Move Fixture Brightness to Generic Fader?

[markus66]

Hi All,

Anyone know if it's possible to move fixture brightness control to a generic fader?

I know the wheel does the same thing, it’s just more intuitive to use a fader (I work with a lot of conventionals as well as moving lights).

 

I've had great success doing this with two-channel color changer/faders through tricky fixture definitions and the stealthy use of softpatching. But…. When I attempt to do this with a multi-channel fixture, the board won’t let me softpatch the dimmer channel to a generic handle.

 

Perhaps because the supposed dimmer channel is right smack in the middle of the fixture’s DMX range and can’t be softpatched somewhere else?

 

I’ve even tried redefining the fixture without it’s dim channel (attempting to leave it free for softpatching), but still to no avail.

 

Am I just stuck? Is there a workaround? Perhaps therapy? Or, even worse, did I miss something in the manual?

 

Thanks,

Mark

[Haytech]

Anyone know if it's possible to move fixture brightness control to a generic fader?

I know the wheel does the same thing, it’s just more intuitive to use a fader (I work with a lot of conventionals as well as moving lights).

you get it alredy

Perhaps because the supposed dimmer channel is right smack in the middle of the fixture’s DMX range and can’t be softpatched somewhere else?

If your fixtures has 16 DMX channels and dimmer channel is the first / last one then it is possible to define your own fixture w/o dimmer setting

but if it is chan 8 on fixtures parameters then it can´t patched by the desk it locks entire fixture channels.

Tell me what ffixtures do you want to control maybe there is another way.

[K-Nine]

Generic channels (on the preset faders) and fixtures cannot be patched to the same DMX address.

 

Even if a fixture has channels which are not used or not defined, when the fixture is patched it will 'use' all the DMX channels between the first and last channel for the fixture.

 

So Haytech is right (he usually is)

 

:idea: I'm not sure in what circumstances you require faders to control your fixture brightness (ie programming/plotting or live playback), but if you have a spare page of submasters, you could always program each submaster to contain just the brightness channel of each of the fixtures in turn.

 

You would need to have the desk in partial mode, so that only the brightness parameter of the fixture was recorded.

 

Select a submaster page (eg page 20).

Press the submasters key to display the submasters page.

 

Select submaster 1.

Select fixture 1

Select brightness.

Set the brightness of fixture 1 to full using the wheel

Ensure that no other generic fader or fixture brightness is being output.

Press Record.

Bring the brightness of fixture 1 back to zero with the wheel.

 

Repeat above procedure for fixtures 2 - 12 (24 for Leap frog/Bull Frog)

 

You can then control the brightness of each individual fixture by using the corresponding submaster faders on page 20

[markus66]

Thanks Haystack and K-Nine,

Yeah, I had a feeling I couldn't pluck out the dim channel from the middle of the fixture's DMX range. The fixture in question is the Elation Power Spot 250 with the dim channel as #10 out of 15.

 

I wanted to do this for speed and convenience. Since I work with a mix of conventionals and moving lights, and since I'm usually not handed the band's set list until an hour before showtime (and always under the bright sun), I have to program very quickly and be able to make changes to a given scene on the fly. Having all dim channels on faders makes this that much easier.

 

Plus, I have the bad habit of leaving the dim wheel at 100% after a quick mid show program adjustment. Then, when I pull down the sub because the band has just moved into a quiet accoustic solo, the moving lights are still strobing away (or whatever) because I've left the damn wheel up. Ok, my fault, I know. It's just easier to see and slam down a fader than press a sequence of buttons and spin the wheel.

 

Sooooo... What does it all mean? Ya got me! My need for speed has led to greed!

 

Perhaps in future updates you might consider the ability to pluck a DMX number from a fixture’s range and softpatch it to a fader.

 

Thanks again,

Mark

[markus66]

Wooops! Sorry Haytech! (Not Haystack!!!!!)java script:emoticon(':oops:')

[Haytech]

Many thanks to K-Nine

 

Hi Markus66,

K-Nine is right I didn´t thought about using the submasters...

if you use them while programming too you don´t have to use the brightness wheel anymore.

Just have one submaster for all PowerSpot250 - stay in mind, that you have to lower this submaster befor pressing program - so you have the brightness control all over the show.

My favourite is to have brightness of even scans and odd scans so you can do cool effect flashing have say scan 1,3, 5 on sub 2 and scan 2, 4, 6 on sub 3

maybe this is a way to keep you going.

 

Here is another suggestion this require you to forego the last 4 DMXValues or have them on other generics channels.

 

made your own fixture file with this features available:

[*]1 PAN

[*]2 PAN fine

[*]3 TILT

[*]4 TILT fine

[*]5 colour

[*]6 gobo

[*]7 gobo effect

[*]8 prisma

[*]9 shutter

then patch the last values to generic channels.

Make sure not to autopatch your scans ! - the desk don´t know about the

missing DMX values between fixture and fixturefile !

the missing parameters shouldn´t riled you, they are:

[*]10 dimmer (!)

[*]11 focus

[*]12 special (internal movement effects)

[*]13 movement off

[*]14 speed

[*]15 laser

to have them available you can patch them to generic channels also.

 

You should think carefully about using this suggestion

it´s damd hard work to get all the effects out of your scans with this settings.

 

Please keep us up, how you are doing I´m curious about that ...