The Avolites Discussion Forum

Hi there.
Alot of people seem to put positions in palettes. I tried this at the weekend but it got me into a whole lot of mess....

I created a position CS with several fixtures and programmed that into a palette. Pressed clear and reset the location.

Using movement shapes on memories before the position palette was used worked fine. When I used the palette though, I couldn't get the CS position off and then all my movement shapes were completely based on the position palette, which in turn was very messy. I had to clear the programmer and relocate the movers.
I then tried the relocate position (50 pan, 50 tilt) as a palette but again the beams headed straight onto the roof.

So can somebody tell me how to work position palettes with movement shapes on memories please.

Thank you!

(Using classic Pearl software)

It's standard that shapes are based on the current state, be it a palette or a static memory: the shape just increases/decreases the values, defined by the shape type/parameters - but the base values have to be defined in palettes or statics. Thus, defining a 50/50 palette is the way to go. Is it possible there was an error when programming this palette? Please note that locating a fixture doesn't necessarily put the values into the programmer (strictly it doesn't at all). So, to correctly program this palette:
- clear
- select fixtures
- locate
- slightly move pan/tilt (this makes it into the programmer)
- record the palette

Thanks for the reply!

I'll try your advice and check the palette of the 50 50 XY position.

Whenever I use the desk for band or club lighting, I always usually locate the movers and clearing them before I start. Is this what I should be doing or should I start from the 50 50 position palette and then programme/use movement shapes over this?

I'm not sure about 50/50 position. It's certainly not a normal starting point for movement shapes in my experience. Pan perhaps but not tilt.

There's no rule to say you ever need to locate fixtures. It's just a helpful way of getting to some default values or finding a fixture on stage.

You can simply create a palette or cue etc. that puts attributes to your preferred values. Personally I always have a (numeric) palette that presets all my fixtures/attributes to a start point.

Regarding positions, positional shapes and programming I will always record cues as shape only (ie. no positional data) and then use positional palettes to determine the origin of the shape. The main reason for doing this is if you want the shape playback to control size and/or speed it must be set to mode 2 in the Classic software. This in turn means any other values stored in the playback will also fade in/out with the fader. So if your playback contained pan/tilt values and the fixtures were in a different position then the origin will fade with fader which is not usually desirable. There is the secondary benefit of being able to vary the origin by using different palettes should you wish.