loading/saving questions. And what is NOT possible??

[Ed75]

Hello. Quite an experienced FLX user, and now having the following questions.

I searched for the possibility to partly load shows including playbacks/cueslists.

Example1: Loading an updated cuelist (we all update during touring) on an existing patch. ( I return to a specific theatre during touring, and using the 'old' patch would be convenient)

Example2: In another tour I travel with two different patches/fixturelists, one for the smaller venues, one for the larger. In this case it would also be nice to just be able to 'swap' the cuelists. instead of needing to think about changes I made before in the other version.  

The current options of loading a part of a show does not include these possibilities, though they would be very very convenient.

I tried loading partly, but it wipes the cuelist. which is annoying.......

Are there Any genius workarounds for this? 🤓

 

greetings, Ed

 

[kgallen]

I thought I asked for some partial load/save stuff like this, but having had a brisk look through ye olde "What would you like to see..." thread I don't see it 🤔

ETA: I see now "Partial file load" on the original list and I did elaborate on my first post. Should'a gone to SS... No progress on that one that I know of.

 

[Davidmk]

I work in the same venue most of the time with the same patch for years at a time and a have a showfile for it with everything I need to busk. I just add a few bits for each show and yet this would still be so useful to me.

The same acts come year after year but I can't reuse the showfile from the last time they were there because my "standard" set up evolves with time but being able to extract a few playbacks and MFKs from the last time and add them to my standard set up would be good.

I also have my own rig, again with a standard setup, which Includes every fixture I own even though I don't use all of them at every gig and it is frustrating not to be able to copy in things from previous gigs with similar fixture positions.

Now, I can see why there is no facility to do partial loads when the the channels are different would give rise to some unexpected results and if the channels referred to different makes/models of fixtures the results could be particularly "interesting". There'd be a few support calls from that I expect.

While I'd like so see partial loads they'd probably need a health warning ("The results of this load could be spectacularly confusing. Are you sure?")

What might be useful instead is the ability to load CSV showfilles. You can already save CSV files, these could be manipulated and combined in a spreadsheet, saved as CSV and then loaded to a desk. They might not work, of course, but you'd know what you'd done and the effort of doing it would mean only those with a real interest would be attempting it. It would have to be an unsupported feature but I'd be willing to give it a go.

Another thing that would be handy would be a subtle change to groups making them more like pallettes so you could record a cue with a fixture group, change the fixtures in the group and the desk would apply the relevant parameters to all the fixtures in the group. Obviously things like a colour wheel parameter couldn't apply to an RGB fixture and again it might need a health warning but it would get you a better starting point.

We can't hope for cues/playbacks/MFKs/pallettes to 'just work" when different fixtures are involved but getting them into the showfile would be a better starting point even if you had to step through them making corrections.

What do you think @Jon Hole is there a remote possibility of helping us out here?

[Ed75]

23 minutes ago, Davidmk said:

We can't hope for cues/playbacks/MFKs/pallettes to 'just work" when different fixtures are involved but getting them into the showfile would be a better starting point even if you had to step through them making corrections.

With the 'replace fixture' option it works pretty well, because groups get recorded after the fixtures names and not the types. of course there could be some hiccups in color or beam behaviour, but in general it works. I sometimes have to change dimmers into LED fixtures, which goes pretty well. For this  reason I usually build a show with enough 'space' in it for dmx adresses, by dividing the lot over multiple universes. For example all my front lights in one universe. This might involve only 16 dimmers, (16 dmx-adresses) , but it leaves me space for replacing them with multiple-address LED fixtures without any problems in the rest of my patch. (which is on one or more extra universes) very handy, and the investment in a Sacn or artnet node is pretty worth it. At the moment I can divide my fixtures over 8 universes which is absolutely handy.

The only thing I miss: moving fixtures from an universe to another universe is easy, IF fixtures are addressed successive. Start adressing by the first address and ready. If not, it's a bit a pain, because every fixture needs to be adressed individually then. Is there a way to solve this?  just changing the universe without the desk 'forgetting' the adresses?

This is also the reason I address everything successive. (my own rig) but in theatres this doesn't work of course, because you could need dimmer 1 and 7 and 11 and 64 (for example)