Problems with the Wizard in the Fixture Editor

[Chris Mower]

I have been having issues trying to add a special fixture where the editor behaves erratically. I have run it under Windows 10 and Windows 7 and get the same behaviour. There are two main problems that I am seeing.

1. When using the wizard to enter the details of a channel, after entering a couple of channels, say Pan and Tilt, and then after entering another channel it goes back to showing the Pan and Tilt channels again and you have to press enter to skip through them before you can add another channel. This continues for each new channel but usually misses some of the previously entered channels the next time.

2. After finally entering all of the channel details and pressing the finish you find that the fixture has lost most of the channels that were entered with just a couple of them showing after 8 were entered.

I have tried several times with differing results each time but have mostly had a failure. Has anyone seen this problem? I am running the latest version of the fixture editor from the website.

Also not a bug but a 'would be nice to have' while entering the colour channel property there was Red, Green, Blue and several other shades like Cyan and Magenta but not White. Could white be added as many LED Par's have White LED's as well

 

Thanks

Chris

 

[kgallen]

33 minutes ago, Chris Mower said:

Also not a bug but a 'would be nice to have' while entering the colour channel property there was Red, Green, Blue and several other shades like Cyan and Magenta but not White. Could white be added as many LED Par's have White LED's as well

Do you mean under "Special"? If so then Red Positive etc mean defined things to the desk, it's not there as a "user nicety". The Special setting is used by the desk when doing fixture replacement so the new fixture can map as best as possible to the features of the fixture being removed. Cyan/Magenta/Yellow are there for subtractive fixtures (colour wheel in front of a lamp like a MAC500), Red/Green/Blue there for additive fixtures (like LED sources). So you're not going to get an entry for "Rosy Pink". White and Amber (LEDs) need to use the "Other" setting.

I don't use the Wizard so can't help you on the rest.

Regarding other Fixture Tools enhancements I think this is highly unlikely since I think this tool was written and last updated many (many) years ago, probably by someone who has long since left Z88 and they've probably lost the source code... 🤣 (this will be confirmed by the deathly silence following this post...!)

I understand Jon wants to have a fixture tool as part of the FLX/ZerOS software - although personally I like having the Windows utility where I can do show-prep offline. I realise that a Windows-only utility winds up people who use Macs though and for practical purposes where you get landed with a new fixture at a venue (or need to do a mod to an existing fixture definition), having a desk-based function would be highly desirable...

Kevin

[Edward Z88]

Hi Chris,

There a couple of known issues with the wizard. I would therefore recommend creating the fixtures outside of the wizard.

From opening the Fixture Editor, choose "Create a New Fixture Type" (or just press ENTER), rather than choose "use wizard". Then double click on "Manufacturers" from the left hand side, and type your manufacturer in. Then right click under "Fixture Type", and choose "Add Fixture Type". You can then give it a name (which is used by Frogs and Jesters), and then a long name which is used by ZerOS. Fixture modes can be separated by "fixture name : mode name" (space colon space). Then go to the parameters tab from the top, right click, Add Parameter, and add each parameter in one by one.

You don't have to put Special details in, however I would recommend doing so for Dimmer, Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Zoom, Focus, Pan, Tilt. For White, ZerOS name matches the parameter "White", and can then use this parameter for colour mixing.

21 minutes ago, kgallen said:

probably by someone who has long since left Z88 and they've probably lost the source code... 🤣 

🤦‍♂️

21 minutes ago, kgallen said:

(this will be confirmed by the deathly silence following this post...!)

Thanks Kevin 🙄 😆. Actually I believe the software was made by one of ZerOS software engineers, however many moons ago, and sadly updating this software is very low priority, especially as we'd like to build it into ZerOS in future.

23 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I like having the Windows utility where I can do show-prep offline.

You would still be able to do this, however using Phantom.

Hope this helps,

Edward

[Chris Mower]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Most helpful in that it saves me chasing my tail trying to get the wizard to work.

Chris

 

[kgallen]

22 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

Thanks Kevin 🙄 😆.

Excellent, I now know how to get a fast response to a query 😈

But it's good to know that the knowledge is still in-house, since whilst these tools are currently perfectly usable, there may come a time when we need a 2.6.0.1!

22 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

You would still be able to do this, however using Phantom.

Yea, but that doesn't make me feel comforted by the prospect... (internal development/test tool becomes primary tool for users...).