Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

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asta
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Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby asta » 12 Jul 2017, 10:35

Hi all,

I'm having some problems manily with the shapes on our pearl 2010. After some time with the builder I got our fixtures working, if adressed "manually".
The shapes generally won't work properly, at least with our fixtures.
For example the Stairville mh-z720.
In the 14DMX mode pan/tilt shapes (e.g. Circle) look like they adress only fine tilt/pan - eventhough in the 14dmx mode the mh-z720 does not have the fine.
I created the 29DMX mode (not available in the library - this one got 16bit pan/tilt) and have another problem: entering the shape generator the shapes are shown but on loading one I get "error loading shape".

I tried the generator with some other fixtures earlier, mainly interested in the rainbow and dimmer spreads. Didn't work properly, too.

I couldn't find the actual documentation about the shape file and suspect there is either something wrong there or I missed something in the attributes.
Can anyone help me with this problem?



The other question I got - though less important - is: How can I "group" the colours?
The mh-z720 has 4 cells, each with red, green, blue and white. But no control (expect colour macros) to control all together. I found this: http://forum.avolites.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4892, but cells cannot be assigned to the wheels in classic mode.
Would the virtual dimmer (as group for each colour over all cells instead of a dimmer for all colours in each cell like it is supposed to) work in the pearl 2010 and how does this internally work?
Is it relative or absolute / overwrite?

Best case for me would be: The virtual dimmer moves all the color channels (color on cell) but each cell can be controlled individually, if needed - without setting the other.
This would be absolute / overwrite. So virtual dimmer goes up, every physical green channel is set to this value.
OR
Virtual dimmer is like an actual dimmer. So virtual dimmer to 50%. Changing every individual channel to 100%. The absolute intensity is now 50%.
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niclights
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Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby niclights » 12 Jul 2017, 11:10

Regarding shapes it may be that the shape file has become corrupt or lost for some reason (this might happen if you patched a custom fixture without a copy of the shapefile on the disk). I seem to remember that a symptom is all the shapes appearing in caps (ie. 'CIRCLE' rather than 'Circle'). I could be wrong though - it's been a long time! You can reload the shapefile via System/Utilities/Load Shape File (in my experience you then need to perform a soft reset).

Regarding cells and virtual dimmer unfortunately these are not supported on the Pearl 2010 and there is no way to do this within a single personality file.

The only option might be to split the fixture into a number of personalities. For example fixture 1 = channels 1-5, fixture 2 = RGBW and fixture 3 = channels 23-29. You would then patch 1x fixture 1 followed by 4x fixture 2 and then 1x fixture 3. This way you could group the cells by selecting the four RGBW fixtures and these would also work with the shape generator (unlike in a single personality where it would only work on one cell). Obviously the main disadvantage is that it occupies a number of handles. (note that fixtures 1 and 3 here could be created as one with gaps for the cells if you are careful).

Personally I would probably just use the 14 channel mode here and maybe make use of the built-in macros if appropriate. Although the lack of 16bit pan/tilt is a shame.

If it's an option you might want to consider upgrading to a Titan console which is designed to handle multi-cell fixtures such as this.
asta
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Joined: 11 Jul 2017, 23:03

Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby asta » 12 Jul 2017, 14:52

Wow, thanks for the quick response!

I will try to reload the shapefile. (From the desk itself or better from external USB?)
Is the shapefile a "global" one, so just one for all, or will it be different on when I only load "selected" fixtures (like the ones I made myself)? I noticed that the copy 2008 creates on when preparing the USB stick.
Would make more sense to use the shapefile from the general (download) library or the specifically created one?
And do you know, how the shapefile references?
There is a legend that tells the numbers, like 1 is pan, 2 is tilt, and so on. But this also refers to magenta, yellow, cyan - which we do not have. (so is the reference to the attribute on the wheel - whatever this may be?)

(The visualiser file doesn't have to do anything with this, I hope? Didn't create one, cause we don't use this).




Dividing the cells is an option, I did this before with an LED bar, because the 3rd an 4th can were not patched to the wheels on bank 1 or 2...
It works, though i ran into some complications with group selecting, but this could be avoided with well programmed personalities, espacially the locate. And the fixtures would have to be grouped - though that is not a big issue.
Maybe an option would be to put the colours on multiple offsets, so they will be controlled all together. This would prevent single cell control, which would be nice but less important. Or naming the colours in the macro one by one would be an option for a usable direct control.
This way it is possible to use 16bit pan tilt and still get a good workflow.
(Maybe getting to know more of the palettes would be a good idea too :oops:

The 29Dmx Mode has some small advantages like the 16 bit and some more controlled automation. (Like putting only the colour in S2L mode and things like this).
I'll find a usable configuration^.


As much as I'd love to get a titan or quartz this won't be possible.
We are a General Students' Committee, so we got to work with what we have :(
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niclights
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Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby niclights » 12 Jul 2017, 15:58

The shapefile is global. It needs to be loaded from an external Usb - the one created by Copy 2008 will be fine.

Regarding references, shapes rely on the attribute type in the personality file. For example A=Cyan, B=Magenta, C=Yellow. The 'Rainbow' shape will then work on the attributes assigned A/B/C. Each attribute must be assigned a unique type except for 0 ('Uncategorised'). It is not possible to have more than one attribute with the same type (ie. you cannot have T assigned to Red 1, Red 2, Red 3 etc.). The shapes in the shapefile then refer to these numerically (ie. 1=A, 2=B, 3=C etc.).

It is not possible to assign an attribute to more than one channel offset and neither is it possible to patch more than one fixture to a single handle. So I don't think that idea can work.
asta
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Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby asta » 12 Jul 2017, 20:36

So, in the shapefile i found this:

Code: Select all

;Eds New Shape File
;   Edited to Lowercase 31-7-01
;   Edited to 8 character lengths 31-07-01
;<PATTERN> <"name">

PATTERN "SIN"
   0   18   30   47   5a   6a   76   7d
  7f   7d   76   6a   5a   47   30   18
   0 ffe8 ffd0 ffb9 ffa6 ff96 ff8a ff83
ff80 ff83 ff8a ff96 ffa6 ffb9 ffd0 ffe8
PEND

;PATTERN "SIN"
;   0  c7f 18df 2502 30ca 3c1a 46d5 50e2
;5a27 628f 6a03 7071 75cb 7a02 7d0c 7ee2
;7fff 7ee2 7d0c 7a02 75cb 7071 6a03 628f
;5a27 50e2 46d5 3c1a 30ca 2502 18df  c7f
;   0 f381 e721 dafe cf36 c3e6 b92b af1e
;a5d9 9d71 95fd 8f8f 8a35 85fe 82f4 811e
;8000 811e 82f4 85fe 8a35 8f8f 95fd 9d71
;a5d9 af1e b92b c3e6 cf36 dafe e721 f381
;PEND16

This doubled definition is what makes me wondering - seems to have something to do with th 8/16 bit part. Is the ; for comment? Then 16Bit would not be included this way...



I found this table in a fixture file:

Code: Select all

; 8. Attribute type (A=Colour Wheel 1, B=Cyan, C=Magenta, D=Yellow,
;         E=Pan, F=Tilt, G=Iris, H=Dimmer, I=Gobo1, J=Gobo2, K=Gobo1 Rotate,
;         L=Focus, M=Gobo2 Rotate, N=Colour Wheel 2, O=Shutter, P=Prism, Q=Zoom,
;         R=Effect Rotate, S=Frost, T=Red, U=Green, V=Blue, 0=uncategorised)

I'm guessing, this is the acutal (and complete) lookup table? With T=Red being 20, the rainbow effects reffering to 2,3,4 and 20,21,22 this would make sense. And ignoring numbers not available in the fixture?
I'm getting closer to understanding all this - slowly^



Thanks again for your help and all the tips!
I'll try to check this out tomorrow. Maybe reloading the file will already do the trick.
Last edited by asta on 13 Jul 2017, 12:12, edited 1 time in total.
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niclights
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Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby niclights » 12 Jul 2017, 21:24

; means comment, yes. I'm not sure why those old 16bit pattern definitions are there but I would presume it is just legacy, perhaps from the software on consoles before the Pearl. However, I'm confident that they are not relevant. As you can see this was last edited in 2001. I was using 2000 consoles regularly around that time and had no problems with it. And when I test using the simulator it all seems to work correctly (with both 8 and 16bit pan/tilt). Almost certainly the issue is related to a missing shapefile.

That is the complete lookup table where T/Red = 20 in the shape definitions (I got those wrong in my previous post - apologies for any confusion!)
asta
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Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby asta » 13 Jul 2017, 12:33

No problem with the references! I was rather confused by the few references in the shapefile - I couldn't believe shapes worked only on 8 Channels.

Loading the shapefile did the trick!

Now I have to figure out the best way to control our lights. Sadly both modes going to be compromises, but I'll get there.


A strange thing happend, when I gave all 4 Cells on their respective channel the attribute. The rianbow shape started on all cells and worked. But the Pearl froze :(
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niclights
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Re: Pearl 2010 personalities, shape generator problems and cells-question

Postby niclights » 13 Jul 2017, 12:42

Glad it's working.

The software hanging is why it is very important each attribute has a unique type ;)

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