kgallen

Just got an email for your above post on this thread, but a different cause: "Prefer to stop receiving these emails? Adjust your notification preferences." So that one must have come about from one of the email prefs I changed. Oh and the bl**dy bell now! 🤣 I bet Peter is getting lots of spam now with the same settings!

It's started... just got "Patching without a monitor?" update email... However the quoted reason is "You are receiving this email because you are following Edward- Z88" rather than it being triggered by following or contributing. And just got a "bell" notification. It never rains...! (Just checked, I've not contributed to that thread, although I've been reading it.)

OK as many boxes as I can area ticked. There are 8 selections that are greyed out "Administrator has inhibited this feature". I'm the same as Peter now with the addition of a tick in "Show popup window when I receive a new personal message". Spam folder at the ready...!!!

Neither (yet). But that could be my Notification setup looking earlier, I don't think I'm enabled for quotes. I'll go and change that now. I already have the two "Automatically follow" settings like Peter has above which you would think would generate some email traffic. Last email I got was from Oli's post on his fader problem. This is an FLX Forum post, and I follow that Forum. But there are plenty more posts there than I get emails for. Before then, "ZerOS7.9.7 Release" (December). Before then a post on "Understanding Smart Tag" (also Dec), before then a post on "New firmware and global bpm" (November), before then "Programming Additional Movers" (October) and before that "ZerOS 7.9.6 Released" (September). So pretty random and about one a month then (2 in December, none in January!), and we both know there is a lot more traffic than that on the Forum that I'm likely to be interested in. If the latest Forum software is supposed to be reliable then it could be my settings (probably close to default). Certainly in the past it's been "good for nuthin'" ! ...and they aren't going into spam, I do get them when they come! ...oh but I do get "everything" in the Forum notification - the bell icon at the top gets a red dot when you quote me.

I find email notification very spurious/random and it's been this way for years. I follow/contribute to a fair number of posts and normally get no emails. On occasion I'll get an email to say there is a new post, but it seems a random event. Sometimes (though rarely) I'll get a "Weekly Digest", but it's always "old news" as I'm generally on the forum quite regularly. Conclusion -> email notification is of little practical use to me at least!

Maybe a dodgy solder joint... Sounds like it needs opening up - depends on your warranty status. Advice from Z88 incoming...!

I don’t know this fixture but I expect the CTO is implemented on a separate DMX channel to the vanilla RGB, so the RGB channels are ‘fading down’ whilst the CTO channel ‘fades up’. But the CTO channel is probably bands of DMX values giving different CTC/CTO temperatures, so what you get is RGB fading down whilst CTO steps up through a number of CTC (blue) settings until it hits the CTO range. I expect the CTO/CTC is just implemented with an appropriate mix of RGB than anything clever.

I do avoid blocking cues these days because of the impact on move on dark. If you have a ‘pre’ cue where the fixture is dark then you shouldn’t need to ‘pre-place’ the mover. Before we had move on dark functionality we had to do this and it was called a marking cue. Now with desk move on dark and tracking, marking cues should be mostly unnecessary. In my last show I had a lot of mover activity - used as wash lights and as specials and with effects. By avoiding blocking cues, using position palettes and using tracking I don’t think I had a single issue with mover position being wrong. The time it does go wrong for me and it takes me a while to recover the programming, is when I accidentally tag and record a mover when I didn’t intend to. Then I have to go back and fight with my desk to do a cue update with a remove. But that’s an old story for me much covered on this forum!... (ps I’m also the sound man so also have to wear two hats at the same time, with complex equipment on the sound side too where I have to scratch my head and try to remember which page and menu a particular setting is in! I’ve had my FLX since 2015 and I’m still learning each time!)

Sorry Rob...! Edward - Can I get the MACRO to NAME the new cue at the same time with something like: RECORD MACRO x ENTER -> Commands -> 1 THRU @ . RECORD NAME "DBO" ENTER MACRO Hold on - that will probably name the MACRO rather than the RECORDed cue???

Interesting... I've been using ENTER ENTER @. which of course "only" turns off lights that are on (but is very quick and easy to type). Edward - with your syntax I guess this records every fixture at intensity 0 so you don't get the issue I potentially have with a tracked updating causing the DBO not to be dark? Hmmm like, that. Needs a macro though as you say as that is more a mouthful of keystrokes. I really must look up how to record and use Macros for keystrokes... Thanks! Kevin

(Edward posted about a half second before me - hope I don't contradict him!) If you're in Tracking and mostly using SmartTag, then I think you should be fine adding in the movers later: playing back the cue, using syntax/palettes to set up your movers and then using Update. Use of Cue Only will depend if you want the mover as set to only be in the current cue, or if you will put it in at an early cue (then allow it to track through some cues) then take it out at a later cue. In your Monday rehearsal, being able to step back and play over a sequence of cues would be a real benefit here. Not being able to would indeed worry me too. Depends on the type of rehearsal. Sometime at our techs, if they are faffing about on stage with some prop or costume, I'll go back a few cues and quickly step though any "thorny patch" to make sure the recording plays back as I expect. Also it depends if you have snapshot blocking cues. I used to always record a blackout as a blocking cue, but since using more movers I've stopped doing this now as it breaks move-on-dark. Of course there is always the hazard that you edit a cue before the DBO and find the light is still on in the DBO. With tracking though this is generally easy to see, as you only have to run the cue before the DBO then step into the DBO to check you really are dark - and do an Update to the DBO cue if you did indeed have something on due to tracking. If you're using Effects then you have to watch out that SmartTag will not record a "No Effect" if the light went dark. There are plenty of posts on this Forum with people saying "my lights are still dancing even though they are off". So if you add a mover in to a cue to do some dancing, then in the (next) cue where you want the dancing to stop, remember to: select your light, select No Effect, select @0, then when you do the Update, turn off Smart Tag (and remember SmartTag will stay off until you enable it again!!!) to ensure the No Effect gets recorded. Also with movers - and may be tricky in your timescale - is it's essential to have your Position Palettes set up, because messing about with Pan and Tilt during a rehearsal is just impractical as it takes so long. Get yourself ready by having your movers patched into the desk with the correct mode setting. Then record and name some placeholder palettes for DSL, DSC, DSR etc, so when you rig your movers, you can step through each position palette, set the mover there (yes this takes [me] ages), then Update your palette. Actually even at your first rehersal without the movers hung, you could programme your cues with the movers at non-zero intensity and having triggered the required position palette. Of course at this stage it will be a junk position. but when you have the mover rigged, it will at least come on and you can move the position and Update the Position Palette there and then which of course will be then correct for the subsequent mover cues required at that position (Palettes are referenced not copied into the cue). When you have the movers there, you can of couse then tweak the intensity in the cue and set colour/gobo etc and Update the cue - but at least you have a starter-for-10 in place. Of course if you happen to forget at the initial programming, then just add it in at the second rehearsal, you're no worse off. I'm assuming at your first plotting rehearsal, you will have "more" time and be under less pressure so can take your time and set some groundwork in place. Then at the second rehearsal when you're getting evil stares, you minimise how many changes you need to do to integrate your movers into your show. Adding an Effect (movement etc) will always be more of a challenge, and probably will be a time consumer on the second rehearsal, but the more general use of the movers as specials or highlights can probably be done to a reasonable extent before you actually rig them. Get those Palettes drafted in would be a wise move. On Fat Frog I was a disaster in Partial mode, however on FLX I just use the tracking mode. and with Update and SmartTag (care as above) I have few problems these days. One thing to learn beforehand (and I've posted lots on this and Edward has explained), is how to properly remove from a cue a fixture you accidentally recorded in. I think this is better in later ZerOS (late 7.9.x) as I used to have real problems with this, but these days I can (generally!) get it to work! However don't ask me to explain now, I'd need to look it up again!!! Hope that helps. Sorry I've waffled on a bit, but hopefully some of those ideas will help out! Good Luck! Kevin

Shift+Encoder wheel might be what you want?

Attach your showfile here is the quickest way the Z88 chaps can help you with this.

Ok cool. Well done for making some sense from my rather poorly worded phone reply! See p50 of the manual. Also note that you will probably need to release the triggered playback in a later cue - say you have a chase running, you would trigger it from a cue when you want it to start then in some later cue release it when you want it to stop. Drop us another line here if you can’t find the info you need. Kevin

The exact button might have changed since this KB but it’s under Setup somewhere, one of the later menus! http://support.zero88.com/Legacy-Products/Legacy-Consoles/Legacy-ZerOS/ORB-XF/1014189311/What-is-Tagging.htm

Sounds like you have the desk in non tracking snapshot mode otherwise what you said in your first post should just work. Pulling the playback down will be doing a Release of those channels. I think what you’re seeing also says to me you’re in non tracking mode.

Use a new playback and create a cue stack to trigger each of your preprogrammed playbacks. You can set the auto cues to trigger from the beginning or end of the current cue with a wait time offset so you can use the style to suit how you set up your fades. This is in the manual. You can also trigger multiple playbacks with an offset if you so wish then your lighting moves can overlap in creative ways.

You can of course use a stand alone WiFi access point connected to the desk via an Ethernet cable.

Just be aware that the display format is different on the Groups/Colours window on the external monitor on FLX and FLX S48.

On FLX series? Probably not as I guess it needs some driver installed to at least configure it.

Excellent, I now know how to get a fast response to a query 😈 But it's good to know that the knowledge is still in-house, since whilst these tools are currently perfectly usable, there may come a time when we need a 2.6.0.1! Yea, but that doesn't make me feel comforted by the prospect... (internal development/test tool becomes primary tool for users...).

Do you mean under "Special"? If so then Red Positive etc mean defined things to the desk, it's not there as a "user nicety". The Special setting is used by the desk when doing fixture replacement so the new fixture can map as best as possible to the features of the fixture being removed. Cyan/Magenta/Yellow are there for subtractive fixtures (colour wheel in front of a lamp like a MAC500), Red/Green/Blue there for additive fixtures (like LED sources). So you're not going to get an entry for "Rosy Pink". White and Amber (LEDs) need to use the "Other" setting. I don't use the Wizard so can't help you on the rest. Regarding other Fixture Tools enhancements I think this is highly unlikely since I think this tool was written and last updated many (many) years ago, probably by someone who has long since left Z88 and they've probably lost the source code... 🤣 (this will be confirmed by the deathly silence following this post...!) I understand Jon wants to have a fixture tool as part of the FLX/ZerOS software - although personally I like having the Windows utility where I can do show-prep offline. I realise that a Windows-only utility winds up people who use Macs though and for practical purposes where you get landed with a new fixture at a venue (or need to do a mod to an existing fixture definition), having a desk-based function would be highly desirable... Kevin

Set them up as you want. RECORD -> HOME.

Maybe you can use Save Setup and Palette ?

Still not directly answering your initial question, but does anything in this thread give you anything more workable?