kgallen

On FLX S I suspect you will need to devise a chase. On FLX we can use Effect Waveform for this. In theory for FLX S you could use Phantom ZerOS in FLX mode, use waveform to create your Effect, programme a palette, save the showfile then load into FLX S. Once in FLX S you can use this palette although you won’t be able to modify the effect once in the desk. Edward will no doubt have better ideas!

They are at the bottom of this page: https://www.zero88.com/zeros Or on this page: https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/networking/connecting-to-capture

Hi Ben. Please quote the console type and ZerOS version you have installed. Thanks!

(Thread bump/slight tickle). Just curious if the team had any further thoughts on Eric's (and my) issue and the subsequent enhancement suggestion for an in-desk pan/tilt "correction offset" for physically misaligned fixtures (due to poor hanging accuracy - Eric, or "cheap" fixtures with poor mechanical calibration - me). Simplistically, this boils down to a new column in the Fixture Schedule where a fixture can have a +/-(small DMX value) for Pan and/or Tilt that the desk adds to the programmed value prior to DMX output. The more complex aspect is the UI and some integration with maybe the Highlight feature to allow this offset to be determined by observing the fixtures on stage as they are tweaked with the encoder wheels. In ETC Eos this is similar to "Hang to Focus" offset which can be applied in X, Y and Z planes. Thanks! Kevin Unrelated I also came across another interesting feature, "Preheat", which is a bit like move on dark, and is used to preheat tungsten lamps at the cue before they transition above 0%. This would be of interest for me, as to mitigate thermal shock, particularly on a flash to @FUL I will try to program a preheat of a few % on pre-cues where the next cue will be a step-change bump to the lamp. Of course I already have my Betapacks set with appropriate preheat, but this is of course at a much lower level such that blackouts are still dark.

This is a fair point and I know the Zero88 team have been thinking about this for some time. I think the main issue is you need some detailed calibration data for the fixture to be able to translate the DMX value to degrees - and often we're not working to a "nice" 360 either because pan is often 0-540 and tilt +/-130 degrees. Worse is you would really need to express that to two decimal places to get close to the resolution afforded by the DMX channel pair and the fixture - you're pretty much back to that 16 bit number in decimal. Using percentage is really not viable for pan and tilt, it's just too coarse. Remember pan and tilt have moved to 16 bit parameters because 8 bit, which gives 256 steps, is just too coarse. Percentage with no decimal places is over twice as bad! I'll put an enhancement request in for pan and tilt to be expressed in hexadecimal instead (only kidding - although at least 0x8000 is halfway, rather than 32768 in decimal, and 0x4000 is quarter instead of 16384... maybe not such a bad idea after all!). Being serious again, I'm not sure how much during programming, you really care the exact value for pan and tilt. We work on "is the mover pointing in the right direction" and almost certainly work with palettes. If you want to "centre" a fixture, then Home would normally get you there and we can all remember that half way is "around 30000" even if the "exact" value of 32768 isn't remembered - it's all so fixture and mounting dependent anyway. Having said that, I've recently learned that one can type in a value for pan/tilt using Shift/Tap, which should certainly reduce the amount of frantic encoder twirling I do (and play to my OCD of wanting exact/neat numbers across my fixtures!!!).

The Image Manager is just part of the Fixture Editor tool. You can add gobo images that will display on the FLX by attaching the images for each gobo under the Detail tab of the appropriate Beamshape attribute for the fixture within the Fixture Editor software.

Auto palette generates the default colour and gobo palettes - what you get when you press the button in the middle of the touch screen when you’ve got a fairly fresh desk. Palette just means one you recorded yourself eg RECORD -> COLOUR

The only way I know is to copy your playback into another playback on another page. Then I guess you’d populate the first couple of pages with the playback stacks you want to use and keep the ‘deep’ pages as a library of sorts. You’ve posted in the FLX S forum where my experience is with the ‘full’ FLX so you should check out the number of playbacks on the desk you have. Edward will no doubt give us some good ideas soon.

This was part of a comment to the same question on BlueRoom: "although I'm not sure how advanced the FLX is in its ability to clone fixture or change the type while retaining data" My understanding of this would be: clone=no, fixture change=yes (desk will try to map attributes from the old to new fixture the best it can). Be interested to learn from Edward how well this works and how well pre-recorded palettes might map across if fixture swap-outs are done when at the venue.

Hi Edward. With the demise of the KB, where did the list of known compatible touch screens go? Thanks, Kevin

Edward: Get one of your software guys on it for 5 minutes. One quick "sed" script will sort the whole lot out.

Brief flow: You'll need to be in Partial Mode. If you're not already then there is fun to start with. Then ensure the programmer is clear, select the fixture(s), change to put the strobe on only - don't change anything else otherwise you'll tag stuff you don't want to record. Then when you Program to the Submaster, you should only have the Beamshape attribute tagged. In theory, you'll need the submaster to release the strobe after letting go of the button. I'm not sure if BullFrog can do this, otherwise like you say, LTP will mean the strobe doesn't go off...

Hi Dave Thanks for the update! Sounds like you're nearly there. As it looks like you've done, there is no reason the 48 faders need to map 1:1 on DMX addresses, so arranging the key DMX channels per fixture across desk channels 1-24 and mapping the secondary channels on 25-48 is a great idea! Of course if you don't need per-fixture e.g. strobe control, then these could be multi-patched DMX addresses to one (or more) desk channel fader. As I'm sure you're aware from your earlier post, you can "mix down" some useful combinations onto sub-masters. However if you want to "layer" the submasters for LTP attributes like colour you will have to start looking into Partial mode and Tagging. In addition to the manual, make sure you have the latest set of release notes which cover quite a few more advanced features - the manual updates stopped long before the software updates stopped, so there are many "new" features not in the manual and some operational details have changed. Are you running 10.12 software? Somewhere in the updates[1] the number of submaster pages[2] were increased, which sounds like something that could be important in your use-model. Good luck! Kevin FrogOS 10.12: https://www.zero88.com/storage/downloads/8a28f4e9-9100-4a34-bab9-5cd0a2c66f0e/Frog-Range-Software-10.12.zip Final Release Notes: https://www.zero88.com/storage/downloads/c970efd0-79b5-4fe0-8546-6a64ddf858a5/Frog-Range-Software-Release-Notes-10.12.pdf [1] Number of palettes and groups was updated from 24 to 48 in 10.8. Note however these only apply to the fixtures section ("non-generics") so aren't usable as colour palettes on your RGB PARs mapped to generics faders. [2] This must have been a longer ago than I recall, I can't see it mentioned from FrogOS 9.2. I'll look back in my stored RNs!

Hi Dave, Fat Frog was designed when most venues had mostly generics (lamps on dimmers) plus maybe a few movers (MAC500 and the like) and Fat Frog was great for this (exactly why I have/had mine). These days the split is different. I have about a 50/50 split of generics and "complex" fixtures like LED PARs and movers - and it's only moving in one direction and that is not towards "generics". These "complex" fixtures of course have a much more complicated control plane. No longer one "knob" per light but 4 upwards. This is why the "fader per channel" type desks are a little limited these days for anything but the smallest simplest rigs. On DMX counts, my generics are fully handled by 24 DMX addresses. My other fixtures take several hundreds (which is why FLX is now my desk). Sounds like the "perfect" desk for you would be an FLX S24. But then the spondoolies come into play! Back on your Fat Frog, you're pretty much there. Why not put your 12 most important PARs on the fixture section then the other 4, maybe with a simpler DMX setup, onto the generics faders? FF is still a capable (and extremely reliable) desk, so I wouldn't be going near a skip with it any time soon. Mine is still in the shed, it's not going in a skip. Kevin

Dave This is never going to work how you think - on any lighting desk. You’re not repatching faders you’re moving the DMX address where your fixtures live. In Fat Frog in wide mode you have 48 faders (these are one control channel each) plus you have the 12 fixtures control on the right. The 12 fixtures can be much more complicated beasts - one fixture has brightness, colour, beamshape, position etc. So if you want individual control of every one of your 8 channel parcans you can get at most 48/8=6 on the faders plus another 12 on the fixtures bank. So that would give you up to 18 of your parcans all with independent control of all 8 DMX channels on the parcan. It will be a bit clunky to drive though, using a mixture of faders and fixture controls. However you will be able to record what I understand you want. You can of course "double-up" by either setting more than one parcan at the same DMX address or using multiple patching on the Fat Frog. Or, do you need to use the 8 channel mode on the parcans? Is there a lower channel count mode that still offers all the features you want but could be better fit between the 48 faders or the 12 fixture controls? Maybe only some of your parcans you need "total control" - use the fixture panel for this, much easier to set up colour and strobes etc. Then put any leftovers onto the faders - which will be a more clumsy control surface for "complex" fixtures. You can’t repatch in between programming steps, that makes no sense whatsoever, you're moving the foundations of the house, hence what you observe. HTH Kevin

FLX with Wing in a flight case - cute! Standard flight case (looks like a Swan) or custom? Definitely interested to hear about your tablet setup.

FLX S24 doesn't have a monitor port to attach an external screen directly. However you can use the Monitor App - I've seen that noted on a similar thread. Here:

Hi Adrian, My setup is very similar to yours. Like you I run a cue stack for theatre/musical shows. In my case it's a couple of amateur groups which I've been active in, doing lighting and sound for the last 24 years (ouch!). I now own an FLX, having moved up from fully manual preset desks through small "modern" programmable desks like the Strand GSX and Zero88 Alcora and then Fat Frog, prior to FLX which I bought in late 2015. It would be unfair of me to say FLX is the best desk for your application as I admit to little experience of the current range of competitors desks. But for budget, features and support I think FLX pretty much ranks up there as one of the leading options if you're looking for a "proper" desk rather than a PC based solution. Support for LED and movers is ingrained in the desk, so it's not like they are "bolted on" features to an essentially generics-oriented desk (which if I was being cruel is how you could view say the Frog range or comparable desks of the 2000 era). Standard features like Move on Dark, tracking and triggered/released chases are what for me make FLX an easier desk to work with than say Fat Frog. Like any other product, FLX is not perfect and you will see many comments and aired frustrations on this Forum for features long awaited. However for sure, if this is a long term investment for you (or your theatre), it is a product relatively early in it's life and we expect many more years of feature additions and enhancements. Good luck! Kevin

I thought the global value (per playback*) was the only one, plus the per cue option to not move on dark a certain attribute (for quiet scenes). Sometimes I would like a ‘quick’ MOD if I’m generally using a slow global value. * Thanks Edward for reminding me this is per playback not overall global!

What did the designer want the output to look like? Surely they realise the blue and red fades won't finish together if they are of equal duration but a minute skewed! So they either have 1 minute of blue fade alone, or the blue fade is reduced to 4 minutes or... I sympathise with you! But you can't programme a requirement when the requester isn't even clear on what they want! I have similar experiences. Some directors are good at visualising what they want to achieve, others aren't. Others don't have a mental image of what they want a scene to look like.

Q: So on the last part your timeline mismatch by 1 minute as you say. In what way were you wanting to make them align? If you wanted to keep the red and blue independent, then on your red fade out you would only tag the red colour and for the blue fade up only tag the blue colour. I believe this would require the desk to be set "keep parameters separate" for colour (that's probably the default). In both cues the intensity is retained at 100% so the fading of the colours is via the colour channel not the intensity channel. 1. I've probably misunderstood your requirements! 2. Yes I'd struggle to do this too! 3. Edward will give us the proper recipe in a minute!

Edward - would you expect FLX S RigSync to be employed with the Chilli dimmers Stan has? (Or do you need more info on the exact model of the Chilli dimmers to answer this?).

Your venue sounds wonderful! Sounds to me like any of the FLX S or FLX series would do. But from the spec you give above your infrastructure seems well beyond that of a "basic" setting. Whilst I think FLX S24 (or S48) would work I think you could easily outgrow them because once your new venue is ready you will grow in ideas quickly and start bringing in more LED, movers and "intelligent" fixtures. Particularly you will start to need more than one universe of DMX. In which case I would suggest looking at the full FLX for the more "pro" interface and "grow" potential. In addition this point begs the question, is your refurb taking into account the move towards LED - i.e. adding in DMX (possibly ArtNet) and hard-power infrastructure as well as the dimming infrastructure? If nothing else, if this is not going in now, provision of mount locations for data equipment, power and cable trays/conduit would make sense. Kevin

The information on this page will help you: http://support.zero88.com/Consoles/FLX/1014413041/RGB-Colour-Mixing-on-Faders.htm Similar works for Position and Beamshape as it does for colour. There are other similar support topics here: http://support.zero88.com/Consoles/FLX-S/ HTH Kevin

Setup+UDK already offers Highlight in the selectable options for the UDK. The UDK needs to be truly unprogrammed, so use Delete UDK first.