The Avolites Discussion Forum

I've got an issue with the shape generator.

I want to create a user color wave up with the shape generator.
I set size so it jumps from one color to another.
When I test it, sometimes it works, but sometimes its if the size of the effect is'nt set large enough.
When I create the same effect as a chase, it works just fine, so it's not the fixture.

Anyone can help?

Regards, Bert.

I think I know what problem you're having. A colour wave with size 10 is processed as -5 <=> +5. So when you set your DMX channel value to 50 and run the effect, it will output 45 <=>55, that's probably not what you want. Though you'll program the 50 value onto a pallet because that's red on your spot (for instance). The only way to solve this is to select a colour and increase the value a bit so it's half way between colour 1 and colour 2. That way the effect you want is acheived.

I'd like to know if someone has another solution for this problem. When using pallets you always program the "full" colours, not split ones (at least I don't), so you'll always have this program when using the shape generator. Maybe it should be able to include a +x offset value which increases the current output a bit.

You can do this by re-writing the pattern to only use positive (or negative) values. I have done this and it works, but I'm too busy at the moment to look at shapefiles. If I get a chance I will post over the weekend.

Okay, that's a solution indeed... I'll create a pattern this afternoon, shouldn't be a big problem after my rain-pattern-adventure

Edit:



That's it... the pattern is a positive wave with amplitude 127. The shape plays it at size 20 and speed 20, which is default for my MAC250 Kryptons, but offcourse you could change that. Mind you that the shape has an amplitude of 127, so setting the size to 20 means the actual value will jump 10!

Yokes like Martin MACs have 2 colourwheel passes: the first one is fading the colours into eachother, the second one snaps from one to another. So if you use this shape in the first pass, the colour will fade, in the second pass it'll snap. Not all yokes have these kind of options, so if you want to create a snap, you could alter the pattern to:



Edit: altered the pattern, wasn't correct...

for it to snap. You could even make it snap to the next colour a bit shorter than it stays at the selected colour, but that's all up to you .

Hey guys, thanks for your support.

Could you tell how I get this pattern onto the console?

Get an SG.dat file, they're included on every fixture disk. Edit the file with wordpad or something like that, and paste the pattern into the first part and the shape into the second.

Copy onto a floppy, insert the floppy into your console and load the shape file via system mode -> utilities. Reboot the console after the loading is finished and you can use the shape from the shape generator. Where it appears in the list depends on the place you pasted it in the SG.dat file.

Thanks guys, I'll try it this afternoon.

I've loaded the new SG.dat file and rebooted the console.
When I want to playback a shape, nothing happens.
I reloaded the old version and this does not work as well....

Have you tried it using a different floppy disk?

http://www.lichtbron-oo.nl/SG.DAT

That's my own shape file, try that. You get the rain shape for free See this thread: http://www.avolitesshop.co.uk/phpBB3/vi ... .php?t=494 for operating info or just delete the shapes if you don't need it. By the way; my file contains more differences to the default shape file, cause I find the standard speeds of 64 way too fast (so their all set to 40).

Edit: altered the file to include color flip, color snap, gobo1 flip and gobo2 flip.

Edit2: I haven't been paying attention I gues... the coloursnap was already in the shapegen, but it's named "Col1 Wave1Usr".

Tried to add a similar shape for the prism as well, but what channel should that be assigned to? Documentation of the shape file doens't go beyond 8=dimmer and there are no prism shapes in the file by default. Maybe someone can post the entire channel list?

I had never considered this. I looked to see if the order was the same as in the personality file, which it is and would make Prism no. 16. I have no idea if it will work.

You're right, it's channel 16. I like the effect of snapping in/out prism's, always have used it but mostly just by programming a chase or using pallets. Now with this new shape I've got another programmed playback for this effect .

Maybe a nice software feature could be the assignment of an pattern to a channel. The number of patterns is quite limited compared with the number of shapes because the patterns are re-used. This could be solved by selecting "sinus" and then selecting the attribute you want to assign this effect to. That way there's no need of writing new shapes and thus extending the (already quite long) list.

I won? Woohoo!

So, for the select few who are crazy enough to mess with this, here is complete list of attribute assignment numbers above 8 which are not listed in shapefile syntax comments (probably!):

9 - Gobo1
10 - Gobo2
11 - Gobo1 rotate
12 - Focus
13 - Gobo2 rotate
14 - Colour 2
15 - Shutter
16 - Prism
17 - Zoom
18 - Effect rotate
19 - Frost

Sometimes i wonder what they were thinking when they designed the software!!! How illogical can you make this!

a logical order would've been i.e. the same as the keys represent it. say:
00 not used
01 dimmer
02 iris
03 shutter
04 tilt
05 pan
06 color
07 color
08 zoom
09 focus
etc etc