Coming from Eos

[Amy Worrall]

I'm about to start programming a show on ZerOS (due to the venue having a FLX). For the past several years I've been entirely on Eos — I used Zero88 gear in the pre-ZerOS days but that was many years ago!

I'm looking for some advice on what concepts I need to get my head around, etc. 

• Is there an equivalent of Eos's blind spreadsheet? If not, what's the best way to see exactly which bits of information are recorded into a cue?
• I know that I should turn SmartTag off, and things that are manually tagged will get recorded. Does this just apply at a parameter level, or is it also a concept at a fixture level? For instance, can I un-tag a whole fixture in order to not record it when creating a cue?
• If I've accidentally recorded too much into a cue, how can I remove a certain thing? (The equivalent on Eos of going into blind, and doing <thing> <@> <enter>.)
• Does ZerOS have the equivalent of by-type palettes? (i.e. I set the colour on one fixture into a by-type colour palette, and any others of the same brand, even if they're patched in the future, will get that colour.)
• From the manual, I think I read that there's a way to e.g. store non-colour data in a colour palette, etc. I don't want to do that -- is it the sort of thing I might end up doing by accident?
• What's the easiest way to select a bunch of cues and adjust things like their fade time all at once?
• Is there an equivalent of copy-to/recall-from? Especially, is there an equivalent to how on Eos you can go into blind, select e.g. cues 1-20, then do channel 15 copy-to channel 18, and it'll apply that copy operation on all of those cues at once.

[kgallen]

Hi Amy,

"Welcome back!". I'll try to help...

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• Is there an equivalent of Eos's blind spreadsheet? If not, what's the best way to see exactly which bits of information are recorded into a cue?

Since you have an FLX, the Output window has a Preview button. To see fixture details (colour, gobo etc) you'll have to select them first and then you'll get a scrollable list. (Might not be quite as good as you have on Eos).

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• I know that I should turn SmartTag off, and things that are manually tagged will get recorded. Does this just apply at a parameter level, or is it also a concept at a fixture level? For instance, can I un-tag a whole fixture in order to not record it when creating a cue?

SmartTag looks for non-zero intensity then records only the attributes/parameters that are adjusted in the programmer and are thus required to be recorded to recreate that look. Whether it is attribute or parameter depends on the attribute. For example by default, Colour parameters are linked together (so you get the colour you want) whereas Shape and Beam parameters are not grouped (gobo is not linked with zoom for example). If you turn SmartTag off then tagging will be based on what you adjusted but the "linking" will be as above. You can change this in Setup.

To untag a whole fixture, select it then (I think) it's CLEAR+HOME (need to check the manual!). To untag a whole attribute it's CLEAR+COLOUR (for example)

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• If I've accidentally recorded too much into a cue, how can I remove a certain thing? (The equivalent on Eos of going into blind, and doing <thing> <@> <enter>.)

Select the Fixture, hit HOME (this will tag all parameters). UPDATE and select the REMOVE option. (See David's elaboration in the following post).

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• Does ZerOS have the equivalent of by-type palettes? (i.e. I set the colour on one fixture into a by-type colour palette, and any others of the same brand, even if they're patched in the future, will get that colour.)

 Palettes recorded on a fixture can be applied to another fixture of the exact same type even if that other fixture wasn't selected when recorded. There isn't currently any other "palette morphing" onto a fixture with similar capabilities but a different make/model. (This is something I/we've been asking for for some time, so I hope it will come along soon... 😉 )

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• From the manual, I think I read that there's a way to e.g. store non-colour data in a colour palette, etc. I don't want to do that -- is it the sort of thing I might end up doing by accident?

 

No you won't do it by accident. You have to try "quite hard" to get anything but Colour in a Colour palette (but actually you can record Beam/Shape etc in there but you have to be very explicit to do that). The most (in my usage) application of this is to be very specific about which attributes are recorded into an Effect palette.

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• What's the easiest way to select a bunch of cues and adjust things like their fade time all at once?

I'm not sure you can do that. Using the "spreadsheet" style of the cue list one by one is the only method I know. You can however in Setup, set the default times for fades, so if during programming you need different times for a block of cues you could do this. But once you've programmed, I don't know a quicker way to update them.

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• Is there an equivalent of copy-to/recall-from? Especially, is there an equivalent to how on Eos you can go into blind, select e.g. cues 1-20, then do channel 15 copy-to channel 18, and it'll apply that copy operation on all of those cues at once.

There is reasonable COPY (and MOVE) functionality (especially on FLX), but I don't know that you can do this.

 

I hope that helps!

I'd encourage you to put enhancement requests in on this forum for any features you have in Eos that would be beneficial on ZerOS.

To record a blackout, I recommend "1 THRU *. <ENTER>" as this allows move on dark to continue to work. Similarly, avoid snapshot cues Similarly if you get white boxes in your output windows, those fixtures have "blocked" values. If this is not intended, then use UPDATE <ENTER> (with SmartTag enabled) to remove these. Note also when you're using UPDATE to ensure you've selected the tracking option you want - Cue Only, Track Forward etc (those are probably the options you're most likely to use). Tracking works well on FLX so I'd encourage you to stay in that mode, and not go back to Global Cue Only mode (in Setup).

Regards,

Kevin

 

[Davidmk]

2 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Select the Fixture, hit HOME (this will tag all parameters). UPDATE and select the REMOVE option.

Hi @kgallen. This will remove that fixture from the cue entirely. If that's not what you want then just select the parameters you want (or do "thing") and then update remove instead. Or do HOME and un-tag the ones you want to keep. The values are irrelevant by the way - its the selection that matters.

[kgallen]

Just now, Davidmk said:

Hi @kgallen. This will remove that fixture from the cue entirely. If that's not what you want then just select the parameters you want (or do "thing") and then update remove instead. Or do HOME and un-tag the ones you want to keep. The values are irrelevant by the way - its the selection that matters.

Yes, sorry, I should have elaborated on my answer for attribute remove! Thanks for clarifying that! - I should have thought more about "thing"!

[Davidmk]

21 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Using the "spreadsheet" style of the cue list one by one is the only method I know.

@kgallen is right I think. Only way I know anyway, you tap the time you want to change, hit ENTER, type the new time, ENTER again and then DOWN (the arrow key) for the next cue. Remember you have multiple fade times, not just intensity - best to do a column at a time rather than all the times on each cue in turn - less key strokes.

[Davidmk]

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

Does ZerOS have the equivalent of by-type palettes

From the manual...

If any of the selected fixtures are not actually programmed in the applied palette, but there are one or more fixtures of the same type that are programmed, the fixture will use the values programmed for the first fixture of the same type.

So, I presume all ZerOS pallettes are "by-type".

[kgallen]

Hi Amy,

I guess I should've questioned this one:

9 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

• I know that I should turn SmartTag off,

Why? (out of interest!)

I programme theatre cue stacks and rarely turn off SmartTag. I only do if I need to do a REMOVE or something very specific for an UPDATE operation.

I know that the busking folk tend to turn SmartTag off but this is because they are doing some complex overlaying of Playbacks with very specific material recorded into each playback, and generally not using a traditional stack or relying on features such as Move on Dark.

But for theatre cue stack I would have thought in the main, you'd have SmartTag on.

 

[Davidmk]

8 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

Is there an equivalent of Eos's blind spreadsheet

@kgallen already gave one answer but there are other options. Read about blind mode here and cue editing here. There's also a save as CSV option, you can open the resulting file in a spreadsheet. It's not easy to read but it shows everything in every cue in a single playback.

[Davidmk]

5 minutes ago, kgallen said:

busking folk tend to turn SmartTag off

@kgallen I'm a busker but, call me old fashioned, I keep it off for cue stacks because I'm used to working that way.

[kgallen]

22 minutes ago, Davidmk said:

@kgallen I'm a busker but, call me old fashioned, I keep it off for cue stacks because I'm used to working that way.

Sure, that's of course fine! I was just curious that Amy might think she "needs" to work with SmartTag off when doing theatre stacks.

Each to their own based on their needs, experience and workflow. 🙂

[Davidmk]

That's the great thing about it, you have a choice!

[Amy Worrall]

23 hours ago, kgallen said:

Sure, that's of course fine! I was just curious that Amy might think she "needs" to work with SmartTag off when doing theatre stacks.

Each to their own based on their needs, experience and workflow. 🙂

Essentially, because my mental model from Eos is all about being specific about what stuff to record into each thing (cue/palette/etc), which seems to map best to being in control of the tagging myself on ZerOS. On Eos, I'm used to it recording every manual change by default, unless I specify a specific list of channels/parameters. That seems to map to ZerOS tagging everything I change, unless I go back and untag things I don't want it to record.

[kgallen]

ZerOS tags when you adjust <thing> but I guess you know that!

[Edward Z88]

Hi @Amy Worrall

As usual, @kgallen & @Davidmk have done an excellent job of responding to your points. Do let us know if you have any outstanding questions.

Just to add a couple of extra comments on the points below...

On 8/27/2023 at 2:12 AM, Amy Worrall said:

• I know that I should turn SmartTag off, and things that are manually tagged will get recorded. Does this just apply at a parameter level, or is it also a concept at a fixture level? For instance, can I un-tag a whole fixture in order to not record it when creating a cue?

On 8/28/2023 at 11:25 AM, Amy Worrall said:

Essentially, because my mental model from Eos is all about being specific about what stuff to record into each thing (cue/palette/etc), which seems to map best to being in control of the tagging myself on ZerOS. On Eos, I'm used to it recording every manual change by default, unless I specify a specific list of channels/parameters. That seems to map to ZerOS tagging everything I change, unless I go back and untag things I don't want it to record.

You are correct - you will definitely want to work with SmartTag disabled, coming from Eos. With SmartTag disabled, you are forced to build the next cue from the last cue, which is a workflow you'll be more familiar with. Personally I always program cue stacks with SmartTag disabled.

On 8/27/2023 at 2:12 AM, Amy Worrall said:

• Does ZerOS have the equivalent of by-type palettes? (i.e. I set the colour on one fixture into a by-type colour palette, and any others of the same brand, even if they're patched in the future, will get that colour.)

On 8/27/2023 at 10:50 AM, Davidmk said:

So, I presume all ZerOS pallettes are "by-type".

Yep - all ZerOS palettes would be "by-type".

On 8/27/2023 at 2:12 AM, Amy Worrall said:

• From the manual, I think I read that there's a way to e.g. store non-colour data in a colour palette, etc. I don't want to do that -- is it the sort of thing I might end up doing by accident?

Please see the link below for more information...

https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/palettes/advanced-palettes

You'll see you'd be hard-pushed to do this by accident!

On 8/27/2023 at 2:12 AM, Amy Worrall said:

• What's the easiest way to select a bunch of cues and adjust things like their fade time all at once?

On FLX, there isn't TIME syntax. Therefore, you will need to edit individual attribute timings for each cue. Note - if you tap on a fade time cell, you can hold SHIFT and tap the Up/Down arrow keys to increment/decrement by a second, which will speed things up, saving you having to type into each cell.

On 8/27/2023 at 2:12 AM, Amy Worrall said:

• Is there an equivalent of copy-to/recall-from? Especially, is there an equivalent to how on Eos you can go into blind, select e.g. cues 1-20, then do channel 15 copy-to channel 18, and it'll apply that copy operation on all of those cues at once.

FLX does not feature fixture-copy. You therefore cannot say "Fixture 15 copy to fixture 18". If fixture 15 and fixture 18 are the same type, you could do this via a palette. Please see the link below...

https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/palettes/advanced-palettes

If you have a USB keyboard connected, you can use @ CUE syntax. 2 @ 0/10 ENTER would set fixture 2 to the values it is at in cue 10 of the Master Playback.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions, please let us know.

[kgallen]

Hi @Edward Z88

Could you answer this part of the original query. I'm pretty sure I'm wrong in my answer. I couldn't find anything in the manual, but I'm sure there must be something...

This part of my answer I'm pretty sure is wrong, or at least missing something:

On 8/27/2023 at 10:07 AM, kgallen said:

To untag a whole fixture, select it then (I think) it's CLEAR+HOME (need to check the manual!).

Thanks, Kevin

[Edward Z88]

On 8/27/2023 at 2:12 AM, Amy Worrall said:

For instance, can I un-tag a whole fixture in order to not record it when creating a cue?

 

20 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Hi @Edward Z88

Could you answer this part of the original query. I'm pretty sure I'm wrong in my answer. I couldn't find anything in the manual, but I'm sure there must be something...

This part of my answer I'm pretty sure is wrong, or at least missing something:

On 8/27/2023 at 10:07 AM, kgallen said:

To untag a whole fixture, select it then (I think) it's CLEAR+HOME (need to check the manual!). To untag a whole attribute it's CLEAR+COLOUR (for example)

Thanks, Kevin

You can clear a single fixture from the programmer, meaning it won't get recorded in cues when SmartTag is disabled. To do this, hold SETUP and tap an empty UDK. From the Normal dropdown, choose Clear Fixture, and click OK. Now, you can select fixtures, and tap the Clear Fixture UDK, and those fixtures will be completely removed from the programmer.

I cannot think of a reason why you would want to leave a whole fixture in the programmer but untagged. If you wanted to do this, you would have to hold CLEAR, and tap each attribute key, and then tap the Intensity wheel's encoder button to untag intensity too. Personally if I had fixtures in the programmer, but only wanted some of them to get recorded, I would select the fixtures first, and then tap RECORD > Selected Fixtures.

Hope this helps.

[kgallen]

@Edward Z88 ah Clear Fixture - that's the one! I was completely wrong!

Edward, would you be prepared to add that to the "Manual Tagging" section of this page - or a cross-link or one of your "lightbulb" boxes to point to that if it's documented elsewhere in the manual (seems to he here)? I'm sure you probably mention Clear Fixture in the video that is in that section, I just didn't want to watch all of that video to answer Amy's question.

🙂

 

[Edward Z88]

9 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Edward, would you be prepared to add that to the "Manual Tagging" section of this page - or a cross-link or one of your "lightbulb" boxes to point to that if it's documented elsewhere in the manual?

Done - https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/controlling-fixtures/tagging

[Davidmk]

Hi @Amy Worrall @kgallen @Edward Z88

I love threads like this, I always learn something. In this case, more than I contributed 😀. Thanks all.

[kgallen]

2 hours ago, Davidmk said:

I love threads like this, I always learn something. In this case, more than I contributed 😀. Thanks all.

I agree!

However it's embarrassing sometimes, I should have known "Clear Fixture" off the top of my head! 😏

What it reminds me is I need to keep reading the manual and focusing on some of the "advanced" sections. And to keep re-watching Edward's various FLX/ZerOS videos!

[Amy Worrall]

If I go to a cue, make a few edits, untag something, then do Update… in the newly updated cue, does the thing I untagged remain at whatever it was set to before the update (e.g. in eos just not including it in the parameters to update), or does it get removed from the cue entirely (e.g. in eos doing @<enter>)?

Another Q, does Zeros have inhibitive subs? As in, a sub that defines the 'max level' for a set of fixtures? I'm considering using one to allow the board op to limit the amount of haze (where the haze triggers are programmed into the cues).

[Amy Worrall]

32 minutes ago, Amy Worrall said:

Another Q, does Zeros have inhibitive subs? As in, a sub that defines the 'max level' for a set of fixtures? I'm considering using one to allow the board op to limit the amount of haze (where the haze triggers are programmed into the cues).

Ah, I found an answer about inhibitive subs here!

[kgallen]

21 hours ago, Amy Worrall said:

If I go to a cue, make a few edits, untag something, then do Update… in the newly updated cue, does the thing I untagged remain at whatever it was set to before the update (e.g. in eos just not including it in the parameters to update), or does it get removed from the cue entirely (e.g. in eos doing @<enter>)?

If you Untag something then that untagged change will not be recorded or updated.

You need to use the REMOVE method discussed above to take a something out of a cue.

[Amy Worrall]

Well, I survived! First night was yesterday. With very little time in the venue and no tech run (gotta love amateur theatre), I'm glad I prepared myself by getting help from you guys

If anyone's interested, here's some thoughts:

• I was using a FLX without a monitor. A few things were annoying because of that:
  • having to use shift+view to get the output window, as opposed to having it as one of the things that View will cycle through. (I constantly wanted to swap between the cue list and the output window, and I pretty much never cared about the fader display -- LX tape was sufficient to label my faders!).
  • I didn't like how you had to press and hold record or update to get the record options, and when you did, you couldn't see the command line. I frequently wanted to issue the command "record cue N", where N was the number of an existing cue I was replacing, and to also specify tracking mode or some other record options.
• I wish that the current and next cue numbers were persistently displayed somehow, even when e.g. looking at the outputs window or a set of palettes. Maybe they could go on one end of the command line?
• I wasn't so keen on how the command line just fills up with multiple unrelated things. For those that don't know Eos, it clears the command line after each command is finished -- Eos maintains selection separately to the command line, so clearing the command line doesn't lose your selection. This wasn't too big a deal, I did get used to it.
• I really really really missed having a Time key. On Eos, to edit the time of the cue you're in, you can just type "Time 3 <enter>", or for a different cue, "Cue 6 time 3 <enter>". Time entry by navigating with the arrow keys on the cue list was probably my biggest slowdown.
• I loved the auto colour and gobo palettes feature. They saved loads of time.
• I did record a few "everything" palettes (e.g. having intensity, colour, position etc in just one palette, aka Eos Presets). They worked fine -- I put them under Colour, fairly arbitrarily. I think it'd be more understandable having a separate home for them, but this was fine.
• Am I correct that the desk only holds one show file at once, and auto-saves? I was very confused about whether the Save option through Setup, and the save option through the Z key, did the same thing as each other and whether they always saved to USB.
• Is there an Undo? I couldn't find one. Would have helped a lot when i replaced colour palette 8 instead of position palette 8!
• Is there a way to swap the encoders from fine to coarse mode? They were scrolling very slowly for me.
• Probably a small thing, but I missed Eos's "expanded" output tile view, where every parameter of every light was visible. (I'd want it as an option, since it would drastically increase scrolling!)
• I liked how Zeros displayed the fixture types above the output window items (And that I could name my dimmers and those names would appear there.)
• The Update button:
  • It was great to show all the possible things that could be updated, but the tap targets were very small!
  • It wasn't immediately clear to me what "also update references" did -- was it so that if I changed a palette it would update the cues that referred to the palette? If so, when would you ever _not_ want that?
• I think I mostly grokked how to remove things from cues (via update->remove), but I still wasn't perfectly clear. There was a toggle for Smart Tag in the update dialog, but I wish there was also the toggles for selected vs tagged, and all params vs tagged params. I wasn't sure how to specify "remove this entire fixture" vs "remove this parameter of this fixture", and I didn't grok what smart tag remove would even do. I know you guys explained it to me, it just hasn't quite sunk in!
  • I still miss the Eos Blind Spreadsheet though. The ability to see precisely which move instructions are in any [cue, palette, preset, submaster, etc], with blank spaces where no instructions are found… and an easy press of "at enter" once you targetted the thing you don't want, and you get instant feedback by seeing the number go away…
• Minor nitpick, but I kept wanting the Groups key to be near the Color/Pos/Beam/etc keys. I'm not actually sure why, since on Eos they're nowhere near each other either.
• Playbacks were pretty intuitive. I managed to set one up that did LTP mixing of intensity params, and it worked fine.
• Clear-clear to remove manual values was fine. I wish there was an option to remove them with a fade, aka Eos "Sneak"… if there had been, I'd have used syntax to modify lights during the live show, knowing that I could put them back when I wanted without the audience noticing.
• Patching was fine. I liked the <channel> <at> <address> syntax for updating DMX addresses. I wish that if you typed that into the patch window for a non-existent channel, it'd get created automatically.
• As you've probably guessed, I'm very syntax focussed (I see faders etc as shortcuts, not as my primary interface to the console). My personal preference would be for ZerOS to allow all consoles to use all bits of syntax, even ones they don't have hard keys for (e.g. the Time button, which apparently existed on an earlier console!). Then, there could be a way (shortcut button, dedicated key on future hardware, reprogrammed UDK etc) to put a "complete" keypad onto the touchscreen, just like Eos does when running in Nomad. 
  • This would also have the benefit that Phantom ZerOS could have a console independent mode, that didn't show a facepanel, just the equivalent of one or two monitors, and this Keypad button got you access to all the inputs you need!
  • It should also be obvious that I'd like to see a future ZerOS console that had an even more expanded syntax keypad than the FLX.
• I missed the Eos "%+" and "%-" buttons. I liked having easy access to make a bunch of lights brighter/dimmer all at once. (I didn't try using an intensity encoder on ZerOS though -- I know you can lock that on if you want, but I didn't get time to see if it would have been an intuitive workflow for me.)
• We ran into an odd bug where the grand master was down but the desk ignored the fact. Once we moved it to the top, it started working normally again. 
• I didn't quite get the logic of when the "pause" button would immediately do a "back" action, vs which situations pressing it once would cause it to flash and you had to press it a second time to go back. I would have expected the latter to only happen during a fade… but actually it happened _most_ of the time, but not all -- sometimes a single press of pause _did_ go back. 
• I was bitten a couple of times by the fact that bringing the master fader down released the cue list and reset it to cue 1. I was trying to edit some moving light positions, and I went to the relevant cue, then brought the master fader down so as to see what I was doing (with manual values in the movers in question)… but it released the cue and I had to start over. I solved my issue by only bringing it down to 10%…
• How do you "clear" (aka release/sneak) just _some_ manual values? I know you could do it by manipulating the command line, but suppose my command line was ages long. This was definitely a workflow I missed -- often, I'd bring intensities down on some other lights while I was editing the ones I cared about, then I wanted to clear that intensity reduction but keep my other changes ready to update into the current cue. I miss my "@ enter"!

[kgallen]

This is really important feedback @Amy Worrall, thanks for taking the time to capture it all!