Frogs and the Future ?

[lxkev]

Ive taken 3 months of work for uni:-( i miss the bullfrog :roll:

 

Right i've got a few ideas:

 

* a submaster master fader!!!!

 

* cueline (im talking more about cueline from the sirus500, it would be great to play back multiple brightness states)

 

* LCD window above the submaster, displaying names of each sub!!

 

* AUTO Pallet

 

Mointor:

 

First of all i think cueline should work in the same manor as the sirus500..i.e LCD display states "you need a mointor for this function", inless u can ingeat a mointor into the desk?

 

when i bought the sirus500, a few years ago, the thing that made me wamt it was, the simple yet effective graphics i.e. the size of the momevment effect...going into stage mode and actual seeing a dot follow the shape, rather then some useless DMX values

 

Also please, please, please can the name of the dmx vaule be displayed like the sirus500..i.e. colours names, gobos etc... it was fantastic when programming blind.

 

 

Advance chases....ok what i would love to see is...indivdule fade in/wait times on a each step of the chase... so basicly u could still have the basic chase ooperation found on the frog, however have a advance chase memory.....

 

be nice to select generic fixtures and control there level via the wheels......

 

erm....yeah..excuse the spelling..aint slept in 3days...duck uni

[Pipo]

I just need a fantastic effects generator for Position Clolour beamshape and brightness!!!

[felixgeiger]

i just thougth i bring the topic back to top, so the discussion will go on... it's interesting to witness the birth of a new desk (which might or might not yet exist)...

 

as a theatre lighty: it needs a keypad, the mentioned user-definable faders need to be able to limit htp outputs, reduction as avo calls it, or topset as u used to call it on older desks.

the user-definable buttons need to be able to execute makros. the makro-language should be able to change the content of the userdefinable faders, so if in the first part of a performance i need 10 different faders, than in the 2nd part, i will press one of those user-defined button to execute makro F5 or whatever and the 10 submasters will be cleared and the new content is set up.

and what about a wheel for the brightness parameter? a wheel or a ribbon fader (like maxxyz), just something fast-responding and infinite, where moving up means increase, and down decrease. in connection with a keypad, it's a very powerful instrument.

yeah, i know theatre light is an own world, but working there for some time with in my eyes the most powerful lighting desks (transtechnik), u don't want to miss those features....

 

then i guess, i don't have to mention, that ltp-programming down to the deepest level is an absolute must. naming the dmx-levels (like gobo1) in the library would help.

 

when u think about those userdefinable faders, where we could control a single dmx-channel, e.g. the colour wheel, i think it would be a nice option to limit the dmx-values to some range. fader to 0% means dmx 52 and fader to 100% equals dmx 223, so the values from dmx 0-51 and 224-255 could not be given out by this fader. maybe there is a strobe function in this regions, which i don't want to trigger by mistake...

 

and when u talk about touchscreens, that makes me think of the OS. if u think about a micro$oft solution, or anything else, that needs minutes to start, what about an USV? just 10mins of power, for the case of powerloss, or a curcuit breaker doin it's job... because 3 mins of darkness on stage, while the desk is starting up, is too much ;-)

 

i realize i keep jumping around in different subjects, but i have a creative moment right now, so i wont stop now *g*

 

i don't know if you plan to release in the new frog series just one type of desk or different sizes or different functions (where shakespeare frog would be the theatre type, and another fancy name for the live version). ever thought of a modular system? a central unit, maybe 19", a cube or whatever with all outputs like vga, dmx, ethernet, keyboard, mouse, whatever. and inputs for different "user intefaces". a playback wing, a theatre wing, a programmer part etc. i tihnk u get the idea...

 

now, let me think if i should add something else to my monster post.

 

oh yes. i know it's prolly a problem of processor capacity, but what about a powerful dmx in? it could have various functions: signal input to record scenes from a different desk, triggering the desk (like a powerful remote), or even signal merging...

 

so, now i think it's enough, this should keep marketing and R+D busy for some time.

i'm curious, what u guys think about that...

 

greetz from switzerland

felix

[maandazi]

A simple (from the user's point of view) solution to alot of the issues brought up would be to move the desk to a USB interface. No floppy or other drive in the desk. There are tons of inexpensive, large capacity USB drives out there, USB keyboards and keypads are multiplying all the time. This also givs greater expandability options to future software upgrades.

[Pipo]

If you go for USB, make one USB1.1 and one USB2.0

[Kirkup_xp]

If you go for USB, make one USB1.1 and one USB2.0

 

Why? USB2.0 is backwards compatable.

[Pipo]

Sorry, wasn't thinking

[Yves]

what also would be nice is a function where you could choose preprogrammed positions that 4 example sets all your selected fixtures nicely in an half circle or other handy positions.

you could then change the X & Y porition and the width.

so you spare a lot of time adjusting the position for each fixture.

 

saw that a while ago on the 'SGM regia 2048 Live'

[felixgeiger]

i can understand what you're saying, but it's impossible as long as the desk doesn't "know" the relative positions of the movers...

so i guess u first have to draw some sort of graphical setup, or just let the desk assume, that the lights are set up on the same truss (i.e. in line)...

 

greetz

felix

[Haytech]

I have to "correct" my opinion on lightingdesk of future ...

Its a little "back to the roots" opinion so some people may not agree with me.

but we will see.

 

My suggestion after a fair lookaround and discussion on that

[*] generic light console - generics / submasters

[*] fixtures with enhenced movement effects

[*] a pocket full of pallettes (predefined per fixture would be very nice)

[*] a chasetime / movementtimer/trigger to handle like a fader

[*] Timetable view of things

after all desks I have seen on the fair I decided never buy a PC based desk (all operations made by PC)

 

All of the features we are crying for are incredibly expensive and very vulnerable.

What do we really need ?

[*] quick programming scenes and chasers movement

[*] quick variation of a show -other fixtures etc. etc.

[*] saving a show on disk

[*] 100% availability on each environment (venues outdoor gigs)

 

don´t hold back tell us your opinion on that.

[NZ]

I think we can offer you want you want with the new improved Frog! 8)

[sp]

be nice to select generic fixtures and control there level via the wheels......

 

Generics can be assigned as fixtures and used with the wheels, click here.

 

Its not ideal as you have to fiddle about re-patching etc. but it is possible.

 

sp

[Kirkup_xp]

I was thinking about the generics selectable for control by the wheel feature the other day. Would it be possible to add generic fixtures into Fixture Groups. It would work something like this:

 

Define the group, as normal, by selecting the required Fixtures, and <somehow> tagging the required generics. I would suggest F4 plus the flash button, but IIRC this already has a function defined.

 

Once your group is defined, you can select the group as normal and the Brightness attribute controls both the generics and fixtures as defined in the group. Pressing any of the fixture buttons would detag the generics (leaving them at their defined level). I appreciate this adds another level of HTP scanning for the Generic channels, but it could prove useful in a live situation.

 

I suppose its half way between a work around and a new feature.

[K-Nine]

Peter, Is the above post a suggestion for the current frog desks, or something to be considered for the next generation of desks which is what this topic was originally about ?

 

Just asking so I can split into a separate topic if appropriate

[sp]

Another suggestion for a new desk would be 'Chase Reset' and 'Chase Pause' buttons - would be very useful!

 

sp

[Yves]

or a step button for chases like on The zero 88 XL

[sp]

a step button? Are u talking about sumthing different to the step button already on the desks?

 

sp

[Yves]

my mistake, guess I have to read the manual again. :oops:

[Pipo]

NZ, can we already have a little preview of the new frog?

[Kirkup_xp]

I suppose its half way between a work around and a new feature.

 

Suppose its more likely to make it if I call it a feature for a new desk?

[sp]

Whilst using our Bullfrog today it really occured to me that a new frog should have a lot more submasters (i find it a bit of a pain switching pages all the time).

Get rid of the preset faders and replace these with a number keypad, like on strand.

 

The submasters would be so much more versatile than preset faders, as a single lamp could be programmed to a submaster so that'd work just the same as a preset.

 

Having two groups of subs would be handy (subs A and , each with a master.

 

sp

[Kirkup_xp]

Had a thought about the way that scrollers work when assigned to brightness channels. Rather than using a fixture profile with two channels, as happens at the moment, would it be possible to 'associate' a scroller with a generic channel, thus not losing valuable fixture channels. Obviously this depends on the architecture of the new desk, but my guess would be that it could work very much in the way of scrollers on the Strand Genius desks (5x0 and 300).

 

Basically you address the scroller from the desk as xx.2 (.2 being the colour attribute), and you can select the frame number (as defined in the patch).

 

Assuming the new desk works with a keypad, this wouldn't be a significant change and would increase the flexability of the desk. If the desk remains a two preset style desk, you could add a setting to the flash buttons to 'select colour' and this would then allow you to use the fixture wheels (or whatever you give us) to change the attribute.

 

Does any of that make sense?

 

And please can we have macros of some sort! Trying to turn the lamp-on on Robo Color Pro 400s just isn't pretty without them - 95% = lamp off, 98% = lamp on... so you wheel the strobe channel down after lamping on and turn the lamp off In the end I had to plot 3 cues to turn the lamp on... not an ideal situation. You could store the lamp-on/reset/lamp-off commands as a fixture-macro, and have an associated keypress to perform each of those macros to the selected fixtures. Perhaps a few 'user-definable' macros would be good too - these could be set using a fixture profile editor, and imported to the desk with the fixture files.

 

I don't know how the new desk will store its attribute information - as 'real' values, or as DMX values, but either way can we have some way of transporting the information from one fixture to another - even if the fixtures have to be the same type. Eg: I have one Mac500 and I set it to random iris macro, then I decide I want to to do the same to my other Mac500 - instead of having to wheel the channel up to that certain value, perhaps I just tell it to do Fixture2 Iris @ Fixture1. The same could be true of referencing information from previous cues - eg Fixture2@Cue204.

 

This started off as a quick post. Sorry for the essay.

[Kirkup_xp]

Having two groups of subs would be handy (subs A and , each with a master.

 

sp

 

I don't think this would be particularly useful, and infact I think it would confuse the duck out of me. Plus, what happens to the LTP attributes if you bring the master down?

 

Another thing you could add to the desks - multi-level LTP, so when you bring down a submaster the fixture returns to whatever it was doing before the sub was raised. This would be really useful for live shows - eg: You have a 'state' set-up, and someone walks up to the CS mike. Raise the sub which points your fixture at CS in open white. Then, when the speaker has finished, simply bring down the sub and the mover returns to its original job, instead of having to re-trigger the original state.

 

Does that make sense?

[sp]

Well the idea i thought of having 2 sets of subs would be the following:

 

if ur lighting a band or sumthin with lots of different chases on subs up, how could u drop all these and bring up some other subs and chases for something else? Have ur hands full no?

 

With two sets and a master, you could just bring down one master and raise the other, with everything ready - very similar to the preset A and B master arrangement

 

sp

[Kirkup_xp]

So the LTP channels would be triggered by the master fader being at the trigger level, rather than the individual sub being at the trigger level. I suppose that could work, but is quite a confusing way of working - I like to see my subs reaction when I raise them. Surely with a complex show like the one you're suggesting, you would be better off recording one sub with a 'look' on it, which combines all the other subs.