Changing Effects Attributes and recording to Palettes

[Uriahdemon]

Good morning all.

I am trying to use 'Effects' i.e. Chases, Ballyhoo etc i.e. featuring intensity effects. I would like to then record them at various selected speeds to palettes.  The problems I am having are:

A. The intensity defaults to 50 as opposed to the desired 100

B. Selection of the palette results in the effect immediately being applied as opposed to me wishing to do it via an intensity MFF i.e. gradual introduction as opposed to immediate.

As usual really grateful for any help please....??

[kgallen]

Don't know why I'm attempting to explain as I'm sure Edward will be along soon with a proper answer!

18 minutes ago, Uriahdemon said:

A. The intensity defaults to 50 as opposed to the desired 100

I think this is because the effect swings around 50 as the midpoint. At "full size" the swing will be 0-100 (50 +/-50), at a smaller size the swing will be say 30-70 (i.e. 50 +/-20).

I was using the Fire flicker in plotting over the weekend and also struggled a bit to get a low intensity (in my case) but retain a decent amount of colour modulation. As we know for now, size affects the swing of the intensity and whatever other parameters are modulated by the effect.

18 minutes ago, Uriahdemon said:

B. Selection of the palette results in the effect immediately being applied as opposed to me wishing to do it via an intensity MFF i.e. gradual introduction as opposed to immediate.

Can you set "Fader controls: Effect" I can't remember...

[Uriahdemon]

Thanks for the help Kgallen, much appreciated.

I will have a play with the size on the Chase effects and see if I can get the intensity as needed.

I have had a look through the effects attributes and cannot see anything right away that allows me to adjust the effect intensity.  

Thanks again  !!

 

[Uriahdemon]

PS.... just tried the Chase 1/2 effect and adjusted the size and achieved 100%.  Unfortunately on recording it is showing 50% in yellow in the Output Window.

[kgallen]

4 minutes ago, Uriahdemon said:

PS.... just tried the Chase 1/2 effect and adjusted the size and achieved 100%.  Unfortunately on recording it is showing 50% in yellow in the Output Window.

Record a new Effect palette with those settings then use that Effect palette in your cue. I think I've had issues in the past with setting an Effect and when recorded directly into the cue it doesn't work as expected. I think advice was to create a new Effect palette first then use that.

[Edward Z88]

3 hours ago, Uriahdemon said:

A. The intensity defaults to 50 as opposed to the desired 100

Yep, Kevin's got the answer to this one...

2 hours ago, kgallen said:

this is because the effect swings around 50 as the midpoint. At "full size" the swing will be 0-100 (50 +/-50)

 

3 hours ago, Uriahdemon said:

B. Selection of the palette results in the effect immediately being applied

By default when you apply a palette, it instantly snaps onto the fixtures. Effect palettes operate in exactly the same way. "Programmer Time" can be used to add a transition fade time upon applying effect palettes.

2 hours ago, Uriahdemon said:

I will have a play with the size on the Chase effects and see if I can get the intensity as needed.

I have had a look through the effects attributes and cannot see anything right away that allows me to adjust the effect intensity.  

2 hours ago, Uriahdemon said:

PS.... just tried the Chase 1/2 effect and adjusted the size and achieved 100%.  Unfortunately on recording it is showing 50% in yellow in the Output Window.

I'm currently programming & operating for Grease at my local theatre (250 cues plotted so far over 3 universes). 

I've found it really helpful to play with the balance between the base intensity, and the Size of intensity effects.

For example, let's say I want to use a Smooth effect, and I want the fixtures to fade from 0% to 50%.

If I apply the Smooth effect palette, my fixtures by default go from 0 to 100%, due to the Smooth effect palette's default midpoint of 50%.

So, the first step is to reduce the intensity.

If I set my fixture's intensity to 0%, keeping the size @ 100, this will result in my fixtures going from +50% to -50%. If you were to record this into a cue, you would be actually recording the fixtures @ 0%, which is why you see yellow intensity percentages in the Output window for this special case. But, you might not want your fixtures to be off for half the duration of the effect.

So, I could set my fixtures to 12%, and then reduce size to 75. So now, my fixtures are fading from "-25%" to +50%. Of course, in terms of output, the fixtures are @ 0 from 0% thru -25% thru 0%, but it means you can decide the duration you want the fixtures to be off. This example would therefore still give a smooth intensity output from 0% to 50%, but with a different appearance to simply setting my fixture's intensity to 0%, and keeping Size @ 100. You can then tweak the base intensity level and size further to get what you want.

 

[Uriahdemon]

Thanks Ed. I will read through this and have a play, much appreciated.

Good luck with the production you are working on.  Sounds pretty complex  !!

[kgallen]

19 hours ago, Edward Z88 said:

If I set my fixture's intensity to 0%, keeping the size @ 100, this will result in my fixtures going from +50% to -50%. If you were to record this into a cue, you would be actually recording the fixtures @ 0%,

At which point I'll note (what we all find) is that we "fall foul" of SmartTag which won't record a fixture at 0%. I had exactly this issue with "Fire" which was far too bright for me at the default Effect level, since I wanted just a background firelight flicker not an all-out inferno. For the cue and the "Effect Off" I ended up using 1%, just because I couldn't be faffed during a pressured tech rehearsal to faff about with Updating the cue with SmartTag off. But I only just got away with 1% with LED fixtures...

With Effect and particularly "No Effect", SmartTag does us a disservice here and makes the programming more clunky rather than easy, which is what SmartTag does in just about all other cases. The other "pain point" for SmartTag being Remove. I know this suggestion is horrible, but it feels like these few point cases could/should be an exception to SmartTag's usual rules... which I hate to suggest because I generally hate inconsistencies, but the behaviour is a hindrance rather than a help in these situations.

Yus' sayin'...

[Edward Z88]

51 minutes ago, kgallen said:

With Effect and particularly "No Effect", SmartTag does us a disservice here and makes the programming more clunky rather than easy, which is what SmartTag does in just about all other cases. The other "pain point" for SmartTag being Remove. I know this suggestion is horrible, but it feels like these few point cases could/should be an exception to SmartTag's usual rules... which I hate to suggest because I generally hate inconsistencies, but the behaviour is a hindrance rather than a help in these situations.

I think this is all totally valid. These are cases where SmartTag is a nuisance, but, as you say, changing the SmartTag logic here means it is no longer consistent. This is something we are working through internally.

Personally, I very rarely program with SmartTag enabled. The only time I'll enable it is if I want to update a cue to remove attribute values for fixtures @ 0%, for example, to allow Move On Dark to take affect. Which is easy: Go into the cue > UPDATE > SmartTag > ENTER.

[kgallen]

19 minutes ago, Edward Z88 said:

Personally, I very rarely program with SmartTag enabled.

Yea Edward, but you're some kind of super-human lighting programmer that works with the FLX 8 hours plus a day every day, and know the thing inside better than we know the outside! 🥰

[scottydog75]

How much do we pay you @Edward Z88 to sit next to you at the production desk and absorb all this wisdom?! 😅 I've just recently finished a week of 'The Wind In the Willows' on the FLX, and although it was relatively a pain free experience, I still felt awfully clunky programming - practice makes perfect and all that..! It was quite the beast for me, a new venue to LD in, ~200 fixtures in total, resulting in about ~200 cues by the final performance!

[kgallen]

@scottydog75 @Uriahdemon What we need is an FLX Advanced Training Course with a decent sized rig. We could club together and hire @Edward Z88 for the day. Then we can show him how bad we are - but also the "challenges" we have through weak console knowledge... or also where the console makes our workflow a bit clunky...

[Davidmk]

21 hours ago, Edward Z88 said:

Personally, I very rarely program with SmartTag enabled.

Ditto. I generally want to record just intensity or everything else but intensity so SmartTag is a nuisance.

20 hours ago, kgallen said:

you're some kind of super-human lighting programmer

I don't think I'm super-human (but I'm not disputing @Edward Z88's powers). It's probably because I'm not that I find myself baffled by SmartTag, Cue Only & Move On Dark. I've only done one show "on the button". I got through it but it was a mess. If/when I do another one I'll have to do some homework. 

[Edward Z88]

On 6/12/2023 at 1:32 PM, Edward Z88 said:

I'm currently programming & operating

In case its of interest, here's the latest revision of the show file...

Grease End Of Dress.zos

My random tip for the day, which you may already know:

Let's say you're currently in cue 9, and you need to make a cue 10, that is only slightly different. So, you make your tweaks, and are about to record cue 10. The director/lighting designer then asks you to quickly show the difference between this new state and cue 9, to check there's enough/not too make change. If you CLEAR CLEAR to reveal cue 9, you have obviously lost all your tweaks. For this, I like to use a "Clear Fixture" UDK. Select everything (1 THRU ENTER), and tap your Clear Fixture UDK. This clears all fixtures, allowing the current cues to play back, revealing cue 9. The nice thing is, that Clear Fixture can be backspaced. So backspace to undo, and you are then back in your proposed cue 10, ready to record/tweak.

Apologies to @Uriahdemon for going off-topic!

[kgallen]

3 minutes ago, Edward Z88 said:

Apologies to @Uriahdemon for going off-topic!

Maybe we should start a "Hot Tips" thread...

I will certainly be downloading that Grease zos after my show is done, but this is just because I'm nosey to look at a "professional" showfile. I think what lots of us are missing is the workflow and the totally in depth knowledge and the tricks and sneaks that get you out of a mess, which can't be gained just by looking at the end result (the showfile). I'm not a novice on FLX. but I lack that confidence that comes from knowing the console inside and out that comes from working with it for many hours a month, which is something I don't do as an amateur.

Edward, if you have a related Capture project would you be prepared to upload that too?

[Edward Z88]

3 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Edward, if you have a related Capture project would you be prepared to upload that too?

I don't have a personal licence for Capture, so don't have a Capture project for this one.

[kgallen]

8 minutes ago, Edward Z88 said:

I don't have a personal licence for Capture,

😳 (shocked rolling around on the floor gobsmacked emoji!!!)

...but you "made" me buy one!!!! 😁 (for clarification for others, no he didn't!!!)