K-Nine

As part of the next Frog updates software package, I will be updating the Frog series manual to include the new and modified functionality. It is a difficult task sometimes to get the 'balance' of the manual right - you don't want to make it too simplistic; neither do you want to make it too technical. I deliberately put some of the 'extra' information in the form of Notes, to keep the step by step operations down to reasonable lengths and not make them too complicated. There have been a lot of improvements and additions to the functionality of the Frog desks since they were first released and maybe some of these do require some clarification for some of the less experienced users. If there are specific areas of the manual where you feel more explanation of the philosophy or operation of the desk is required, please let me know and I will see what I can do If you have any questions on the operation of the desk, how to achieve a particular function etc. please feel free to post in these forums - we're here to help you get the best out of the desks. PS: There are actually some people who like the Frog manual CLICK HERE

Following complaints made to the IRB about the All Blacks being allowed to motivate themselves by performing the 'Haka' before their games, other nations were asked to suggest pre-match rituals of their own. The IRB Rugby World Cup Organising Committee has now agreed to the following pre-match displays: 1. The England team will chat about the weather, wave hankies in the air and attach bells to their ankles before moaning about how they invented the game and gave it to the world, and how it's not fair that everyone still thinks New Zealand are the best team in the world. 2. The Scotland team will chant "You lookin' at me Jimmy?" before smashing an Iron Bru bottle over their opponents' heads. 3. The Ireland team will split into two, with the Southern half performing a Riverdance, while the Northerners march the Traditional route from their dressing room to the pitch, via their opponent's dressing room. 4. Argentina will unexpectedly invade a small part of opposition territory, claim it as their own "Las In-Goals-Areas" and then be forcibly removed by the match stewards. 5. Two members of the South African team will claim to be more important than the other 13 whom they will imprison between the posts whilst they claim the rest of the pitch for themselves. 6. The Americans will not attend until almost full time. In future years they will amend the records to show that they were in fact the most important team in the tournament and Hollywood will make a film called 'Saving No.8 Lyle'. 7. Five of the Canadian team will sing La Marseillaise and hold the rest of the team to ransom. 8. The Italian team will arrive in Armani gear, sexually harass the female stewards and then run away. 9. The Spanish will sneak into the other half of the pitch, mow it and then claim that it was all in line with European "grass quotas". They will then curl up under the posts and have a kip until half time, when their appeal for compensation against the UK Government will be heard. 10. The Japanese will attempt to strengthen their team by offering good salaries to the key opposition players and then run around the pitch at high speed in a highly efficient manner before buying the ground (with a subsidy from the UK government). 11. The French will declare they have new scientific evidence that the opposition are in fact all mad. They will then park lorries across the halfway line, let sheep loose in the opposition half (much to the delight of the WELSH) and burn the officials. 12. The Australians will have a Barbie before negotiating lucrative singing and TV contracts in the UK. They will then invite all their mates to come and live with them in Shepherds Bush. Unfortunately the IRB Rugby World Cup Organising Committee were unable to accept the Welsh suggestion following representations from the RSPCA.

If you are referring to being able to adjust the speed of a chase live, this is something we are looking at including in the next Frog software update.

Go to the memories screen and select an unprogrammed memory. Move to the Type field and change the type to chase. Press EDIT LIVE or EDIT BLIND. Set channel levels for first step as required. Press SAVE STEP. Repeat for each step in the chase. On the last step press SAVE rather than SAVE STEP. For further details on programming, editing and playing back chases see the memories chapter in the user manual.

If you want the scanners and moving heads to do a random show, the best way is to program one or more memories, as required, and use the FROG function to output different colours, gobos position etc. There are a number of FROG parameters which determine if the output values snap or fade, speed, drive etc. See the Frog Series Operating Manual Pages 7-4 and 7-5 for details.

It sounds relatively straightforward from a user point of view, but then again so do lots of other functions on the desk :wink: Without knowing the details on how the memory data is stored internally on the desk or how the playback X and DMX generation algorithms work, it is difficult to say how easy or difficult this would be to implement :?

Count Dracula is out on the pull in Glasgow. He spends the night drinking duck Mary's in various clubs and biting on unsuspecting women's necks. He is heading for home, wandering along Argyle street sometime before sunrise. Suddenly he is hit on the back of the head. He looks round and sees nothing. He looks down and sees a small sausage roll. Mmm, he thinks. What's going on here. A few yards further on and ........Bang ! He’s smacked on the back of the head again! He whirls round as quick as he can - nothing. Again he looks down and there is a small triangular sandwich lying on the ground. How odd! A few yards further along the street and........Crash! He’s smacked on the back of the head again!! He whirls round as quick as he can - nothing. He's getting really angry now. Again he looks down and there is a cocktail sausage lying on the ground. He stands and peers into the darkness of the night. Nothing. He walks a few yards further on when he gets a tap on the shoulder. With a swirl of his cape and a cloud of mist he turns as fast as he can. He feels a sharp pain in his heart. He falls to the ground clutching his chest, which is punctured by a small cocktail stick laden with a chunk of cheese and a pickled onion. On the ground dying, he looks up and sees an attractive young female. With his dying breath he gasps, “Who the duck are you ?” Wait for it .......... Are you ready ........... Brace yourself ........ This'll make your day ........ "Hi, I’m BUFFET, the vampire slayer !"

Firstly, I don't think the Playback X is designed to be able to play back two cues simultaneously; it can obviously handle the transition between the current and next cues, but outputting two new cues at the same time is a very different matter. However, if you make the fade times of the first cue zero or very short, you could always put in a jump to the chase memory at 900+, such that it would run immediately after the first memory; you could then have a jump at the end of the chase to return it to the correct point in the memory stack. You are probably right :wink: That is one thing we have to be very careful of when looking at new features - you have to base the user interface on the existing front panel.

Please explain what you mean by a 'link' function. Remote output ? Do you mean the remote switches ?

The first thing to check is the fixture editing mode you have when you are editing the position movement effect parameters. The default mode for position is relative, but if you are in one of the fan modes, then if the primary fixture is the one that is locked then its value on the wheel LCD will appear static as you move the wheel, the other selected fixtures parameters will fan out accordingly. Try setting the edit mode to absolute - the parameter for all the selected fixtures should then go to the value shown on the wheel.

For a discussion on individual parameter programming see THIS TOPIC.

The Illusion 500 Moving Light software has been released and is now available from the Zero 88 website. To go to the downloads section of the site CLICK HERE Download the zip file onto your PC, unzip the file, copy the illusion.osf file onto a formatted floppy disk. and then upgrade your desk in the normal way.

That really depends on whether you want to convert the actual scenes you have set up in the memory stack into a 'chase effect' or just wish to use the scene memories as 'building blocks' for the steps of your chase :wink: There is also the possibility of transferring the scenes onto submasters; and then programming a new chase memory, using the submasters to set the required levels for each step.

Please can you advise us on which version of the software you are running on the desk so we can investigate this problem further.

The latest operating manual for the Frog Series desks can be found on the Zero 88 website: CLICK HERE

I am not quite sure what you are asking for here ... do you want to trigger the LTP data on the submaster or not ? If you don't want it to trigger any LTP's then when you record the data directly onto the sub or record a memory which is later transferred to a sub, you just record the HTP data (generic channels and fixture brightness parameters). To do this ensure that all fixtures are untagged when you hit record. If you have LTP data recorded on the sub, then that data will be triggered each time the submaster is raised above the LTP Trigger level.

To lxkev .... Out of interest .. Which of the Frog series desks do you have and how much does its price compare to that of a Pearl ?

Stick with the manual .. you know it makes sense

I don't remember in which version this bug occurred or in which version it was fixed. I do remember however, that the bug appeared to give you live control of chase speed but could also result in the desk crashing , that is why it was fixed. Live chase speed control is one of the functions we are looking to put in the next updates package for the Frog desks.

I take your point, it's just part of my ongoing campaign to encourage people to read the manual. It's amazing what valuable nuggets of information are contained in the various footnotes

Go on suggest it ... you know you want to :twisted:

I'm not sure if we are intending any further software updates for the Illusion 120/240 desks but it is certainly something we can add to the feature list for future consideration on the Illusion 500. Illusion Reference No 4723 - Use page up and page down buttons together to jump to submaster page 1 - to be reviewed.

Sorry to hear about your desk crashing but from your description it sounds like it could be a hardware related problem which may have been caused by the unusually low temperature.

The 'Offset' parameter is a specific movement effect parameter, one of the six parameters that define a movement effect. The wheel editing modes which include the three fan-functions are used to fan out the values of any fixture parameter across the selected fixtures. The fan-functions can be used on any of the four attributes (brightness, colour, beamshape or position).

Er Sorry, a problem with terminology again ... what exactly do you mean by the 'offset function' ?