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I've given the topic a good thought, and came up with the following idea: It would be great to set a new option in the "super user mode" for programming transparant palletes. The idea is to program a pallet in exactly the same way we've been doing, but when the option is set, only non-zero values get programmed. Then when you "load" a pallet, the desk should be able to recognize which attributes were non-zero, and only load those values. Maybe it would be easy (programming-wise) to use a different, for the user nonexistant, value for transparant attributes. IE. 256 would be a transparant value which isn't copied. Simple if-statements in the programming code should be able to do this I guess. I know that transparancy at attribute-level isn't to be implemented in the next software release, but as I see it this solution isn't difficult to program at all. The only thing an operator could complain about is the fact that 0 values can't be programmed anymore. That wouldn't be an issue since most fixtures use ranges, so values 0-5 would be exactly the same as 0. If this isn't infact true, than a question would solve the trick. Option in "super user mode": "Ask for transparant pallets? yes/no". When enabled, the desk asks "Program transparant? yes/no" when a 0 value occurs. What do u guys think about this? Since it would be an option, unexperienced users should leave it disabled and use the desk as they always did.

If this is indeed the case, I thank you! In a previous show I did i wasn't able to correct my positions in certain scenes by editing, but I guess this would be the solution to my problem then. Didn't actually bother to take a look at the LCD, when you're used to the monitor that little thingy sucks

This weekend I was operating a leap frog. When I went out for a quick leak the other opp. came running out that the desk crashed. I immediately rushed back in, and indeed; the console was completely gone. Fortunalty all the intelligent lighting remembered there last settings, so the band wasn't completely dark; but I wasn't ammused at all. The monitor displayed somed scrambled text (unreadable), and the desk didn't respond to anything at all. There was no throwing of beer of something, so that couldnt have been the cause of it. The only unusual aspect was the fact that it was nearly freezing, and so was the desk. I don't know if that could have caused the problem? I resetted the desk and it worked again, but my collegue told me that it crashed another 2 times afterwards, but after that it was fine again. As you can see I can't reproduce the problem. I'll install the newest software edition this week, and pray that this won't happen again during more important shows than the one last week. I know you probably don't have a solution, but wanted to post the problem anyway; crashing desks != sweet! greetings from Holland, Jasper

Ok than I was misinformed, I'm sorry. My boss told me that it was possible on a Sirius so I wondered why that functionality was dropped. I understand it's a lot of work to implement such a thing, too bad but I'll just use the submasters than I guess. Thanks anyway!

Exactly! And what was the reason for that? The Sirius Desk can and I guess it wouldn't hurt anyone if it was possible right. I don't really get why this feature wasn't programmed anymore.

It's not possible to enter, for instance DMX address 1 several times into a few channels, cause the desks automatically skips the values already used before. That's what I meant, and that's what I miss!

I've read the notes as you may have seen, and found my problem. Wouldn't it be convenient to make an option so that one can view the final effect BEFORE programming it? I mean; if you don't like the effect you've got to edit the thing again, alter the parameters without being able to see what you're doing, and then try it all over again; right?

It seems to me that programming of these attributes doens't work :S I made a scene with a few movingheads, all with different offsets. But as soon as I pressed the "program" button all heads started moving together again :S Is there a special step or something to program these things, or did you guys forget something? I really couldn't find out what I was doing wrong!

Why was this functionality removed from the Zero consoles? Our older Sirius has no problem patching different DMX addresses multiple times to different faders, and I kinda liked the feature. For example; when using a few different bars of PARs I like to group certain colours. Now I can use a submaster for this purpose, but as I use these groups quite often I tend to program them in each bank. It would be a lot easier if I could also program these groups in one of the channelfaders. I don't really get why this functionality was dropped, if there was a good reason; then what was it?

Too bad the console isn't mine, and working as a 18 year old student doesn't pay that much

Ok, but programming seperate submasters for movement / color / gobo etc isn't possible right (or am I missing something here)? And when you have about 5 pages (lets assume seperate programming of those items is possible, as it hopefully will be in the next upate) with 12 scenes / chases per fixture (that's fairly realistic right?) you couldn't even fit 2 fixture types on the desk. It's not that I'm programming that much scenes / chases at the moment, but I do want to keep a nice and fairly quick structure when the partial programming gets updated... that's gonna increase the number of memories dramatically I think (the idea of seperate movements, colors and gobos is very attracting to me), and I want to keep this option open to prevent problems like this when te update is released. I am open to different solutions, but for now I still think it's going to be a bit of a mess when working with a lot of different fixtures in disco shows (all this stuff doens't really apply to concerts / bands because you would program more items into your scene's so working in a sequential way is possible).

Uploading your own background would be very nice indeed But let's focus on the important sofware updates first please

Ok that is indeed a solution to my problem, however the memory number thingy should be selected right? But that's not a big problem I guess. I do use the memories screen as a stack in sequential way, but not on all occasions. We provide lighting to a number of different kinds of events, such as musicals (sequential), concerts (mostly sequential) but also stuff like house-party's. In those occasions it's very convenient to have groups of scenes / chases; for each type of fixture an own group. This way (with partial programming) one can make a list of scenes in each group and combine whatever suits the music. Especially when it would become possible to program a scene just for gobo effects, colors etc. it would increase the flexibility tremeandously! Then it would be possible to create a list of movements, a list of gobo programs, a list of color chases and maybe even dimmer chases. Working like that, you can easily create a lot of programs with just limited time. But that also would mean many different memories, and a huge list in the memories screen. I'm already using a pen and paper to write down where certain groups of memories are located, so I can access them as quickly as possible. And I guess a pen and paper shouldn't be used when working with a computer; that thing is made to replace them What other way is there to solve this kind of programming problems? And the submasters are no option by the way: 12 programs per group just isn't gonna be enough I guess, and the pages don't have a "naming" thing, right? I just want to be able to work really, really quick in a live situation. That would give me a chance te keep up with the music and create the neatest effects. Searching for memories by scrolling / typing (and then again have to look for the right memories; the font size isn't that big... it usually takes a bit of searching) isn't working for me right now, but maybe it will with a bit of explanation?

When working with a lot of different memories it's getting more and more difficult to remember where certain programs were locate, and there's no real quick way to find them. I wonder why you guys made 1 single list with all memories? I think it won't be too hard to make a few different pages of memories (for instance by pressing the "memories" button and selecting a page with the channel flash buttons?) and it would increase the speed of working i think, because now you can quickly move from one page to another. In this way, when working with a few different fixture types one can easily create a memory page per fixture, and with partial programming only program the fixtures in a certain page. For instance; a page with all movindhead-spots, one for the washes and one for a couple of scans (or something like that). It would be kind of similar to the way the submasters are used (with the different pages), but now the flash buttons and faders are missing, right? This is just an idea, I think there are several possible ways to deal with this problem; but the huge list of memories as it exists now isn't working too well for me I guess.

I totally agree to this, the disco effects should be on the stage, not on my display , its indeed very distracting.

I hope that update is released soon. The console is great, control is simple even if you've never used such a console (our previous consoles weren't this big and didn't have any intelligent stuff on it). But the problem of partial programming of movements and other (seperate) effects is really beginning to bug me. It just means a lot of extra work while programming which easily could be redused to less steps when working with seperated programming (or whatever it's called).

Ok that's indeed what I meant. Looking forward to the updates

Why aren't the parameters of the shape generator (ie speed, x and y size, the kind of shape, offset and so on) stored when one saves these movement effects into a scene? For instance color values are remembered by the desk and displayed on the LCD. Also pallete values are displayed as P01 (if I'm not mistaken) on the LCD, but the values of the effect generator are lost. This way it's hard to alter a specific move if that's nescessary. You can't change any of the values in the effect generator cause such a thing results in a full stop of the movement of the fixture. It would be very helpful if the desk would remember such parameters and display them in the LCD so that live editing of scene's would become possible as it already is when working with the gobo's / effects / colors etc.

Just a quick question: I looked at the manuals on the internet, and the updates in previous OS systems and as I see it not all of the new features are discussed in the manual. For instance the programming of certain fixture attributes (like transparant programming) isn't discussed anywere (or I overlooked). Is there something like an "update" manual? It's maybe a smart thing to keep the documentation for the updates seperate from the orgininal manual (or create 2 versions at least). Searching the new versions of the manual again for new options is rather irritating and takes a lot of time. (didn't know where to post this so social was the best option maybe its a feature request but is a manual considered to be a feature?) thanx, Jasper from Holland

Good, I'm looking forward to that Maybe I'm too lazy but I didn't find a list of all updates from previous software versions for the Frog series. Is there such a list somewhere, or just the updates list for the lastest version? Just curious what has been altered since the first release Moderation: remainder of topic split to here, since a concise list is in fact quite useful...

Maybe it's an option using the scroll wheels for scrolling through lists (as the memory list)? Of course only when no fixtures are selected . Could be very useful for instance when patching fixtures (scrolling with the buttons takes ages!) or searching in the memories list.

I was wondering if there's any software for this fixture (I didn't find any on the zero88 website), or whether it's gonna be made or not? I used 8 Movitec SL250 Moving Heads on a Zero88 Leap Frog last weekend, and noticed there wasn't any software for this fixture available. So i used the FrogFixture Editing tool to write the software myself. It all went fine, and the software worked fine too exept the "home" function. I programmed the default DMX values of PAN and TILT to 128 and tried setting the "HOME" value in the "Stage Data" tab to 128, but nothing would solve the problem. When I press HOME on the Frog, the DMX values of PAN and TILT are set to "0-128", so the PAN fine (PAN and TILT are both 16 bit values on movitec movingheads with channel 1-2 pan and 3-4 tilt) and TILT fine are being set to the correct value! So how do I get the "main" DMX values of PAN and TILT set on HOME to be 128? Unfortunately I couldn't get it done so programming and working with the moving heads was kind of tricky. I've placed some phonecalls to people here in Holland who I thought might know a solution, but the only solution I got was using the software of another type of fixture (I've already forgotten which one), but configuring software yourself should work too, right? Also: Is there any way of reading the data of other fixtures? I've tried to read out software of other types of fixtures (for instance the 2 MAC500 Moving Heads we were also using) in order to find out how their HOME values were specified, but I couldn't find any way of doing this. Is there any software available capable of reading this data? I'm looking forward to an answer, whether it's a solution in the fixture editor or software somebody else wrote: as long as my moving heads work it's fine by me I'm sorry for my English, it's still a little crappy... don't blame me, I'm Dutch