Future feature changes/requests

[JakeS]

Hi there.

Not sure if it's fine to make a new topic for this or if is there any existing already, so in case there is, point me out please.


I just recently began to learn programming with ZerOS desk my cousin got, and am having few future changes wish-list, if it would be possible to change/include.

Firstly, is it possible to have max chase speed time increased, to be able to set it over 600 (which is 10Hz, if I'm correct?). Sometimes with brightness/color snaps chase on LED fixtures, it would be very useful to be able to increase the speed.

{{ From both points above I would guess that the desk is calculating timing in some second-to-minute alike relation, as speed 60 is 1 second... which I find a little odd. }}

 

 

Secondly, is it possible to have fade times (and other) corrected, so that it would accept times such as 0.25 as well, instead of only accepting 0.2 or 0.3? If that's not too much to handle for the desk, to calculate milliseconds, it would be awesome.

Next thing, is it possible to have color mode selected per fixture instead of default for desk? Having either CMY or RGB makes it a little difficult to handle sometimes, when using both types of fixtures. To be able to show both CMY and RGB, regarding the fixture type, and, in case both are selected, to have it shown on first/second wheel "submenu" (second group of wheel controls), would be much more handy.



Further wishes to be added. Thank you for your reply in advance.

 

 

 

 

Best,

 

Jake

[Jon Hole]

Hi Jake,

 

I just recently began to learn programming with ZerOS desk my cousin got

Which console are you using?

is it possible to have max chase speed time increased, to be able to set it over 600 (which is 10Hz, if I'm correct?).

I've added this request as ZOS-5775

From both points above I would guess that the desk is calculating timing in some second-to-minute alike relation, as speed 60 is 1 second... which I find a little odd.

The speed is calculated in Beats per Minute (BPM). So 60 beats per minute is one per second.

is it possible to have fade times (and other) corrected, so that it would accept times such as 0.25 as well, instead of only accepting 0.2 or 0.3? If that's not too much to handle for the desk, to calculate milliseconds, it would be awesome.

I've added this request as ZOS-5776

is it possible to have color mode selected per fixture instead of default for desk?

I've added a comment to issues ZOS-4780 and ZOS-3566 that already exist, asking for something similar.

Thank you for your reply in advance.

Thanks for the feedback and feature requests,

Jon

[JakeS]

Thanks for reply, Jon.

I'm learning on Leap Frog at the moment.

Thank you for adding all of these thoughts as requests on the list. Can't wait for you to make it live.


Anyway, just another thought ran through my head when I was checking the Pan/Tilt grid within the Position window. It doesn't really make much sense to me just yet, especially when selecting multiple fixtures and trying to just move them for specific amount of Pan/Tilt. Instead of moving them for a little, they all get to the position of the pan/tilt values the grid sets, if I understood correctly? So said, the center is 50% / 50% (127/127) for pan and tilt dmx values, so if movers are set to some position on stage, if I try to move them just a little up with the grid, they will actually move to "random" locations, -> referring to the same dmx values.

 

No 1: Would it be possible to use relative position values instead, so that they would actually move for a specific value, instead of TO a specific value of the grid? I believe this would make more sense, at least to me. What's your opinion on this one?

No 2:

 

A little more complicated and sophisticated idea, yet quite powerful I think. I hope I can describe it detailed enough for you to imagine what I have in mind:

 

Let's say you keep the grid, and have some button named "Learn" for example; With that button, you "learn" the desk the position of selected moving heads. It would work like this:

You would have the grid with a square inside, like if you'd see the football stadium from top view, the full grid would be the whole grass area, and the inner grid would be only the play ground, -> that square inside would actually be the "out" line of the stadium. I hope you get the idea.

Anyway, you would put every (or desired) movers to specific location, one by one, or more, depends on the user wishes; By clicking the "Learn" button, and pressing one of the corners of the inner square (play ground border) for example (or simply having the sequence of 4 Learn presses, but it must somehow indicate to the user which corner is active), would record the selected movers positions (pan and tilt values) as that corner; Once the user records at least 3 ( or better 4 I think..), of those Learns - corner positions, they would be stored. This would be reference values for the desk to recalculate all other values inside and outside of that square -> the important part is the inside values. This way, you could set all movers to the same point by choosing the point on the grid;

For example imagine situation having that set up on stage -> with this function you could very easily select desirable movers and simply press on the position to move all of them to that point -> for solos, or manual follow on stage, this would be more than awesome. Even outside of the stage, to make some pan/tilt drops and risings, this would be awesome and much more useful than pan/tilt wheels, I think.

How sophisticated is it to make something like this implemented? Do you think something like this would be useful?

I think this function would make live work so much better.. Looking forward in hearing your opinion.

Best,

 

Jake

[iank99]

There was an feature similar to this in the Sirius 250 & 500 whereby you could 'tell' the desk the outside corners of the performance area so that you could program positions for fixtures then when you moved to another theatre or space - you only reset the corners again and the desk recalculated the position of the fixtures accordingly.

 

However, several factors seemed to work against it - hanging positions of the fixtures feed in to the equations so it becomes 3d trigonometry and also each model of fixture (and sometimes even individual fixtures of the same model) move in different ways per DMX value for pan & tilt i.e. you feed it DMX 127 which fixture A defines internally as 30degrees tilt yet fixture B calls it 35 degrees. To do the function you're imagining would need (I suspect) some complex translation tables for each fixture within the desk and someone would need to compile the tables.

 

In practice - what works out better (otherwise the desk would get dragged down in speed with lots of fixtures using that approach) is to plot the DMX values and send them, then for the designer to go through and tweak the 'wayward' fixtures that are just "off". For that you just need a desk function that lets you solo each fixture quickly whilst stepping through all the fixtures one by one and then 'nudge' them in to place by a few degrees.

Edited July 8, 2014 by iank99

[JakeS]

I think (mostly) I get your point, @iank99.

I'll try to make some model for how this might work. There are a few ideas in my head for this one. Although yes, it's true that solving differences between the models isn't easy. But I believe that setting a few points for a mover, so that it has reference of pan and tilt, could make math easy enough to include speed increase with lowering the angle.

Also thanks for Sirius info. Will take a look into their model.

Ps: the last part is true, especially for moving the desk around and having same scene at different locations. However, I was implying more on simplifying programming positions at current venue, instead of having it on others..

[Jon Hole]

How sophisticated is it to make something like this implemented? Do you think something like this would be useful?

 

I'm not going to say much at the moment... but we're working on something, and it takes your idea even further :-)

[JakeS]

Nice thing! Can't wait to hear what you're working on! Good luck and hope to see that soon

Ps:
Another feature request:

Could you maybe implement another option within the patching window, in the window where we set DMX address, so that we'd have another Edit box, (by default set to "0"), where we could enter the dmx offset for patching automatically?

Possible scenario:

 

I'm patching Led bars as 3 fixtures, one for modes and other for colors. However, since it's one fixture, it has 11 dmxes in use. I use 1 so called "Master", for addresses from 1 to 5, and then 2 "Slaves" for addresses from 6 to 8 and 9 to 11. However, to patch 10 masters and 20 slaves in order to use 10 of these fixtures, I need to patch every master 1 by 1, so that I can set the address correctly (I'm not going out, just have to press "back" button, and correct the DMX address, but it's still time consuming), and then 2 by 2 slaves, until I have all patched.

If I could set some dmx delay in the patching window, for 6, the desk could automatically patch masters like this: 1 to 5, then the next instead on address 6 it would patch on 6 (next free) + 6 (delay) so on 12. Next fixture again on 17 + 6 = 23, etc...
This way I'd simply click on 10 MFK's to auto patch 10 of these masters.

If you'd take it to the next level, adding option "every x fixtures", it would be perfect, but that's like asking for a hand before you offer me a finger.... However, this way I could set delay to 5 and "every" to 2, and have slaves patched just as they should be within seconds.... )


I know this is not a must have, but could be handy even when patching other fixtures..... Just an idea, though....

 

 

Best,

 

Jake

[Jon Hole]

Another feature request:

Could you maybe implement another option within the patching window, in the window where we set DMX address, so that we'd have another Edit box, (by default set to "0"), where we could enter the dmx offset for patching automatically?

 

We've had other requests for this too - so I've added a comment with a link to this thread to say we've had another request. It's logged as ZOS-1704

[JakeS]

Ok. Thanks for this info. PS: is there a topic listing all these ZOS bugs and requests, that I haven't been able to find by myself, or is this list unavailable to public?

 

 

One more ->
Due to new fixtures being released, such as all those LED multicolor pars and other actually non-inteligent devices, it is pretty easy to patch the 200 fixtures that are available on the desk.

Especially with these LED bars I mentioned before, for example, where each takes up to 3 fixtures for easier operation (as suggested in the other topic ), so having 30 of these bars the desk has 90 fixtures occupied, which is almost half.

I know it could be dangerous if more than 200 intelligent fixtures would be used, since you must've had a reason to limit this, but those LED lights doesn't have any special effects, nor pan/tilt etc, so I believe these fixtures are not so hard for the desk to handle.

 

That said, raising the limit for maximum fixtures patched could come handy nowadays. Not that I've ever used up all the space, but got close enough on yesterday's show... I wonder if this is achievable.

Sorry for having to deal with my posts....


Thanks

 

Best,

 

Jake

[Jon Hole]

is there a topic listing all these ZOS bugs and requests, that I haven't been able to find by myself, or is this list unavailable to public?

 

I'm afraid that's not available publicly. We give you a reference if you ever want to contact us about it again in the future, and the release notes will include this reference.

raising the limit for maximum fixtures patched could come handy nowadays ... I wonder if this is achievable.

 

There has to be a limit. If we raised it to 300, we'd just get a request to make it 400! There are only 2048 DMX channels available. Assuming that 48 of those are taken up by the faders, that's only 10 channels per fixture if you patched all 200 fixtures... so they are already limited to very basic fixtures

[JakeS]

Ok, I got that wrong. I counted as if analog dimmers on faders count as fixtues, but tried that today and found that it's actually 248 fixtures the real limit, not 200. So, yes, you have that right - 10ch per fixture is less than usual to it's up to 2000 very fast. My bad.


Few more questions:

Is there already that I'm not aware of, or is there an option you could implement the function to change parameters with fading, as most of other consoles have?
Such as, pressing number 5 (on either keyboard's numeric pad or on integrated keypad) and selecting color would mean that the desk changes the color to selected fixtures using 5s crossfade time? The same would apply for positions and beamshapes....? I found that option quite useful but not being able to use it on ZerOS consoles. This would be awesome and almost a must-have

Next, not so important, yet friendly for those who doesn't have touch screen, being able to use Shift to multiple select groups would be better and faster than having to click with mouse on "And" button each time. If this is possible for by the way in some future release....

 

 

Thanks so far.

 

 

Best,

Jake

 

[Jon Hole]

Is there already that I'm not aware of, or is there an option you could implement the function to change parameters with fading, as most of other consoles have?

Such as, pressing number 5 (on either keyboard's numeric pad or on integrated keypad) and selecting color would mean that the desk changes the color to selected fixtures using 5s crossfade time? The same would apply for positions and beamshapes....? I found that option quite useful but not being able to use it on ZerOS consoles. This would be awesome and almost a must-have

Are you aware of how to set Colour, Beamshape and Position fades per cue and submaster? Are you wanting to break this down even further, so different fixtures fade over different lengths of time? If so, this is available on the ORB Series of consoles, but not available on the Leapfrog 48&96 or Solution Series.

Next, not so important, yet friendly for those who doesn't have touch screen, being able to use Shift to multiple select groups would be better and faster than having to click with mouse on "And" button each time. If this is possible for by the way in some future release....

 

I think you have an external keyboard plugged in? If so, press the '+' on the keyboard (not on the front panel) between each group and it will multi select them.

[JakeS]

No, it's not what I meant.
Yes, I'm aware how to use fade times in cues, submasters and memories, but it's not breaking further what I was talking about. I haven't expressed correctly:
during live show, when you're applying changes to the programmer, like selecting fixtures and applying pallete -> those changes are immediate and sudden, which in some cases works perfect, while in other doesn't, like when you'd want to have smooth change via programmer -> this is where that timing to crossfade/fade the pallete parameters/changes would be more than welcome.

I know you can do this via submasters or memories, but in many cases it just happens you don't have everything programmed so you work live, where this option is missing.
Basically, it is a buffer holding fade time, which is used for whatever change follows...

Thx for the "+" tip. I was missing that part!

[Jon Hole]

during live show, when you're applying changes to the programmer, like selecting fixtures and applying pallete -> those changes are immediate and sudden, which in some cases works perfect, while in other doesn't, like when you'd want to have smooth change via programmer -> this is where that timing to crossfade/fade the pallete parameters/changes would be more than welcome.

 

Oh, I see! Yes - you can do that. Press 'Special', press 'Time' on the Multi Functional Keys (MFKs) and then enter the time you would like to assign to the programmer. Holding SHIFT whilst pressing 'Time' (on the MFKs) will enable and disable this (LED will come on, and the background on the LCD will turn white).

 

Hope this helps

[JakeS]

Now this is great. That "Shift" part was missing to figure out what the function of that "Time" actually was.
It's just one bad thing about it - it stays set all the time. :/

 

Could you maybe do at least something like this: Presing Shift + Time enables it (marks the display) for all time, with the fade time entered, while pressing "time", and entering fade time in the field, on Enter enables it for only one change (either color, position or beamshape).. ? Or at least to have an option to set if the time either resets to zero every time, or stays as is set... ? This would make it better.

This is how actually that numpad function on others, like Chamsys works -> numpad number sets fade time for only one action that follows and then sets time back to zero.
Of course too bad this isn't implemented on keyboard anyway, the procedure over MFKs is fine but slow, especially if you then need to switch to Colour or any other palletes on MFKs to trigger it....

 

Still good to kn ow the feature is there!

 

 

 

Best,

Jake

[JakeS]

Hah, just can't get enough of this, but I hope you really don't mind...

Another one, which is quite missing most of the time: the "UPS" button -> a few (as many as possible, 30 would be somehow good enough) steps back to whatever changes we've done to the desk - except for the programmer, which can be cleared anyway. That said, overwritting submaster or memory -> "Ups" takes it back as it was. It's basically "Undo" function, and since the Flash (at least in LF and Solution) is 1GB, the ZerOS only takes up to 70MB, and the show file is limited to 342MB anyways, there is plenty of spare space that could be used to store this kind of backup information. Do you think you could implement this?

[ziglight]

my personal feature request :

I think that has been asked allready => I would be very happy to have a random-generator (random-pulse or step or so...) in the FX-Window

 

it takes me a lot of time to create random effects with the actual generators when there is a great number of fixtures ! it would be so much easier and faster to have a random step (or fade or pulse) generator... thanks

 

another request : it would be great also to have the possibilité to export the "Patch-View" as a text file (CSV ou ASCII or so)

 

and a last one (I talked about that allready):

a little feature when selecting fixtures : actually one hit (on the fixture MFK) selects the fixture, a second hit deselects it

on other desks we have the fast double-hit that selects the fixture, but also deselects (clear) all other fixtures (when there is allready a selection actif)

this is very usefull (and quick acces) for little adjustments

(I know that since OS 7.8 this is easy to do also in the "old way" because one hit on the clear button clears now the patch first; in 7.7 we had to hit twice on that button and the programmer-window was cleared at the same time...its more parctical now ..)

anyway -that sort of "double-hit=solo-selection" would be even more practical....

 

thanks for reading me....

[Jon Hole]

I would be very happy to have a random-generator (random-pulse or step or so...) in the FX-Window

 

This is already added, and is high up on our "to-do" list.

 

it would be great also to have the possibilité to export the "Patch-View" as a text file (CSV ou ASCII or so)

I definitely agree, and there is already work on creating a new specification for CSV Export to make this much better.

a little feature when selecting fixtures : actually one hit (on the fixture MFK) selects the fixture, a second hit deselects it

on other desks we have the fast double-hit that selects the fixture, but also deselects (clear) all other fixtures (when there is allready a selection actif)

this is very usefull (and quick acces) for little adjustments

(I know that since OS 7.8 this is easy to do also in the "old way" because one hit on the clear button clears now the patch first; in 7.7 we had to hit twice on that button and the programmer-window was cleared at the same time...its more parctical now ..)

anyway -that sort of "double-hit=solo-selection" would be even more practical....

 

 

As you say, the new order of the CLEAR button solves this, and makes it much much easier. I'll add this as a further request, but there are future developments which may not make this possible.

[ziglight]

okey, Jon

thank you very much for your answers.... !!

[max]

Hi,

 

I would like an RGBW colour picker since most of the LED fixtures we use(and probably more people) are RGBW

and I have to make palletes for every colour which is a real nuissance.

 

Thanks in advance,

Max

[Jon Hole]

Hi Max,

 

Thanks for your comment. I've added this to issue ZOS-848, which is regarding adding support in Auto Palettes and the Colour Picker for additional colours other than just RGB and CMY

[ziglight]

....I've added this to issue ZOS-848, which is regarding adding support in Auto Palettes and the Colour Picker for additional colours other than just RGB and CMY

this would be a good idea...

what happens at the moment is this :

when creating Auto-Pallets the White and/or Amber Channels are always untagged

 

If we use RGBA ou RGBW fixtures and the W-channel is "ON" (for example on a previous personal pallet, a submaster or memory and I hit than a basic colour palette (say RED) I never get red but Red+White (the previous value of W or A)

 

so I rectify all these basic colour-pallets (with White tagged at 0)... but when I add, say, 10 other fixtures and hit Auto-Menu again, I am back on the starting point.... (with A or W untagged on all Auto-Pallets including those which I already "fixed")

 

so this is sometimes a bit boring !!

It would be better that Auto-Menu "knows" if there are A or W channels and tag them at 0 for primary colors !!)

 

concerning the color-picker I think this would be not easy to get "good values" because essentially depending on the real power of the White Leds (or Amber Leds)

 

I see that for my fixtures that a pale colour needs says 40% of White on some fixtures; but this same RGBW value gives a clearly white output on another fixture where the "same pale colour" is achieved with only 5% ou 7% of white

 

so for a RGBW or RGBA color-picker this might be very random-resulting.... (but this is just my personal opinion... nothing else...)

the real thing important for me is to get the A and W channels tagged in the basic Auto-Pallets (without having to fix this all the time !)

[Roy.]

I want to use an external Software for LED Matrix Operation with ADJ Dotz Illusion.
It would be fine to have an ArtNet Input for ORB XF.

[Jon Hole]

I want to use an external Software for LED Matrix Operation with ADJ Dotz Illusion.

It would be fine to have an ArtNet Input for ORB XF.

 

How would you like this to be merged with the DMX being processed by the console?

[Roy.]

HTP. The external software gives me a "film" consisting of RGB colours. The console should override this whith white patterns. So I can strobe at every moment.