Animation packs

A pack is a themed set of ready-made looks, many with their movement already set up so they pulse with the beat or swell with the bass, plus video clips. prism comes with ten packs of ten looks. You can save your own looks into packs, and pass them on as files.

1What's in a pack

• Looks. One to four layers, each a look with its settings, speed and blend, plus the automation that moves them: the LFOs and the music reactions. Put a pack look on a surface and it arrives moving, exactly as it was made.
• Clips. A video from your media library with how it plays: its speed, loop, fit and blend.
• Overlays. Some items are made to sit on top of what a surface already shows (rain, reveals, goo, cracks, clips on black). They say Goes on top and go on as a new layer instead of replacing one.

2Open the packs

1. Select a surface and open the library from its look (see Open the library).
2. At the top of the library, click Packs, between Library and Create with AI.
3. Click a pack's card to open it. All packs takes you back.

3The built-in packs

4Put a pack look on a surface

1. Open a pack and click a look (or press Enter on it). It replaces the look of the layer you opened the library from, and keeps that layer's place, blend and opacity.
2. Its automation comes with it: a look that pulses on the beat goes on pulsing. (The music looks need a sound source; see Sound and tempo.)
3. An overlay goes on top as a new layer instead: its button says Add on top of Wall.
4. The look panel opens so you can adjust it. One Ctrl+Z takes the whole thing off again, layers and automation.

Press Space on a pack look (or click its ⋯) for its details: what it does, Reacts to beat, Reacts to sound, how many layers it has, Goes on top, and the buttons to put it on, + (Add it as a new layer on top instead) and Whole scene: across every surface.

5Several surfaces: the same or varied

Select several surfaces before you open the packs, and a switch appears under the search box: Same on all or With variation. The library's title then says For the 4 selected surfaces.

6Save your own looks

1. Make a look you like on a surface: its layers, settings and any automation.
2. Right-click the surface (on the canvas or its row) ▸ Save look to pack ▸ New pack…, or one of your packs listed under Your packs.
3. With New pack…, prism makes a pack called My looks and opens it in the library with its name ready to type: type a name and press Enter.

• From a surface's menu the whole surface is saved (all its layers); from a layer's menu, just that layer. A single video layer is saved as a clip.
• The item keeps the looks, their settings and speed, the blends and opacity, and the automation that moves them. Your own and AI-made materials go inside the pack, so it works on another computer.
• It is named after the shared look (Aurora) or its materials (Plasma + Sparkle).
• Inside one of your packs you can also use Add the look of Wall (the selected surface) and Add a video from the library….

7Organise your packs

Pack changes can't be undone with Ctrl+Z. They change your library, not the project, so deleting asks first. Surfaces already showing a deleted look keep it. Built-in packs and My animations offer Open, Export pack… and Copy to my packs.

8Export and import

1. Export: open the pack's menu ▸ Export pack…. prism saves Pack name.pmpack. A pack with pictures or clips carries them inside the file.
2. Import: click the Import card or the Import a pack (.pmpack) button, or drop .pmpack files onto the Packs view (or the library).

• An imported pack is added next to yours; it never replaces one. If the name is taken it becomes Name (2).
• Pictures and clips inside it go into your media library (one you already have is reused).
• Built-in packs can be exported too, for example to hand a friend the exact looks you used.

9My animations

My animations fills itself: every AI animation you kept and every AI video clip, newest first. Nothing is stored twice: delete one in the library and it goes from here too. You can open, export and copy it like any pack, but not rename or delete it.

• A clip put back on the surface it was made for lines up with the real object again.
• On another surface it fits as usual; the details offer Adapt to Wall…, which puts it on and opens Create with AI to remake it for that shape.

10Hints and tips

• The fastest show. Select every surface, open a pack, choose With variation and click a look: in two seconds the room moves.
• Reveals on cue. The reveals play by themselves; to play one exactly once when a cue fires, set its Auto-play to once and turn on Restart on cue in the look panel.
• Keep your favourites. Save the looks you like into a pack: they are then there in every project.
• Back them up. Packs live in this browser: clearing its site data removes them. Export the ones you care about.
• Hand over a show's looks. Export a pack and send the file; the other person imports it and gets the looks with their automation.

11When something looks wrong

12Mouse and keyboard

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