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jw-lighting

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Posts posted by jw-lighting

  1. Hi,

     

    I've tried and succeeded to connect our FLX to a ENTTEC Datagate MK2 yesterday.

    However, if I disconnect the FLX from the network switch (physically) to test how the whole system performs in case of errors, I noticed that I have to restart the FLX to get the sACN working again.

     

    I'm not sure if it's a bug, but is there any possibility to get sACN (havn't tested Art-Net) working after a network reconnect automatically?

     

    When I disconnect and reconnect the Datagate from the network switch while the FLX stays connected to the switch, everything is working correctly after the reconnect of the Datagate. Hence the problem is not at the Datagate, isn't it?

     

    Regards,

    Jan

  2. Hi Klaus,

     

    the five fixtures spare could hardly be enough if you're planning to add moving lights in the future. On the other side, you're not using the 24 dimmer channels from the Jester ML24.

    For that reason have a look on the Solution as well. Here you're able to control your LED fixtures like generic dimmers with additional colour parameters. additionally you're not as limited in the number of fixtures as you are with the JesterML.

     

    Redards

    Jan

     

    PS: Du kannst hier auch auf Deutsch schreiben, wenn es dir leichter fällt. // You could write german as well if it's easier for you.

  3. Thanks OllieB for your post! I'd like to add another tought to it: Why don't let the users do the calibration for the fixtures they use, and provide a simple possibility to give it back to the community, improving the library? This way Zero88's staff a) do not have to calibrate every fixture, even those that are never or seldom used B) have a lower workload.

  4. fixture manufacturers vary from much more orangey-red ambers, to actually more like yellows

     

    I'm sorry, I hadn't the time to read through it, so I had just taken a short look into the paper.

     

    What you'd like to say is that the differences with amber are bigger than those with red, green and blue?

     

    It would be very interesting how other console manufactures solved the problem, because there are a few with support for amber (or even more colours) in the picker. One more question on my list for the PLS fair in Frankfurt :P

  5. Hi Jon,

     

    thanks for your answer. My impression is, you're approaching a very perfect solution. I really like people seeking for the perfect solution... :)

     

    But maybe you're making things too difficult for yourself:

     

    RGBA/RGBAW only applies for LED fixtures, doesn't it? All discharge lamps are combined with subtractive colour mixing (CMY).

     

    Supporting RGB fixtures you currently have the same problems: What frequency does the red/green/blue LED emitter have? How long are they in use? Are there any differences in colour between the different fixture types or batches from the same fixture?

     

    Why don't you try to implement RGBA/RGBAW with approximated amber wavelength (average frequency from popular LED emitter datasheets: Osram, Luxeon, Seoul, ...)?

     

    You could improve it later, if possible ;)

  6. The Colour Picker will only affect the RGB values. Amber can then be added in / removed using the dedicated encoder wheel.

     

    Hi Jon,

     

    I knew that a few other consoles on the market (different manufacturer) are able to "translate" RGB values from the picker (or those related to a color from LEE, Rosco, etc) to RGBA, RGBW, RGBAW or even ETC's color mixing with seven different LED emitters.

     

    Do you have a feature like this on the roadmap?

  7. I reset my FLX to factory after my last show by updating to 7.9.2! But yes I now have to reload my fixtures.

     

    Related to this: When I load my old showfile after the update or reset, are fixture profiles used in my show (not part of the standard library) restored with it or is it necessary to do this manually before loading the old show?

  8. As from my posts in various threads where I've tried to get something sensible out of it, I've not managed to achieve anything that behaves as documented and that would be vaguely useful or usable in a show :(

     

    Hi Kevin,

     

    I have the same problems and experience with the effect engine, your reply is very helpful, because I havn't got the time to work through the manual and the tips here and try everything out. Now I could assume that it is not my fault. :(

     

     

    I'm glad you're rewriting it, the current one just doesn't work on FLX.

     

    Yes - and I hope it does not took ages. But I knew it's not a simple task and should be done carefully.

     

    Jan

  9. I've been partly waiting to see if other people will reply to this (sadly they haven't) and partly waiting until I had enough time to look into this in more detail.

     

    Thanks for your response, Jon. I was afraid my post could have annoyed you - now I'm glad it hasn't. :)

    I've written a lot about this, maybe it was to much for somebody to read and participate.

     

    I 100% agree with everything you say. However, we've got a vision to take this much further, implementing something that covers everything you mention above but makes it even easier, simpler and more visual.

    To be honest I hadn't the impression you (and the zero88 team) has realized that there is strong need to rework the effect engine before your reply. Therefore this are very good news. I'm looking forward to get a more detailed impression on your vision.

     

    I'll try and get some mockups over the next few weeks, but before that, I'd be interested to see what others (and yourself) would suggest if we scrapped the effects engine completely and started again!

     

    You have an abstract of my wishes and ideas in my post above. Of course I could write even more, but in my opinion this doesn't make much sense.

    Suggestion: you try to get some mockups for us or you could mail me an alpha release of it (so I can try how it feels "live") and then we give you our opinion, ideas and improvements. Is this OK for you?

  10. Hello everybody! :)
    by reading the forum from time to time, I got the impression that a couple of users are not familiar or 100% satisfied with the effect engine of zerOS. Maybe I'm wrong with my impression (let me know), but I would like to take this occasion to talk with the other FLX users (or other zerOS-consoles) about possible improvements.
    The current effect engine has a scientific approach in the sense of how it works. Mainly it is based on mathematical functions to chance fixture parameters. This makes it flexible and powerful. On the other hand, this seems to be less user-friendly and intuitive than the effect engines of zero88's competitors.
    In my opinion, an effect engine has to give the designer or operator a very easy and effective way to select and configure often used effects. E.g. a rainbow, moving a couple of fixtures in a wave, or a fly in / out. Let me use this examples to show what I mean:
    Rainbow: The build in rainbow effect-palette does not include the primary colours red, green and blue alone. There are only mixed colors with at least two primary colors active. This is caused by the underlaying waveforms. From the designers point of view a rainbow should go like this: From red to yellow, than reducing the red part going to green, than keeping green on and increasing blue going to cyan and so on. It's very hard (if not impossible) do to exactly this with the currently used waveform-based effects.
    Moving fixtures in a wave: Select a couple of fixtures, apply a sine effect to tilt and wonder: All fixtures are moving equal. Where is the sinewave? Hidden by an zero-offset. This could be easily fixed (and is no problem at all for experienced users) by applying an offset using Shift+<Wheel>. Imagine the selected fixtures are part of a truss-circle - so we would like that the first fixture exactly follows the last one to get a closed, stepless wave. I found it very hard to find the correct offset value in such cases. Sometimes, I used half an hour for that before I finally give up...
    Fly in/out: In this case, we have to sync different attributes and have to care about the moving speed of the fixture: First the fixture has to go to the top tilt value with zero intensity. Than we should wait a moment so that the fixture can perform the movement (this is important!). Now we can open the shutter and move to bottom, close the shutter at bottom and repeat. Synchronisation between the waveforms for the different attributes is hard to reach. Wait between steps to let the fixture move is not possible.
    Possible improvements:
    • Use intuitive units for effect parameters: Speed in BPM or Hz, Offset in degree, Size in %. There are no units at all currently. Thus it's hard to get an understanding of what the effect engine is doing.
    • Implement a function to automatically spread the offset between all selected or a specific # of fixtures
    More improvements could be made if the approach is changed:

     

    • Don't limit effects to waveforms: E.g. self (or build-in) step patterns could fasten the programming of chasers. Develop new creative approaches for creating effects. Think from the designers point of view (often this couldn't be done by programmers)
    • Provide build-in effects not only as palettes, but also as a quick solution for often needed exercises: Fly in, Fly out, Rainbow - all those effects where it is not possible to do them perfectly with waveforms, because parameters are depending on each other and so on. Those effects should be configurable with different parameters - depending on which parameters it could be possible worth for the designer to have influence on
    I hope you understand this post as constructive criticism - this is my intention.
    All in all I'm glad to use the FLX. Especially I really appreciate that you are interested in your users needs. This is why I wrote this - hoping to initiate a step in the FLX's way to be the perfect lighting console.
    It's not in my nature to write long (and complicated) texts in english language. I hope you could easily understand my intention and that Google Translator hasn't fooled me. ;)
    At last I'd like to invite every user to participate at this discussion.
    Best regards ;)
    Jan
  11. If you really need that functionality then perhaps something like MagicQ would help but it only runs under Windows so you'd need something like Bootcamp on your iMac to load and run it.

     

    As far as i know, MagicQ supports all popular operating systems. It's available for mac here https://secure.chamsys.co.uk/download

     

    Just to be mentioned: all zero88 desks support saving shows to and loading shows from USB, and a offline software for PC is also available.

  12. There won't be pixel mapping software released by your event in November, however there are probably other ways of doing this.

     

    Hi Jon, do you intend to include pixel mapping within the first zerOS 8 release or is it lower priority and therefore included in a later release?

  13. Oh sorry I read that wrong, I don't have a solo option on mine, and I can't update the desk as the update been taken down

     

    Hmmm. Now, I'm not sure at all if there is a Solo option for the UDKs. The playbacks have one. As a workaround you could use a playback instead.

  14. 1. Record a playback onto the UDK (Set your PAR cans as you like, press <Record>, press <UDK>-Button)

    2. Press <Setup> + <UDK> together to configure the UDK. Select "Solo" instead of "Latch" or "Flash"

    3. Enjoy

  15. Hi everyone.

     

    I often struggle on how to perform operations within or with playbacks, most often this is related to the way tracking is working. Not all of the options within the record window are clear to me. Additionally block and unblock are mystery for me.

    Maybe I'm not alone with that? Sometimes this causes a lot of trouble because a mistake could not be undone (please add this in the future!!!!! ;))

     

    For that reason I hope do get answers what is the best way to reach one of the defined goals:

     

     

    Insert a cue: no impact from the cue before the inserted one, no impact on the following cues

     

    Edit a cue and: 1) track edited parameters forward, but not backward 2) track edits for- and backwards 3) do not impact surrounding cues.

     

    Remove accidentally saved parameters that are not intended to be saved from a cue (and remove their "tracking impact" on other cues)

     

    Copy a cue "as is", no tracking from cues preceding the pasted one

     

    Delete a cue without changing following cues. (Transfer tracked changes to the next cue)

     

     

    I hope, everything is explained understandable.

     

    Regards and thanks in advance :)

    Jan

  16. Hello Jon,

     

    maybe a crowd sourced plattform like a wiki could help you to improve the content and to keep the "offical" manual on track to new software versions.

    Additionally, a wiki could also be nice to share tips, tricks and workflow between users.

     

    Jan

  17. Hi pj,

    there are three (relevant) categories of fonts: serif, sans-serif and monospace.

     

    The jester uses a monospace font with serifs... ;) Monospaced means, that every char has the same with (space). In some situations this is what you want or maybe the software is not capable of using multi-spaced fonts. Additionally, the Ubuntu or other sans-serif fonts need a large resolution to look good, so it's not fitting with the jesters specs.

     

    That's what I'm thinking about it, at last Jon (zero88) can give a categorical answer.

  18. It is on the roadmap - in fact ZerOS already supports MIDI Notes on other consoles, we just haven't brought it across to FLX yet as, truth be told, I think we can do a better job at it!

    Thats fine. I'm looking forward to it.

     

    Which, leads me to the question... How would you like MIDI Notes to work? What exactly would you like triggered, and how?

    Thanks for that question, I appreciate the ability to contribute to zerOS from the users point of view.

     

    I often have playbacks where the fader is unneccessary because there is nothing to scale with it. The 4 available UDKs are used for functions like Highlight, Clear Fixture etc.

     

    What I'm missing are "executor buttons". Because there is no wing with a combination of faders and buttons or buttons only it would be nice to use a launchpad (or keyboard) for this (example: https://www.thomann.de/gb/novation_launchpad_mini_mk2.htm).

    Launchpads aren't available with native MIDI out, so it could be worth to use a USB-MIDI library to let zerOS support them.

     

    The pads could have any function that a playback's button has: Go, Flash, Tap Tempo, ...

     

    I know about the WING and we already own one, but that's not the same. Unfortunately there is no "button wing".

     

    To summarize:

     

    What would I like to be triggered:

    • Playbacks or cues within playbacks
    • Select groups or pallets
    • Execute macros
    • Influence the speed of chasers: Global Tap Tempo, reset Tap Tempo, ...
    How:
    • Go, Flash, Latch, Tap Tempo - everythink the button of a playback can
    • Additional to the current button functions: release the playback
    It should be possible to "connect" a playback operation (actions like Go, Flash, ..) to a MIDI note and to have multiple notes connected to one playback (with different operations).

    Maybe this could be done by enhancing the functionality of macros and let MIDI trigger those macros.

     

    It's even possible to use the velocity as "fader position" or for other cool stuff, but one at a time.

     

     

    I would like to talk about this with other users. Give me feedback to my ideas :)

     

    Regards,

    Jan

  19. Inhibitors

    Inhibitor faders can come in two flavours - one that just sets a topset, and one that proportionally scales.

    That's more than i know about :) How can i configure the inhibitor as "topset" or "proportional"?

     

    LTP

    However, it's very unlikely that that's actually what you want to happen. So we are developing two different options - Soft LTP and LTP Catch. Soft LTP will fade the intensity from it's current level (whatever that might be) to its new one, even if that's in the "opposite" direction.

    I discovered this feature last weekend and used it for a concert where gently changes of lighting where appropriate. With this option selected I was able to "fade in" a chase as much as i needed, sometimes the audience didn't noticed whats going on there but a little "movement" was good for loosening it up. Just to mention, even if it's off-topic: This feature is really, really cool stuff! Keep focused on those "designer-friendly" implementations :)
  20. Hi,

    trying to connect some MIDI equipment I' been wondering about the current support for MIDI. In the advertisement the FLX is promoted to have support for

    Midi In/Thru (Notes, Timecode, Show Control)

    see FLX Brocure: http://www.zero88.com/literature/Zero%20FLX%20Flyer%20UK%20Rev1%2002%202015.pdf

     

    I can't find the setting to configure e.g. a playback to react to a specific MIDI note. But this is what the brochure (and other) promised, isn't it?

     

    Maybe you could help me to understand the support for MIDI the way it is is meant and / or show me how to configure it.

     

    Regards :)

    Jan

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