Mimicing/aligning/copying more than one fixture at a time

[pscandrett]

Hi

I'm using a Pearl 2000 with 04 software.

I'm aware of the ability to align fixtures, which is handy for conventional movers etc, but I find myself increasingly using units that have more than one fixture handle (and indeed fixtures) for control - for example, we've got some CS4 moving pars (4 x dim, 4 x pan, 1 x pan/tilt, 1 x aux), or more simply, sunstrips (10 dimmers in one unit).

My question is whether, in the same way as I can align a single fixture so that one mover does the same as another, can I 'align' multiple units (that use multiple fixtures in their operation) so that one CS4 does the same as another, or one sunstrip does the same as another in terms of shapes and/or chases?

I'm not sure if I'm terribly clear here, so to try to describe it a different way - take the sunstrips as an example - I'd like to on occasion 'tie' them together so that a shape or chase or whatever applied to one sunstrip is replicated on another. I can of course apply shapes across the two strips and try to sync them up but that's not always easy (and is even worse with more complicated units like the CS4s).

To distil it further - can you tie one fixture to do the same as another fixture on a temporary basis?

I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't possible with the Pearl software I've got - but it's worth asking. Is it do-able with a newer Pearl? Am I missing something obvious? :-)

Thanks

[EmmaThompson]

Hi,

It might be easier if you patch the sunstrips and cs4s in as fixtures. If they are not in your desk cache they can be downloaded from our personality website - http://www.avolitesdownload.com/PersonalityLibrary. You will then be able to align whole fixtures. You will also have more handles available!

On Titan you can chose whether to align individual attributes across multiple fixtures, but on Classic you can only align everything.

You can only align attributes, not memories across multiple fixtures not originally recorded, so if you were trying to align a chase this would not work.

[pscandrett]

It might be easier if you patch the sunstrips and cs4s in as fixtures. If they are not in your desk cache they can be downloaded from our personality website - http://www.avolitesdownload.com/PersonalityLibrary. You will then be able to align whole fixtures. You will also have more handles available!

Thanks. The recommended way (on the personality website) of using the CS4s is to do it the way I explained - and it works fine normally (though, yes, granted, it uses up fixture handles, but it seems to be the only way of getting decent control of the things). I must admit that it'd never occurred to me to use a personality for the sunstrips, given that they're just dimmers, but I might give that a go.

On Titan you can chose whether to align individual attributes across multiple fixtures, but on Classic you can only align everything.

Yep, that's not a problem - I was just after a way of grouping fixtures and aligning them together, I guess.

You can only align attributes, not memories across multiple fixtures not originally recorded, so if you were trying to align a chase this would not work.

Right - I /think/ that answers my question; so you can't apply a running shape or chase to another group of fixtures easily? (This presumably would apply also to a chase running on dims 1234 and wanting to duplicate the chase except with the target dims being 5678?).

ta

[EmmaThompson]

No, because a chase has been recorded with certain fixtures in it, it will only play over those fixtures. To edit this you would have to unfold the chase and save new fixtures into the steps. Same with the shapes - it generates the shape onto the fixtures originally selected when you hit create a shape, and is unique to those fixtures.

[niclights]

Of course, while you might solve the alignment problem by patching sunstrips as single fixtures it does potentially make it more awkward to program and limit shape usage.

A solution to the programming difficulties of multi-cell fixtures is to (temporarily) make use of palettes. ie. for sunstrips 10xOn and 10xOff (shared). You can also make up some normal palettes if you wanted some very specific patterns across multiple fixtures.

Shapes are harder to solve, requiring editing of the shapefile and does come with limitations. But it still might be preferable to individual dimmers. I have covered this in detail elsewhere for Titan but the principles should translate ok.


I do think this raises some useful ideas though. Certainly align shapes and possibly some sort of 'follow fixture' function.