Updating the speed of a Effect chase (7.9.3)

[kgallen]

Hi,

Sorry for yet another "basic" question on using the effects engine! I'm confused about how to update the speed of the chase, once I've programmed it to a Playback. This is my scenario:

I have 4 identical RGBW LEDs, Fixtures 1-4. I select them one at a time and turn them on to @@ and set each one to a different colour using the colour palettes. I select 1 THRU 4. I go to Effects, chose Chaser, Random Offset, set the speed as (I think) I want. I Record this to Playback 1. I edit this playback to set the Colour fade time to 0. I clear the programmer, raise PB 1 and I get my Effects chase. All good.

However I now decide the Effect speed is not what I want. Say it's too fast.

PB1 is raised and the Effect is running.

I select 1THRU 4. I go to Effect. I adjust the Speed and the output effect slows down. I now want to update my recorded PB1 with this new speed. I press Update. The chase stops running. I press the MFF key for PB1 to perform the update. I drop the MFF for PB1 to release the PB and then raise it again to retrigger. I have no chase effect. I have the static condition as output at the point I pressed Update.

So what am I doing wrong? How do I update the speed in the recorded PB cue? This is not a "Chase" playback, so Global Tempo and Tap Tempo are not relevant (although I'd be interested if the Effect chase speed can be coupled to e.g. Tap Tempo).

If prior to pressing Update I re-select the Chase effect and re-select Random offset then adjust the speed, I find the Update as required can be performed - but is it really necessary to re-select the Effect type and setup just to change the speed of an existing effect?

I can re-record the PB from scratch (i.e. using Record rather than Update), but then I have the pain of having to set up the PB again and re-edit the colour fade time. Not something I want to be doing at the tech when the Director just wants a change in the speed of an Effect they are otherwise happy with.

...actually what I really wanted was some random flashing colours to use for a disco effect on these 4 LEDs...

Thanks,

Kevin

ps Did have a dig through the Forum to see if I've asked this before but didn't find anything. Of course if I look again it will be staring at me...!

[kgallen]

Following on from having this effect chase, some other queries/observations:

(1) So if I play my PB1 Effect chase over the top of my Master PB cue stack, I want the PB1 chase to take control of the intensity. From playback setup, I chose Intensity Mixing - LTP. This seems to do the job. Is this the correct way to achieve this? (At first I tried Allow Stomping from the Advanced tab, not knowing what "Stomping" is but it didn't do anything!).

(2) When I raise the PB1 MFF, the colour fade time into the Effect chase can be altered in the cue view. However I find that when the MFF is released, the colour snaps back to that in the Master Playback - no fade there. What I'd actually like, is when the PB1 MFF is raised, the colour snaps to my Effect chase colours, but on release of PB1 the colour fades back to that in the current Master Playback cue. Is this possible?

(3) If my PB1 Effects chase is running and I advance my Master PB, the colour of the chase moves to that in the incoming cue of the Master PB. So this makes sense for LTP of the colour. However if I want the PB1 Effect chase to retain control of the colour (and intensity) despite what the Master PB incoming cues have, can I configure the PB1 to do this? (Again, tried "Allow Stomping" but this didn't help!).

[kgallen]

Hi Jon/Edward,

Any help/update/comments on this thread at all? I'm in Tech this weekend, so if you can comment if my usage is incorrect of if you think it's a bug that would help me out.

Thanks,

Kevin

[ziglight]

I think it is a bug and as I remember, appeared already in a beta before 7.9.3 .... (I noticed it also in 7.9.3 when doing a quick test ; but did not go further into it; because I don't use the console any-more...)

[Edward Z88]

46 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Hi Jon/Edward,

Any help/update/comments on this thread at all? I'm in Tech this weekend, so if you can comment if my usage is incorrect of if you think it's a bug that would help me out.

Thanks,

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Apologies for our delay in replying.

We're looking into this still at the moment, but yes this is a bug affecting Intensity effects when updating them. This is logged as ZOS-8368. The best way to avoid this issue is after editing your effect speed, rather than tapping UPDATE tap RECORD, and save it as an effect palette. Then use this palette to update the cue with the edited intensity effect. 

Alternatively if you are viewing the Playback containing this Effect, you can use Speed Override to change the speed of the effect live.

Will feedback when we find out more information.

Kind regards

Edward

[kgallen]

Hi Edward (and ziglight),

Thanks for your response, suggested workaround and other options - I'll have a play with an Effects Palette (not used those before) and the Speed Override.

Also are you able to comment on my (2) regards colour fade time and (3) regards whether this is "stomping" and why I can't get the PB1 to keep control of the colour?

Cheers, Kevin

[Edward Z88]

On 1/3/2018 at 1:34 PM, kgallen said:

Hi Edward (and ziglight),

Thanks for your response, suggested workaround and other options - I'll have a play with an Effects Palette (not used those before) and the Speed Override.

Also are you able to comment on my (2) regards colour fade time and (3) regards whether this is "stomping" and why I can't get the PB1 to keep control of the colour?

Cheers, Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Again apologies for our delays on this one!

On 12/28/2017 at 10:58 PM, kgallen said:

Following on from having this effect chase, some other queries/observations:

(1) So if I play my PB1 Effect chase over the top of my Master PB cue stack, I want the PB1 chase to take control of the intensity. From playback setup, I chose Intensity Mixing - LTP. This seems to do the job. Is this the correct way to achieve this? (At first I tried Allow Stomping from the Advanced tab, not knowing what "Stomping" is but it didn't do anything!).

Yes using LTP is the correct way to do this. Allow Stomping is a method of allowing Playbacks to automatically released once every parameter has been given a later command from a new playback. This however appears to not be functioning as expected, so I have logged this as ZOS-8389.

On 12/28/2017 at 10:58 PM, kgallen said:

(2) When I raise the PB1 MFF, the colour fade time into the Effect chase can be altered in the cue view. However I find that when the MFF is released, the colour snaps back to that in the Master Playback - no fade there. What I'd actually like, is when the PB1 MFF is raised, the colour snaps to my Effect chase colours, but on release of PB1 the colour fades back to that in the current Master Playback cue. Is this possible?

How I woukd do this is setting Playback 1s fader to control Colour under it's Settings. That way to snap the Colour in, you can snap the Playback up over the top of the Master Playback, but then to release you can fade out the Playback where the colour will fade into the Master Playback's colours.

On 12/28/2017 at 10:58 PM, kgallen said:

(3) If my PB1 Effects chase is running and I advance my Master PB, the colour of the chase moves to that in the incoming cue of the Master PB. So this makes sense for LTP of the colour. However if I want the PB1 Effect chase to retain control of the colour (and intensity) despite what the Master PB incoming cues have, can I configure the PB1 to do this? (Again, tried "Allow Stomping" but this didn't help!).

There is no way of setting some Playbacks to ignore LTP rules for attributes. Therefore the only way to prevent the colour changing when you advance to cue 2 is to remove the colour data. This can be done by selecting the fixtures whose colour want to remove, tag colour, tap UPDATE and choose "Remove" from the Update Options. Then tap the Playback's GO button to finish the command.

Hope that helps and all makes sense!

Kind regards
Edward

[kgallen]

Hi Edward,

Thanks for your comprehensive response to my additional queries - I shall try those!

For (3) I'm really surprised this isn't "Allow Stomping" - when you say you reported ZOS-8389 can you elaborate on the issue you found - I read your reply as you found an issue with stomping, rather than with Intensity LTP - maybe I misunderstand which part of (1) you found an issue with! I thought "stomping" would mean that the playback could "stomp all over" another playback and thus if my PB1 has "allow stomping" then it could "stomp all over" what the Master PB wanted to do (even LTP) and thus would support what I was looking to do in (3) i.e. PB1 keeps control of the HTP and LTP channels. Thus I'm not sure I understand what "Allow Stomping" actually allows! The FLX manual says "“Stomping” occurs when a playback takes control of all the channels from another playback" - but clearly I misunderstand here too - maybe related to the "release" part. Could you give me a deeper explanation of what stomping actually is and how the "release" part factors in to the operation? Maybe the manual could have a better explanation as it seems a more complex concept than the one sentence in the manual would have me believe!

Thanks again!

Kevin

ps That's another couple of ZOS's with my name on. Tell Jon I'll take a zero88 t-shirt (XL size) and a couple of those zero88 USB sticks .

[Edward Z88]

Hi Kevin,

11 hours ago, kgallen said:

Hi Edward,

Thanks for your comprehensive response to my additional queries - I shall try those!

For (3) I'm really surprised this isn't "Allow Stomping" - when you say you reported ZOS-8389 can you elaborate on the issue you found - I read your reply as you found an issue with stomping, rather than with Intensity LTP - maybe I misunderstand which part of (1) you found an issue with! I thought "stomping" would mean that the playback could "stomp all over" another playback and thus if my PB1 has "allow stomping" then it could "stomp all over" what the Master PB wanted to do (even LTP) and thus would support what I was looking to do in (3) i.e. PB1 keeps control of the HTP and LTP channels. Thus I'm not sure I understand what "Allow Stomping" actually allows! The FLX manual says "“Stomping” occurs when a playback takes control of all the channels from another playback" - but clearly I misunderstand here too - maybe related to the "release" part. Could you give me a deeper explanation of what stomping actually is and how the "release" part factors in to the operation?

Yes ZOS-8389 is to do with Allow Stomping not working correctly, LTP Intensity Mixing is correct.

Stomping is used to automatically release a Playback once all of the parameters it is currently controlling are given a new command from a different Playback. For example if Playback 1 is controlling fixtures 1-6 at 50%, and Playback 2 is controlling fixtures 1-6 @ 75%, when I put Playback 1 to full the fixtures would go to 50%, and when I add in Playback 2 the fixtures would go to 75%. If I took Playback 2 down the fixtures would drop to 50% as Playback 1 has them at that level still. However if Playback 2 has “Allow Stomping” enabled it is allowed to “Stomp” over Playback 1, and therefore as soon as it goes above 50% Playback 1 actually releases. This is useful for example if you have a different dance on each Playback that you want to work your way through.

Hope that makes sense!

11 hours ago, kgallen said:

ps That's another couple of ZOS's with my name on. Tell Jon I'll take a zero88 t-shirt (XL size) and a couple of those zero88 USB sticks .

There are a few FLX T-Shirts left!

Kind regards

Edward

 

[kgallen]

Hi Edward. Brilliant explanation - thanks for taking the time to explain that for me, much appreciated!

That’s one for next year’s Advent Calendar!

Cheers, Kevin

ps Ooooo FLX T- shirt...