you can just have one setup for all the lumiverses and fixtures. So that if I want to mirror a video on to the Pixel tapes, they need to be in the same position for the video to be presented correctly
Well, the Input Selection position just defines which area of the composition is being used to sample pixels from. Changing those pixels in the composition would mean you sample different pixels and thereby output different pixels. For instance, your third look could also be created by keeping the sample orientation the same, but rotating the left half of the comp 45 degrees clockwise, and the right half 45 degrees counter clockwise.
Now I understand that that is not always an option, and quite probably more work than just setting the sample position and orientation. Personally, I'd struggle quite a bit to make your looks without resorting to some complicated router structure or custom FFGLs.
So yeah, we need a solution for this.
From our end, we don't like the idea of using presets. When switching a preset, a lot of work happens behind the scenes. You don't notice, but each of your outputs is destroyed and recreated and re-assigned to your monitor. Every Art-Net connections is closed and re-opened. Even when the output setup doesn't change. As you can imagine, this is an incredible risky operation that we don't want to expose to the user mid show.
The idea of having shortcuts for slice properties has also
been discussed before. We don't like that approach because it means you'd be creating an exponential amount of shortcuts. You'd have to start keeping track of two shortcut presets. In your case, you'd need a second application to send different presets values via OSC or MIDI too. Sure, if you spent two nights programming everything, you'd be able to cobble something together. But you'd be the only one that understands it. Troubleshooting would be a nightmare. Small changes to the setup would require starting from scratch. We like Resolume to be easy to understand and fun to use, and this doesn't sound like that at all.
We like the idea of having your composition be the state of your output. Just like you can easily switch between clips to change the output, you should be able to switch between looks just as easily. Just like you can see which clips are playing and what other clips are available, we'd like to have the same overview of what the current look is and what other looks are available. We'd like to sequence looks using the autopilot or next/prev triggers. We'd like to fade between looks using transitions. We'd like to apply looks on the composition, individual layers, or even individual clips. We'd like to further process looks using effects and transformations. All stuff that becomes possible when we have looks in the composition.
We've made a start with the Slice Transforms, which create different looks by positioning content exactly centered in your slices. What's missing is more control over which pixels end up in those slices.
It could be that we add more control to Slice Transforms. It could be that we add advanced transform effects that let you do the type of transforms that you can do in the advanced output, but on clips. It could be that we add something like snapshots of your looks. There's a lot of ways we can take it. We might even buckle and go with some preset system after all. Whichever way we decide on, it would be a monster feature and we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by acting rashly.
TL;DR We understand what you want to do. We understand how changing presets or having shortcuts sound like a good solution for it. We respectfully disagree. Hopefully I was able to explain why.