Some beginners questions about AVS and Presets

[Ton]

As a complete newbie to AVS, and although I read the FAQ's about it, it is still very confusing for me. I still don't understand well enough what presets are exactly and how you should work with them. Therefore I hope someone can help me. I would like to ask the following specific questions:
1) I downloaded as a start Whacko AVS V, which contains 15 avs files.Besides that, in Winamp there is a folder with Newpicks with over 100 avs files. Do I have to understand it so that all these avs files are presets, so that I now have some 115 "presets" ?
2) Do I have to see it so that every preset is one visual effect, so that I now have some 115 different ones ?
3) When I start the AVS plugin will all these presets, that is in my case the Newpicks AND the Whacko's all be played randomly ?
4) Or do I have to choose or CAN I choose which presets are being used and how do I do that ?
Please help me with this. If there is a guide somewhere where I as a beginner can find this information I would appreciate it very much if someone could give me a link.Many thanks in advance.

Ton

[anubis2003]

1) Yes all those *.avs are presets.
2) Each of these presets have many different visual renders/effects that are combined to create what you see in the AVS window.
3) This depends on your AVS settings. Double-click on the AVS window and the AVS editor will open up(this is where you actually can make AVS presets or edit existing ones). Go to the Settings menu and then click on Presets/Hotkeys. Then under "Preset (sub) directory to use for random/cycle:" there is a button that probably says "All". You can click on the button and change this if you want it to only pick random presets from a specific folder. With "All" selected it will choose between all AVS presets in all directories/sub directories.
4) You can select specific ones by right-clicking on the AVS window and then going to the specific sub-directory and then preset.

A lot of this was already answered in the FAQ that's in the AVS forum.

As a note, you can make your own AVS presets and with a lot of practice you can make some sweet stuff. Just fiddle around in the AVS editor and search these forums to learn how. Good luck and welcome to AVS.

[IshanRocky]

Your questions were answered by Anubis so all i can say is:
Welcome to AVS and the forums!

[Ton]

Thanks for your replies, especially to anubis2003. It is much clearer to me now. The biggest problem for me was, how stupid it may seem, what was meant with "presets". Now I also know how to choose which presets collection I want.
One more question. Although I won't use it much IF it is possible, but for a better understanding:
Is it also possible to choose only certain presets from one or more directories (in my case Newpicks and WhackoAVS V) ?

[mikm]

for cycling? no (actually, you might be able to using Hotlist or a similar tool)

[anubis2003]

If you want to do that, then just create a new folder in your AVS folder and name it what you want to. Then copy the presets you want AVS to cycle through into that folder(you may want to keep a copy in it's original folder so you can figure out which pack it was in later). Then just tell AVS to only use presets in that directory.

Other plugins, such as hotlist and playlister, will allow you to have different "playlists" of presets, but they can be slightly difficult to work with and get set up, IMO.

[EnDurA]

Atero made AVS Primer a while back. that would be a good place to start. otherwise just looking at others code and seeing how stuff works. try some of the threads in the main AVS forum. oh, and welcome to the forums

[Ton]

Thanks.
This primer looks good.I shall study it.

[Phaze1987]

BTW , how is the work going on the second AVS primer (by Atero) and that big AVS tutorial (by anubis) ?

[anubis2003]

I've been working a lot, so this is all I got done right now - I'm doing an in depth SSC tutorial, starting from the basics and going up to medium difficulty.