Best Practices - Collision avoidance
I am wondering what is considered to be the best workflow in avoiding collision of elements in a score.
I tend to fix as many obvious faults as I go, moving items by changing values in the inspector. I then polish the score before I generate parts.
Because score spacing is often different from that of individual parts, I find that many previously clean elements collide when I generate parts. This is most troublesome with lyrics, text items, dynamics and articulations.
With large scores and their associated parts, this can be quite time consuming, and I'm wondering if there are any time-saving approaches to this part of the work. Am I creating these collisions myself by adjusting the full score before I generate parts?
Attached is a typical score from my most recent project. The full score is fairly clean, but the vocal parts in particular are very messy.
I understand that MuseScore 3.0 will have some measure of collision avoidance, but for now, I must continue working with the available tools.
Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Tom
| Attachment | Size |
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| 2-09 This is Our Day.mscz | 161.59 KB |
Comments
I sounds as though you using the best workflow by adjusting the score before generating parts. This helps to ensure the few changes in the score that affect the parts are included in the parts. The only thing you did not mention is the view when you enter the score. It is most efficient to enter the score in continuous view with few edits along the way. After this, switch to page view and edit locations and collision avoidance.
In reply to I sounds as though you using… by mike320
Thanks, Mike.
It is not my common practice to work in continuous mode; I'll have to try that. It does look a little different. I have the impression, though, that a lot of collisions would not appear until page breaks (automatic or user-implemented) are added.
I agree that it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the big picture here. There are a few tips that I find useful:
Have a strategy for how you'd like the collisions resolved. For instance, know up front that when tempo and staff text collide, you want tempo above staff text, and perhaps to the left. Then when you see the collisions, you can can just deal with them rather than spending a lot of time wondering how to deal with them.
Plan for how to avoid collisions in the first place. Where possible, adjust Style settings to get good placement by default. Also place things to your advantage. Two text elements might logically apply to the same note, but since you know up front they'll collide, maybe choose to place them on different notes where possible. Similarly, consider starting crescendos on the note after a dynamic where possible.
Make your manual adjustments in batches, by selecting similar elements and using the Inspector.
Cursor keys - especially with Ctrl - are your friend. They allows you to quickly do adjustments in 1sp increments that can easily be reproduce elsewhere for a clean look.
When I look at your score, from my perspective it's not bad at all, even the vocal parts.
Here's a recent live video session I did talk about some of these issues:
https://youtu.be/98tYyA-O1z4
In reply to I agree that it sounds like… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc. Much of what you suggest is already a part of my main workflow. I've got a pretty good idea what to look for when the score takes shape, but am sometimes caught off-guard by a rogue element.
As I mentioned above, because score spacing takes into account all notes (time values) in the score, it is usually different from each individual part. Many layout issues do not become apparent until the individual parts are generated.