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Davidmk

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Posts posted by Davidmk

  1. The manual doesn't actually mention date & time adjustment but if you go to setup ->settings

    image.png.3f07c46d3e7a97dae4e2073f42fb5984.png

    I think you should be able to correct the system date and time. 

    My first thought was that you need to replace the battery but the thread FLX48S Battery has a  post from @Edward Z88 explicitly stating that FLX S does NOT have a battery so it isn't that

  2. Well, first look at "fader controls" here in the manual which should help with what you propose. I use this all the time to control combinations of pan/tilt/zoom/focus when busking.

    However, don't rule out cue stacks, especially now we have OSC (I believe it is available on FLX S). IMHO, these are better for colours and probably for gobos because you don't have to fade through unwanted values to get what you want. They are especially easy to use with /zeros/cue/go OSC commands (I've been doing it in Beta test). You need something like Hexler TouchOSC MK1 running on a tablet or laptop on a network with the desk to send the commands (PM me if you need more help with that). I've been doing this with MIDI for ages but OSC will make it much simpler.

  3. 21 hours ago, Edward Z88 said:

    Personally, I very rarely program with SmartTag enabled.

    Ditto. I generally want to record just intensity or everything else but intensity so SmartTag is a nuisance.

    20 hours ago, kgallen said:

    you're some kind of super-human lighting programmer

    I don't think I'm super-human (but I'm not disputing @Edward Z88's powers). It's probably because I'm not that I find myself baffled by SmartTag, Cue Only & Move On Dark. I've only done one show "on the button". I got through it but it was a mess. If/when I do another one I'll have to do some homework. 

  4. PS I've been up all night trying to write scripts for TouchOSC. I've been a programmer all my adult life but I've struggled with this. The Hexler manual doesn't help much, it assumes you know Lua. The Lua manual is better but I still don't know how to implement a multi-dimensional array.

    Making progress though.

  5. It is a general problem that manuals tend to tell you what "things" do not what "thing" you need at any given time. It is much easier to write them that way and, IMHO, the ZerOS manual is much better than most by this metric.

    Knowing what "thing" you want is much harder. How does a writer cover the finite, but huge, array of possibilities without rivalling War And Peace? They can't,  basically, and that is where training steps in. This forum also picks some of it up - how often do replies say "see the manual here"?

    I have see very few of the training videos, my brain just doesn't like that input channel very much. So my take would be a separate "how to" guide giving you the workflow to plot a show (including how to add & correct cues) in one chapter, how to set up the desk for busking in another, etc. The history of questions posed on this forum should give an idea of other topics. Flowcharts  could be a big part of it too. An online version could include links to the manual to get the details.

    I'm waffling now. I'll leave it there.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  6. 1 hour ago, mikeb said:

    moving the fader within TouchOSC varies the intensity of the associated playback as expected

    I'm mildly (but pleasantly) surprised by this - using a fader means sending - and therefore processing - a lot of messages in quick succession and I would not have been surprised if the desk was overwhelmed by it. Good news in deed.

  7. On 3/23/2023 at 9:30 AM, Davidmk said:

    If or when OSC becomes available on S24/S48 you could PM me and I'll explain it. Would take too long here.

    @Finn Tegeler OSC is going to be available in the next release which is in Beta test right now. I've opened a thread to talk about what people want to do with OSC here if you want to see what I'm doing but, frankly, it might be better to wait until V7.14 has been released and I've got OSC sussed. I'll be happy to share whatever I've worked out then. Meanwhile the OSC thread is for people to suggest what they'd like to do with it.

  8. @mikeb Had trouble replying to you here, updated the errors thread and now this is working.

    Not sure what you are asking/telling me in your post - it looks like you are doing sensible things with TouchOSC Mk1 but are they working as you expected. In particular, are the fader controls working?

  9. Sorry I can't reply in German, Google translate will have trouble with this.

    When a fixture isn't being controlled by something it will assume default values. Default for LED colours is usually white. Usually these are set in the profile as the "Home" value.

    If you bring up a playback that sets a colour on a fixture that isn't currently being controlled by something else it will start at the default then the fade will be from that to the playback colour and this may be what you are seeing.

    You could change the profile but its likely that when an official profile becomes available it will also default to white. Easier is to change the default. To do this, select your fixtures, set all the colour parameters to zero then update Home. It should offer you some options, select  Default. See manual here.

     

    • Thanks 1
  10. @KWR88You're welcome

    @kgallen Further to my PM regarding OSC out and triggering external things from the desk (rather than the desk from external things)

     

    Consider this... TouchOSC (this is the only app I've found so far) can send any OSC message to any or all of the OSC devices on a network. It can send different messages to different devices from the same control action and messages can be MIDI if that is what you want (though it can't send MIDI to FLX unless you have a MIDI output device plugged in, probably not a practical option on a tablet) so a TouchOSC control could be used to trigger a desk and a sound device at the same time (well very nearly).

     

    I can't (at the moment) see how a TouchOSC go/next cue button could trigger specific sounds to accompany specific cues in a stack but I'm pretty sure you could trigger a single cue (as in go/cue number) and it's accompanying sound from the same TouchOSC control. TouchOSC is a bit of a challenge - the original version (TouchOSC Mk1) was easier (and free) but more limited - its still available (and still free) though.

     

    Hopefully the powers at Z88 will spot the marketing potential of OSC out and keep it near the top of the ToDo list - would be nice if that included feedback to OSC controls as well. In the mean time I'm planning to investigate all the options I can for what we have so far.

  11. I'm a big user of MIDI at the moment but OSC looks set to provide a simpler and more versatile replacement an looks as though it is generating some interest in the community.

    Obviously this forum is the place to share ideas and experiences but...

    • How many of us are interested?
    • What are people hoping it will do for them?
    • Is anyone already using MIDI but hoping to replace it with OSC?

    To kick it off: I have a post elsewhere describing my use of MIDI in some detail, with a show file, but briefly I use a couple of 64 button MIDI controllers sending Notes commands to set colours, gobos, positions and run effects on LED pars, LED moving head washes and moving spots. It's very convoluted using Notes to trigger single cue PBs that then use cue macros to trigger other cues in cue stacks. It works but it takes 6 pages of PBs and it's quite inflexible taking hours to modify and days to set up from scratch. I also have to carry around and connect up the MIDI controllers and the box that converts from USB to proper MIDI. I anticipate OSC will fit into a single page of PBs, use a cheap Android tablet & a small portable router and have some potential to make limited changes on site.

    Come back with questions, ideas, whatever.

  12. 1 hour ago, kgallen said:

    If you’re recording a colour palette, what is your reason for wanting to record ICBSPE?

    I think you are supposed to be able to do it with any type of pallette but colour is the example in the manual.

    That said I had no luck when I was trying it the other day. Just assumed it was my fault though.

  13. First of all, clear + fader button releases the playback which is why the heads return to their default position (which happens to be home as defined in the fixture personality but doesn't have to be). It also stops the cue stack running and sets the next cue back to cue 1.

    You should be able to restart it but how will depend on the playback settings. You say you're in "manual fader 1 way" I haven't used this but, reading the manual. It looks like raising the fader will play cue 1 (heads move but stay dark), lowering it and raising it again should execute the 2nd cue, lighting the fixtures which should remain in the same position.

    If you just want a fader that lights the moving heads without the movement being visible then there are other ways.

    1. You could just record position & intensity onto a playback and set the button to Go/snap then press the button before raising the fader
    2. You could separate position & intensity onto separate controls, useful if you have multiple positions you want the fixtures in.

     

    • Like 1
  14. 4 hours ago, Muller Light said:

    Davidmk wants to trigger lighting cues from something external

    @Muller Light I already trigger cues using midi. I'm hoping I can do the same, more simply using OSC.

     

    5 hours ago, Muller Light said:

    trigger sound cues from the lighting desk

    Perhaps you can do it with a different media player that can be controlled using DMX (ideally via ArtNet or sACN) to play the files. There are, I think, Raspberry Pi solutions like this but you'll need to do some research.

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