The Avolites Discussion Forum

I've recently installed Titan Simulator and have started playing with it before I book on a course and buy a Titan Mobile. I also use Capture Solo for visualisation. Both are installed on the same PC.

I've been faffing about for hours this evening trying to get Capture to respond to Titan, without success. I then read about the Avolites ACDI software driver that seemingly is needed to connect Simulator to visualisers. A couple of things I need to ask...

1 - you have to buy a key for £20, then can only install ACDI on a single computer! Not very good when I'm trying to get to grips with how Titan works...I don't really want to spend any money until I decide to buy the consol!!! I've used the built in Viz, but want to use Capture.

2 - ACDI only works on XP according to the Avolites shop!...and I've switched my Windows/Bootcamp install over to Windows 7 because Titan wasn't running well under XP on my Mac!!!

My question is do I really need to use ACDI to connect Titan Simulator to Capture, and if the answer is 'yes', does that mean I have to re-install XP (which I don't really want to as Win7 is working better than XP did).

As I'm a beginner with both Titan and ArtNet, if connecting these 2 is possible, please could you give me some step-by-step instructions?

Cheers, Nige

You don't need ACDI.

In Titan (let's use a new show for demonstration):

- System
- [DMX Settings]
- In the Art-Net section under available DMX nodes select Broadcast: Universe 0
- Select a line under DMX lines to assign. For example Line 1.

Testing on a Win 7 64-bit machine with Capture Polar demo here this is all that seems to be necessary. It appears to see the data regardless of IP settings.

Universe 0 = Capture line A
Universe 1 = Capture line B
etc.


To test try the following:

In Titan:

- Patch 1x Dimmer on line 1 (we are assuming Art-Net universe 0 is assigned to this), DMX 001
- Shift (right-click Avo button) +Exit
- Select dimmer
- @@ (to set to 100%)
- Record
- Select a blue button above one of the playback faders
- Clear

In Capture select the Universes tab and then move the playback fader you recorded the dimmer to.
You should see 'ArtNet Universe 0, Sub-Net 0, Input 1 next to Line A in External Universe which will confirm it is working.

If this does not happen then go back to Titan DMX Settings, click on the [i] button on the assigned Art-Net node and then try changing the IP address by selecting softkey C. You can try 127.0.0.1 (loopback IP) or your local network ending in 255 (broadcast). Typically this might be something like 192.168.1.255 but can vary depending on the gateway address of your router.

Thanks very much...I'll give this s go later. Seems to be pretty much what I was doing but there must have been something I was missing.

Well...after much more faffing around...no success...Capture refuses to show up anything in the external universe field, and of course the fixtures I've patched don't work!

If I open the DMX workspace window I can see values when the dimmer is up, but there's clearly no output from the console.

My laptop is on my home network with IP 192.168.1.12...I've tried this in the DMX settings, and 127.0.01 but still no luck.

When I look at the TitanNet overview page I see 169.254.x.x IP addresses against my laptop (3rd pane from the left)...I've no idea where these have come from!

I'm sure there is another setting or switch in Titan Simulator that I need to set or flick, but which one?

What do I look at next?

To be sure it's not something strange with Bootcamp I've just tried a fresh 6.1 & Capture Polar install on a Macbook here but it all worked straight away again. This is running XP but I'm not convinced the OS is an issue.

The 169.254.x.x address is strange. This is typically something you will see if you have a DHCP problem on your network. However, normally this would also prevent you from accessing your network or the internet. One way or another I think this is the reason it isn't working.

What does it say your address is when you go to Settings/[Network]? This is displayed in softkey A.

It says wireless network connection 192.168.1.12...this is correct!

Quick question. ..how do you save the dmx line settings...when I fired up titan just now my settings for line 1 were not saved from last night?

When I reassigned the artnet universe to line 1 the ip address is 169.254.192.155!!!

What should the system field be set to?

When I look at dmx module properties for artnet I see default adapter with no ip, and local area connection 169.254.8.97. When I do ipconfig I see the wireless lan settings are correct and do ethernet settings as it's not plugged in.

I'm booted directly into Windows, not using a virtual environment.

I'm confused to say the least!!!

Let me know what you think.

Nige

maybe I am allowed to add some pence

- your setup is not exactly clear to me - I assume you run everything on one machine
- there are some little things I experienced in the past, albeit no Capture was involved:
- in order to have both, the simulator and some visualiser on the same machine connected via Art-Net, you either need to install Microsoft Loopback adaptor, or have an active network card. You can activate your network card simply by hooking it up to a network switch
- a wireless adaptor (activated as soon as connected to a wireless network) would do the trick in theory, too. However, there is a little glitch in Titan: wireless adaptors do not show up in DMX settings. Thus you're back to square 1: either install the Loopback, or activate your card.
- it's a good idea to set the IP adress of the card to something like 2.x.x.x I am not sure about Capture - but there is other software which accepts Art-Net only in this designated range (however, I do know that Lightconverse and Wysiwyg are more flexible, and just accept any valid address)
- from my experience, visualisers (and media servers) on the same machine do not automatically show up as Art-Net nodes in DMX settings. This seems to be due to network mechanics: Art-Net Art-Poll works as 'limited broadcast', and this, by definition, prevents a machine from answering its own broadcast. However, as Nick has described, assign the Art-Net broadcast node, and adjust the network adaptor/IP adress to your needs.
- system field: do not bother
- DMX line settings should always come up with the previously stored settings. However, as soon as you load another (or a previous) show, you have the option to load the values from the showfile - and if you, by accident, selected this option, the settings are changed to the ones in the show file.

I know everything sounds quite tricky. But I promise as soon as you have a working setup you'll soon get the hang of it

I hate Windows networking.

Firstly, don't worry about it not saving the DMX settings at the moment. I get the same thing here. This is probably an issue relating to the shutdown show which I will investigate but it is not the reason why this is not working. If you manually save and load the show (with load DMX settings enabled) I'm sure it will work ok.

System should be 0.

Capture will work fine on any IP range including 192.168.x.x.

You definitely don't need loopback adaptor or a wired connection but I am sure it is something to do with the network adaptor. It certainly wouldn't harm to try a wired connection under Bootcamp and see if it works.

I have even tried disabling the LAN here but it still works as expected. My adaptor TCP/IP settings are even set to another range but it makes no difference.
Whatever I do I see everything the same as you except in Titan I get 192.168.x.x in TitanNet and in the ArtNet settings.

Have a look at the LAN status in network connections and also its properties. Maybe there will be a clue.

An update...

Success!!!

I connected my laptop to my network by cable so it had a proper IP address, reset the Line 1 DMX settings to x.x.x.255 (I had it the same as the machine's IP on the network), and hey presto, everything is fine!

I've now given the adaptor a fixed IP address so I don't have to keep changing the network and DMX settings in Titan.

I notice that Titan doesn't appear to recognise my laptop's IP address if it's connected by WiFi (when I look at the network settings the IP isn't listed on a soft key)...is this right?

I've still got no idea where that 169.x.x.x IP address was coming from...very odd!?

Thanks for your help...now I can start to look at the software properly.

Yes, the WiFi problem is 'on the list', as far as I know.

IP addresses like 169.254.x.x in general come if the machine is set to DHCP ('obtain IP adress automatically'), and no DHCP server (a computer or router who assigns adresses) is in your network; the process is called APIPA.

icke_siegen wrote:Yes, the WiFi problem is 'on the list', as far as I know.

IP addresses like 169.254.x.x in general come if the machine is set to DHCP ('obtain IP adress automatically'), and no DHCP server (a computer or router who assigns adresses) is in your network; the process is called APIPA.

That makes sense now!

Thanks