On Feb 5, 2008, at 12:06 AM, James Sheridan wrote:
The mouse distance from the center of the composition (when button
is down) represents the slider change rate - if you set the patch
time element to external you get weird behavior, to local everything
works but I don't see why i need the patch time element
It's fundamental to Quartz Composer that a patch is not executed
unless an input to it changes AND one of its outputs is required by a
downstream patch, but closed loops seem to be a special case. I'm
surprised changing the dummy_var input causes your Macro Patch to
execute. I would have expected it to do nothing because inside it
doesn't go anywhere. It could be useful if the behavior is intentional
and won't change in the future. Someone from Apple will have to weigh
in on that one.
The reason Patch Time makes a difference is that it (usually) changes,
triggering the downstream chain of patches. The reason setting its
Time Base to External doesn't work for you is that you have nothing
connected to the Patch Time INPUT port that appears, therefore the
output doesn't change. External is useful when you want something to
execute at a different frequency or at different times than the parent
or local times would trigger. You can change the time base for other
patches that depend on time like LFO, Smooth, Interpolate, Timelines,
etc. You can make Timelines run backwards using an External clock that
decreases toward zero rather than increasing from zero.
