Fan Offset Displayed Value

[Kresten Bager]

Hi all,

 

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature ;-) I guess the difference can be minute at times.

 

Select a few movers, start an effect, e.g. a circle

move the offset wheel, it will go 0...1...2...3... to 100 and back again but never 0...100 - great everything is fine still.

 

Set the fan option to fan first, press the shift key and move the wheel and the value will neither increase or decrease. First bug.

 

Set the fan option to fan middle or fan last and move the wheel. The value will go from 99...100...0...1...2 and also the other way 2...1...0...100...99. Second bug.

 

But like I said I may have confused a clever feature for a bug.

 

Best regards

Kresten Bager

[K-Nine]

I don't think it is a bug, or really a 'feature' ... it is just a matter of understanding what the different fan functions do and what data is being displayed on both the touch screen and the monitor screens in relation to the selected fixtures

 

Try experimenting with the fan functions for altering parameter values rather than effect parameters and it should be clearer what is actually happening to the values on each of the selected fixtues.

 

If you have a number of fixtures selected and you set the wheel mode to fan first, hold down the SHIFT key and then move a wheel to change either a parameter value (eg intensity, colour, gobo, pan etc.) or an effect parameter value (eg offset), the value displayed on the touch screen does not appear to change since it is displaying the data for the first selected fixture and in fan first mode the value for the first fixture is fixed (static) and the others fan relative to it, as per the design.

 

With fixture parameter values you can see the different values for all of the selected fixtures on the Program Window. On the Effects Window you are only seeing the value for the first of the fixtures. You cannot see what the offset values are for the other selected fixtures. This is something that we are aware of and will be looking at improving the interface in a later version.

 

For example - Display the Program Window on the monitor. Select 10 fixtures of the same type, set all their intensities to zero, set the wheel mode to fan first and slowly increase the intensity with the wheel. The intensity of the first fixture will remain at zero and the others will increase accordingly.

 

The offset parameter for effects is different to the size and speed parameters in that it 'wraps round' at the end values rather than having two end stops, so that an offset of 0 = an offset of 100. It is designed this way in order to provide the correct functionality for the effects engine.

 

If you start at zero and increase the offset value you eventually reach 100, continue in the same direction and you wrap round to zero and start increasing again. Similarly if you start at zero and decrease, you go to 100, 99, 98 .... down to zero.

 

Try imagining the offset parameter as a compass such that a value of 0 (or 100) is North, 25 is East, 50 is South, 75 is West.

 

Example - select 10 fixtures, and a wheel mode of fan middle. Set all the offset values initially to zero and then fan the offset of all the selected fixtures using the control wheel. After a while the values may look something like this ..

 

Fixture 1 = 82

Fixture 2 = 86

Fixture 3 = 90

Fixture 4 = 94

Fixture 5 = 98

Fixture 6 = 2

Fixture 7 = 6

Fixture 8 = 10

Fixture 9 = 14

Fixture 10 = 18

 

If the offset parameter did not wrap round then Fixtures 1 - 5 would remain at zero and only fixtures 6-10 (ie those after the 'middle' fixture) would be fanned.

 

Hope this explains things