The Avolites Discussion Forum

I created a chase with many CUEs. Each cue contains a shape with position changes (pan/tilt) of my scanners. The Chase is saved under a fader.
When I unfold the Chase, the CUEs pop up under the faders and with those faders each CUE works individually. The scans move as expected.
Unfortunatetly, when I unfold and fire the fade with the complete chase, for some cues it doesn't work.
The speed is set to 20 seconds so each CUE is played for 20 seconds.

Any idea what to check?

Shapes don't tend to work very well in chases. If suitable you may find that changing the crossfade to zero helps. Otherwise I would suggest using cue lists instead.

Thanks for your reply
Any chance to copy the cues from the chase to the cuelist in order not to make the cues again.

One way is to view the chase then press COPY then marquee select all the cues in the chase playback view (they should turn red) then select an empty playback handle. You can do it in a similar way by pressing COPY then select the chase playback then press CUE 1 THRO x (where x is the last step in the chase) then select an empty playback handle. There might be a syntax that selects all cues but I can't find it at the moment.

This might not immediately play back the way you expect because of tracking. A quick and dirty way to solve this would be to just turn off tracking on the cue list playback but if you have more than one consecutive cue using the same shape then tracking is your friend. In which case you can use the tracking toggles in the cue list playback view to determine whether the shapes continue into the next cue or not.

I'm afraid Cue lists are the solution for me for shapes. Once I pressed GO the Cue runs and the movement (pan/tilt) begins. Is there a way to stop this movement?
I pressed stop but I read in the manual that only changes are taken in mind with cue lists so I think the movement remains.
I made a second cue list with cues with other movements but when the first cue lists with movements runs, activation of the second cue list doesn't work. The movement from the first cue list runs.
Are there options to change how it works?

It's difficult to advise without understanding exactly what you are trying to achieve.

The shape would continue to run if you stopped a chase step in the same way (at a basic level the only difference between them is that the chase will automatically go to the next cue by default whereas the cue list will wait for go by default).

If you want to stop shapes there are probably three approaches. You could record a cue in the list that stops the shape (just insert a cue after the shape cue and set the shape to block in the inserted cue). Press go to start shape (cue 1). press go to stop shape (cue 2). This assumes you have a set sequence of events that you will advance through.

Or you could create a separate cue containing a block shape. While this is active it will temporarily stop any shapes in active playbacks set to the same or lower priority.

Or you could assign a speed master to a fader and set the speed source of the cue list to that. Lowering the speed master fader would stop the shape.

As you said, shapes don't work well in chases (I experienced weird shape movements where the fixtures do other movements than programmed before), I started with Cue lists but with chases I could control (on/off) the shape as I wanted.

Let's explain:

The shape would continue to run if you stopped a chase step in the same way

-> I encoutered a different result
The Chase was linked to a virtual fader. When I fire the fader from the chase, the chase started and the shape/movement begun. The SWOP button became lid and also the name 'Shape bla bla bla' above the fader became illuminated.
When I pulled back the fader down, the shape/movement stoped and both the SWOP button and name aren't longer illuminated.
So far everything was fine, except, the fact that the shapes/movements are strange/incorrect.

While using Cue lists I cannot stop the shape/movement in an easy way.

I investigated your 3 proposes:
1/ Cue list with 2 cues (on/off) - The cue list will contain many cues (different chapes) so this will not be an option
2/ Block shape - Tried this and this indeed stops shape/movement, however while this 'block shape' cue is enabled, I cannot run a chase where I used pan/tilt positions (I avoid shapes, because they seem not to work well in chases).
The chase runs once and then the scanners stop moving
3/ Speed Master - Assigned speed master. In this case the problem is that the cue list remains running on the background, even if the speed is set to 0. The result is that every cue, the scanners change there position. There is indeed no movement during the cue but when changing from cue to cue, in the cuelist, the pan/tilt position changes so there is a movement

Maybe it's helpful to explain what I try to achieve
Among others, I have 4 RGB PAR leds and 4 scanners
For the 4 RGB PAR leds I want to 'simulate' an 'old fashined controller' where you have a background fader, a chasing (animation) level fader, speed control, and so on...
The 4 scanners may work most of the time let's say on 'autopilot' (but controlled by Titan One, not autopilot mode from the scanner itself) but when there is a romantic moment they have to play another animation (example: color red, slow motions, etc.), in this mode the 4 RGB PAR leds may produce a fixed color.
In summary I want to have 2 'modes'
Mode 1: Normal mode:
RGB leds have chases and different colors running automatically. I achieved this by creating:
- A virtual fader with only the Intensity channel recorded
- A virtual fader with a programmed Chase where I change the dimmer channel of the fixture and create in this way a Chasing animation. The chase has many cues so it's not boring, that's fine.
- A virtual fader with a programmed Chase where a color change is programmed. Also many cues to make it colorfull and have many variations

So far I controlled the scanners a bit in the same way with different virtual faders to control background intensity, chase intensity, color change and last but not least a chase with shapes for the movements but this became a problem becauce shapes don't work well in chases...

Mode 2: 'Romantic time'
I created a chase with only 2 cues where:
CUE 1: RGB PAR leds set to red and scanners to blue with a slow shape movement.
CUE 2: RGB PAR leds set to blue and scanners to red with a slow shape movement.

As shapes do not work well in chases, I changed to cue list but this has other consequences.
My Titan One knowledge is very limited I don't know how to program this in the best and easiest way.