YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

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funkyant
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YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby funkyant » 22 Sep 2015, 10:52

Interested in learning how to create your own fixture personalities for Titan?

Check here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzYXemQF ... LuFJfqhLco



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niclights
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby niclights » 22 Sep 2015, 21:15

Hi,

Great work.

This is really good and clear. I've been struggling to find time to do any work on an official version so this helps. Thanks!

I have some (hopefully constructive!) comments all relating to the third video:

- When you change or input a function name it automatically copies this to the wheel display text. In your particular example you chose something with a percent symbol which we would normally manually remove from the wheel display otherwise you will end up with % displayed twice if the display type is set to percentage. If you look at factory shutter you will see it says 'Strobe %' in function name but just 'Strobe' in the wheel display.

- For adjusting the function parameters I would always use the DMX Values tab rather than the properties section. In fact when creating factory personalities the only time I would ever use function properties is if I wanted some exotic wheel display type which isn't available from the drop-down in the DMX values section. The benefits of using the DMX values tab is you can see and adjust all the functions in an attribute at the same time. I will regularly use copy/paste here to speed things up and the auto range option at the top can be handy (relies on equally divided ranges etc.). The latter might be too complicated and unnecessary for a tutorial but I do think demonstrating using this rather than the properties may be less confusing to the uninitiated.

- When adding attributes to modes you can marquee select all the attributes and drag-drop straight into a mode. This will then assign the channels in the order the attributes were first created. You alluded to the importance of the order of creation earlier and so this would be how I would tie it in.

- Like with functions when changing channel mapping I would always use the mapping tab rather than properties. It's much easier to see all the channels and offsets in one screen and adjust as necessary. There is also an auto assign button which can help you out. For example if you have a mode with 16bit Pan/Tilt and one with 8bit, after adding all the attributes you can just change pan and tilt to 8 bit and then hit the assign button which will sort out your offsets rather than having to go through each one.

- For macros there are shortcuts that I always use. Firstly there is an auto macro button. This will look for any function names starting 'lamp' or 'reset' in the attribute with ID 'control' and automatically create an associated macro which holds for 6sec and then returns to the first function in the control range. To quickly create macros for functions with other names you can just double-click on the function. Finally, if you want to create macros for functions in other attributes then simply select the attribute, select macros then select the 'current functions' tab at the top. This will then show all the functions from the last selected attribute. Double-clicking on these will create macros. This will be all you need to do for the majority of fixtures.

Other suggestions:

- I would consider finding an appropriate time to explain the importance of the attribute ID. For example each attribute must have a unique ID (the builder will prevent you from creating conflicts). Attribute ID 'Dimmer' means it is HTP where all other attributes are LTP and also associates it with the Pearl Expert preset fader. Also, the ID is used by the shape generator, colour pickers and attribute editor. In particular Red, Green, Blue, White, Amber, WarmWhite and ColdWhite for the colour pickers and the various blade ID's for blades. I think people are often confused about multi-cell and don't appreciate one of the key reasons for cells is to ensure multiple dimmer or colour components still work with these various functions.

- If you produced a fourth video I would look at the more advanced functions such as virtual dimmer, attribute conditions and cells.


If you need any assistance or have any questions then please feel free to contact me at nick<dot>morris<at>avolites<dot>com.
funkyant
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby funkyant » 23 Sep 2015, 10:41

Hi Nic.

As I state in the video, I'm no expert, so I'm very happy to receive your comments!!

I still have things to learn about the builder. I taught myself everything by loading up and analyzing existing personalities.
The videos were meant to be more of an introduction to it, than a fully comprehensive tutorial. But yes, maybe it is a good idea to make a number 4 which tackles some more advanced functions.

Regards to the wheel names and percent symbol - I address this in the video eventually. I decided to include the mistake and corrections in the video, rather than re-record it. Let's be honest, part of the process of making and testing a personality is definitely going back and fixing errors haha :)

And I totally get that using the Values Tab is more concise. This might be good to include in the 4th video.

I did not know the tip regarding adding all functions to a mode in one go, or the macro shortcuts. I will add some text annotations - cheers :)

I did brush over the attribute ID's, however I did not know that certain strings had particular meaning to the compiler. Is there a comprehensive list of these? Even an internal document would be helpful (notes scrawled on a napkin?). I would for sure put that in a follow up video.


Also, question: Do the physical attributes have bearing on the visualizer, as I eluded to? If not, any info on personalities for the visualizer would be amazing!!!

james at imagineav dot ae

Ps. adding some video embedding to the forum code could be nice.
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niclights
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby niclights » 23 Sep 2015, 19:27

Looks like Gregory has kindly done the embedding.

Apologies if I missed some bits in the video!

Re. vis - there must be a paired set of .r20 and .vis files for each mode. These must have the same device name and for auto patch to work this device name must be in the Classic Pearl Reference field of the mode properties. Essentially if you enter a device name and then generate .r20 saying yes to the vis option then all this will happen automatically. It's also important to ensure that there are no conflicting or unassigned attributes in the Pearl wheel mapping section and that all the attributes have unique types or are set to 'uncategorised'.

The .vis side of the export does look at the attributes but isn't perfect. Some I'm sure could be tidied up in the future but as a rule you will always need to manually edit the file after creation. For example it will try and create amber and white as colour attributes. These are not supported and need to be deleted. Iris tends to always end up as closed. etc. etc. There are lots of these little issues. Suggest experimenting and see if you can get a handle on it. If you look around there should be various bits of information on the forum somewhere.

In addition to the auto macro's there is also the auto palette button for preset palettes. This tends to work pretty well. The only things I have to edit are sometimes the shutter options which it can get wrong (name doesn't match the function) and some of the beam channels where it isn't appropriate (typically where it tries to set a min and max frost percent but uses a fixed value function or similar).

For ID's I don't have a document although one may well exist. But you can figure it out. I've already explained 'Dimmer'. Attribute editor blades and keystone uses the ID's in the factory templates - these are either in the form no 1 position left/no 1 position right. no 2 position left/no 2 position right. or no 1 position/no 1 rotate,no 2 position/no 2 rotate depending on the fixture. Colour pickers will look at Red, Green, Blue, Amber, White, WarmWhite, ColdWhite. If you look in the shape.xml file you will see which other ID's are used and where.

Another thing I meant to point out was the templates themselves (including which wheel slot attributes get assigned to initially) can be found in the Personality Builder/Templates xml files. This is probably way beyond the needs of a tutorial but might help you understand how it works. Note the way that you can define functions within the attributes to speed up creation. This is already done for things like RGB. For creating factory personalities I have modified some of these to make things quicker for me.
funkyant
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby funkyant » 23 Sep 2015, 20:53

Thank you kindly for those answers. So basically the visualizer requires you to get your hands dirty in the XML.

Interesing that Cyan Magenta and Yellow are not recognised as standards (show me a fixture missing those filters)?

When I get some time, I will take your advice and have a dig around in some XML and at the shape gen files to learn more.
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niclights
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby niclights » 23 Sep 2015, 21:14

It's not xml but yes.

Sorry, forgot about CMY. Those are used too of course. Shows how rare they are these days. Very few new fixtures with discharge lamps now.
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Gregory
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby Gregory » 25 Sep 2015, 12:19

Like Nic, I would like to thank you for your work in creating these videos. Sorry I forgot I had started writing this reply but hadn't posted it.

In the third video, you asked about how to get new versions of the personality loaded. Particularly if you are editing with a TitanOne after you have patched the fixture when you subsequently save over the previous personality file, you can go to Patch > Edit Fixtures > Update Personality to replace the personality in the show file with the one on disk. This should work without having to restart the software so should make editing on PC even easier although you can also use it on the consoles after copying and pasting over the file.

The fixture type and maximum pan/tilt values are used when generating Visualiser files. The maximum pan/tilt values are also used in Titan for the Flip function. Titan uses the maximum pan/tilt speed in the wheel acceleration calculation to ensure that the fixture moves smoothly when changing values on the wheels - if not set Titan will use a default which is normally fine for most fixtures.
phedias
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby phedias » 30 Dec 2016, 18:43

Hello Guys.Thank you its very helpful to follow those videos!Here is my question:I use the classic avolite Tiger with the R20 files.I try to build a file in the personality builder but i see when i save it that an d4 format.How can i convert that into R20 so i can import in my console?
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niclights
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby niclights » 30 Dec 2016, 18:58

phedias wrote:Hello Guys.Thank you its very helpful to follow those videos!Here is my question:I use the classic avolite Tiger with the R20 files.I try to build a file in the personality builder but i see when i save it that an d4 format.How can i convert that into R20 so i can import in my console?


Hello,

Go to the file menu and select 'Generate R20 Files...'. Note that for this to work you need to ensure there is a device name set for each mode in the Classic Pearl Reference field of the mode properties. Also check that all the attributes are mapped to unique wheel slots in the Classic Pearl Wheel Mapping table and that there are no conflicts (there should be nothing in magenta).
phedias
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby phedias » 31 Dec 2016, 13:22

Many thanks.That was really helpfull.I spent time experiment and really progressed on that.I can now save my file as R20 extension. As you said already on your tutorial the hot point is the well mapping where i stack as well! Everything is fine except 2 the amber and white colors are magenta
funkyant
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby funkyant » 01 Jan 2017, 05:09

Glad you found the tutorials useful.

To be clear those tutorials were made by me, and I don't work for Avolites, and sure as anything Nic knows a hell of a lot more about this than me, so much better to listen to him :)
phedias
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby phedias » 02 Jan 2017, 06:40

niclights wrote:
phedias wrote:Hello Guys.Thank you its very helpful to follow those videos!Here is my question:I use the classic avolite Tiger with the R20 files.I try to build a file in the personality builder but i see when i save it that an d4 format.How can i convert that into R20 so i can import in my console?


Hello,

Go to the file menu and select 'Generate R20 Files...'. Note that for this to work you need to ensure there is a device name set for each mode in the Classic Pearl Reference field of the mode properties. Also check that all the attributes are mapped to unique wheel slots in the Classic Pearl Wheel Mapping table and that there are no conflicts (there should be nothing in magenta).

Thanks Nick. May i sent you an email for asking something more on that topic?
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niclights
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby niclights » 02 Jan 2017, 09:45

You can but I think it might be better to keep it in the forum in case it helps other people. I would suggest you start a new thread rather than continue to use this one.
phedias
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Re: YouTube - Personality Builder Tutorials

Postby phedias » 02 Jan 2017, 16:02

the videos actually helps a lot as a guide for creating personality for a more complicate lighting fixture such as a moving head etc.How about an easy 8 channel led par 64 fixture. I was stack on the easy one to be honest :-)

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