The Avolites Discussion Forum

It is possible to create some color shape based on "dimmer 1.2" shape?

The idea: all fixtures on color 1; then, one or two fixtures will turn into color 2 and the rest remaining on color 1. Next, other fixtures will turn into color 2 and the rest remaining on color 1.

The same idea of dimmer but using instead of dim 0% color 1 and dim 100% color 2. I tried to assing on sg.dat the pattern pulse 1.2 to colorwheel, but as I still dont got all those shapefile parameters clearly, the things dont turned as I wanted to!! So any help would be great!

By the way, Im just curious: Pearl Expert running Titan will go the same shape engine the 2008 series use? Sg.dat and so on...

Yes you can. There are two important things:

Firstly the pattern needs to be a type that has range zero -> positive values or zero to negative values only. For example the Step Up/Down type patterns. This will then take your origin colour and bump it up or down respectively. If you used a pattern that has both negative and positive values then it would become very difficult to predict colours.

Secondly when using a positive or negative only pattern there is a limitation of 50% difference since the pattern can only define +/- 127 (decimal).

You might want to consider writing a custom pattern that only moves the equivalent of a single colour at 100% size rather than trying to get colour jumps by adjusting size which might not always be accurate enough. The disadvantage is this will be very specific to each fixture.


If you search the forum you might find I had covered this in more detail before.


Titan currently has an xml file rather than sg.dat but it is essentially very similar. One notable difference is you can define +/- 256 meaning you can always achieve 100% difference up or down from an origin.

Thanks Nic!!

I've been using these color shapes on some DTS fixtures and they work really great!!

Another shape I want to achieve is like this:

1)a row of fixtures (lets say is open white
2)some shape like "dimmer pulse 1.1" run through fixtures, dimming them down to zero, one fixture after another
3)all fixtures are dimmed to zero
4)all fixtures dimmed to 100% again

And the pattern repeats over and over.

This is difficult because you loose resolution (both smoothness of fade and accuracy of speed) the more fixtures you want to accommodate.
Essentially you need a pattern where the off (-128) and on (+127) states are equal and long enough to allow all your fixtures to remain in one or other state at once.

To understand this try patching 60 dimmers into the simulator and do the same in Vis (or simply patch and show vis on Expert for auto-patch).
Select all the fixtures and apply a dimmer 1.1 pulse. Set the speed to 'stop' and then gradually increase the coarse value. Here you can see the maximum possible fixtures on/off where the pattern allows no fade. You can also see how speed is affected - at high spread values the speed is very sensitive.
The lower the speed the more transition values you need for smoothness yet there are normally only 32 steps to do all this in the pattern.

However, the spiral pattern does use 64 values therefore it is possible this is also valid. And I'm fairly sure the software does automatically apply some smoothing. So perhaps you can achieve a suitable balance between max number of fixtures and smooth enough fades. You can only experiment and see.


But personally I would use chases instead. Shapes are useful were there are complicated overlapping values. Where you want fixtures to be on/off in sequence I think it is much simpler to throw together a chase. It's so easy to do this using the preset faders and you end up with something that is smooth, has easily adjustable speed and interacts properly in the HTP sense.
In Titan this can be achieved with a two step chase and overlap.