Loading fixtures onto Illusion 500

[Amy Worrall]

I'm having trouble here. I'm confused on the difference between .ift and .cft files.

 

I have some .ift files. The desk can load them when I patch a new fixture, choosing "from disk".

 

I also have the main fixture library as a .ift file. This is too big for a disk. I'd like to move a subset of it to the Illusion, so I open the Common Fixture Manager and insert the fixtures I want. BUT, it'll only save as a .cft file, and I can't work out how to get the desk to read a .cft file!

 

What am I doing wrong?

As luck would have it, I solved the problem immediately after this post — use the fixtures editor rather than the common fixtures manager!

 

Can anyone tell me if the Illusion can accept .cft files at all?

 

Amy

[kgallen]

Hi Amy,

 

(Answering here in the context of Fat Frog, but Illusion 500 is probably the same).

 

The cft is the set of fixture files "built in" to the desk. On Fat Frog, the cft is 20 fixtures and if you reset the desk to "empty" then these are the 20 fixture types that you can patch straight away. Any other fixture definitions you can load from floppy disk as required (via an ift file), but the cft are always available in the desk. When you load a new release of operating software, this includes a set of fixtures that Z88 consider the most likely, or common to use. However as a desk owner you might prefer your own mix of "common fixtures" and this is the purpose of the Common Fixture Editor and cft file. You use the Common Fixture Editor to create your own cft with your choice of 20 fixtures pulled from the standard or your own fixture library [see Edit below before running off and doing this!]. For example, my cft has the LED fixtures I usually use, and I removed the Clay Paky, High End and other fixtures that I don't usually use. This means my desk has everything it needs internally for me to patch once I've finished rigging - I don't need to go searching for my floppy disk(s) of fixture definitions.

 

On the larger/newer desks like FLX, pretty much the whole standard fixture library is held in the desk. However even then I load my own custom fixture library, which I have to repeat whenever I upgrade the operating software on the desk.

 

Sorry that ended up quite a long post... however I hope that explains the cft versus the ift!

 

Regards,

Kevin

 

Edit:

 

This is discussed on p1-2 and 3-11 but it looks like your desk doesn't need/use the cft file, you just directly load the required fixtures into the common fixture set stored on the desk. This would make it a bit more of a faff when upgrading software but I guess this is now a mute point in 2016 as you won't be getting any more software releases...!

 

http://zero88.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/11/47/illusion-500-operating-manual-en