Theater cues crossfades

[manuca]

Hi,

We haved just bought a FLX-S48 to use it with mix of conventional lightings and RGBW led devices. Fixtures setup is done but now we have trouble to create cues.

What we need is to program a set of cues that we could be recalled one by one during the show.

It's a theater show, so we need to crossfade between cues (color and intensity) without going to black in between, driven by a fader position, like a T-bar in a A/B roll video mixer.

It looks just a basic way of working but even after having spent hours trying, changing all possible menus config, we don't get it...

We only get a fader that open and close intensities before and after going from cue to cue.

The software version is 7.9.2.60, should it be worth upgrading it to 7.9.3 to improve this ?

Could you please help and decribe how each of menu settings have to be to achieve this ? the show will start next WE and stress is rising..

Thanks a lot 

Emmanuel

[kgallen]

Hi Emmanuel,

If you just record a sequence of cues into a playback this will just happen naturally:

set up lighting state

RECORD

set up next lighting state

RECORD

set up next lighting state

RECORD

etc

Then when you're done you use the GO button to step through this cue list.

Is this your work flow or are you using some other method?

Kevin

[manuca]

Thanks Kevin, but the go button won't allow us to do a smooth transistion between cues, it will only be a cut. By going from lowest position of a fader to the hightest, we would like to fade from Cue T to cue T+1, when reaching 100% and going back down, we would fade cue T+1 to CueT+2, and so on. 

[kgallen]

Hi Emmanuel,

The Go button will fade on the basis of the fade settings in the cue. If you have those fade times (up/down/colour) etc set to 0s then they will snap. If these values are non-zero then the crossfade should be dipless between the two lighting states. Note that cue 1 by default is set with fade times of 0s; the default for other cues in the stack is 3s. Of course you can change all of these on a cue-by-cue basis.

However it sounds to me like you might be using a playback in "2-way fader" mode (that's on FLX, I assume also on FLX-S series), which you would have set with Setup+MFF button menu. I would also expect that to follow the up/down/colour set in the cues, since that fader mode is just a different way to trigger and release cues in playbacks. However I do know there is a bug (certainly in 7.9.3) with 2-way fader mode but that was it locking up rather than exhibiting the symptoms you describe.

Can you upload your showfile here then someone can take a look at it and give you some feedback on how it looks?

Regards,

Kevin

[Jon Hole]

Hi Emmanuel,

As Kevin says, record all your cues onto a single Playback. Press the Play/Pause icon top left and you'll see those cues. You can select any of the cells and adjust the cue's fade time using the encoder wheel. This allows you just to press the GO button, and get smooth, recreatable fades.

However, if you want to do this manually, just hold SETUP, press the GO button, and then change "Fader Function" to "Manual Fade (2 ways)". I've just tested this and it behaves how you want. I believe the issue Kevin's describing is that if you switch back to HTP Master, you'll need to release the playback first (Kevin, is that correct?). To release the Playback (release="turn off"), hold down the CLEAR button, and press the GO button.

[kgallen]

Emmanuel, I'm going off topic with Jon a little now, please ignore!

Hi Jon,

13 minutes ago, Jon Hole said:

(Kevin, is that correct?).

My only experience with the 2-way fader setting was as below, when Edward and I found a playback lockup bug. As you've confirmed with your analysis and report above this is not relevant to Emmanuel's scenario.

Regards,
Kevin

[van den abbeele Eric]

Hello,

I do not know if I understood well...

You have several states.
CUE1 "Face 100 % - Side Bleue 100 %"
Cue2 " Face 50% - Side Red at 50%"
Cue3 " Face 20 % - Side off - Back Bleue at 80%"
Cue4 "Black"
Cue5 "Face 0% - Side OFF - Back red and bleu at 70%"
etc.

You want a different fade effect between each cue ...

For my shows I need for each painting transitions with different times ... Ditto for blacks.

Is
Cue 1 fade of 3 seconds to go on
Cue 2 fade of 15 seconds to go on
Cue 3 fade of 7 seconds to go on
Cue 4 fade of 0 sec to go on
Cue 5
etc ...
So I end up with 300 to 400 cues that all have their time to bland ...

For my part at the time of recording I have the ability to record a specific fade time ... which can be changed as much as possible according to the needs ...
Knowing that we can also make a different fade time to go up and down as needed.
Thus it is necessary at the moment of "record" to indicate the time of fade with the number of cue ...

I do not know if that can help ...

Good continuity !

Eric VDA

[Edward Z88]

Hi Eric,

I believe what Emmanuel was after was the ability to configure a playback's fader to be "Manual Fader 2-Way" rather than an HTP Master, giving you the ability to manually cross fade between the cues using the fader, a little like you can with a 2-preset lighting console.

Edward

[van den abbeele Eric]

Ah OK. I understand what you mean. 

Thank

Eric