set numbering would have to be continuous throughout the show. Some designers like to start fresh after each production.
- Files could take slightly longer to load because of the increased data. And this would cause additional data to be stored in memory. However this shouldn't be a substantial increase compared to the data already in memory for the 3D meshes or the mp3 data.

William

[bjindrich]

Yes that's your only option at this point. The only major drawback is the potential to screw up a large portion of your show using the switch or revert tools. If you have backup files and are careful about your approach this shouldn't be too big an issue.

Other potential concerns:
- Ending sets and Beginning sets of productions might have to get separate numbers.
- Set numbering would have to be continuous throughout the show. Some designers like to start fresh after each production.
- Files could take slightly longer to load because of the increased data. And this would cause additional data to be stored in memory. However this shouldn't be a substantial increase compared to the data already in memory for the 3D meshes or the mp3 data.

William

What is the maximum range of # of performers and # of sets in a production that has been tested? I won't have a ton of sets (under 60 in the whole show) but the band is big (170). Would I be at risk of having a single 60-Set production with 170 performers?

[William]

You should be safe with that amount. I just did a quick test on my MacBook Mini with 195 performers and 85 sets and the memory maxed out at around 300MB. So if you have a reasonably modern computer with at least 3 or 4 GB of memory then you will have no problem. Even 2GB would probably be enough but other applications might start to suffer.