Before you sequence, knowing about and creating some submodels goes hand-in-hand with groups – here’s how they work!

What is a Submodel?

Groups and submodels are the perfect mesh of features that help you make your show amazing. Once your groups are created you may choose to create submodels within. So what exactly is a submodel?

A submodel is when you take any of your model items within the pre-created groups in your show, break them up, and put individual parts or different segments into separate groups. Creating submodels allows you to control different aspects of your show in a much more timely and organized fashion.

To Make a Submodel

Creating a submodel is rather straight forward. You simply go into “submodels” in the tab that appears below within your selected group, click to edit, select the ellipsis (the three dots (…)), and you will now see the ability to set up submodels. These are basically their own models within the group model you have already created.

Adding Submodels

The first thing you will do is name your submodel so that you can easily access it once complete. Once named you will then select your individual lights in the section that says “node ranges”.

Node ranges allow you to define which lights you are working with. Take time to carefully select whichever lights you are wanting to separate from the others, and create!

Your submodels will show up listed underneath the main model that you created them from and are then ready to use.

Working with Submodels

The submodels will appear in yellow so that they are easy to locate. You can then select them at will to add them to a group. The way that this done is to go into a pre-created group and at the bottom of the screen you will see any created submodels. The list will show you only the things that are not already in the group to help you avoid duplication mistakes. You simply choose which ones you want to add and add them into your group. Once added you are ready to go!

Closing

Submodels and groups work together to allow you to do a wide range of things within your show. The real power in using submodels is that when you download a model, perhaps a really complex model, you will see that built into the downloaded model are a plethora of different submodels. You can choose to use any of these in your sequences, including any sequences that you may have purchased.

You will be able to find these yourself for models that you create such as matrices and windows and the like. You may choose to create submodels for these but you when it comes to the things you download, take note of anything that is high density or that has a lot of different options because there will be submodels very likely already created or your sequence vendor will actually have already created their own submodels which can be downloaded and used as well.