The Avolites Discussion Forum

hi can anybody tell me whats the best way to control 4 studio due cs4 moving pars from the azure? whats the best way to patch them? and what about the shape generator? is there specific shapes especially for them?
thanks.

I created special files for the CS-4 for the Pearl 2004 so you can use shapes etc.

But you need 5 Fixture Controls for each... (One channel is the master, the other 4 represent the individual spots).

If you're interested I can send you the files.

regards,
stephan

that would be great thanks my email is david@avteam.ie
what do yoy mean by 5 fixture controls? as in dimmers or pans? and how many dmx channels or is it just a sg.dat file.
thanks this will be a big help.

The personality library does have a number of options, but clearly they are not the best way of controlling. This is similar to other fixtures where personalities have been written to try and contain all attributes in one, whereas this is probably not the sensible way. I think I will suggest some changes here. Chromabank springs to mind as a perfect example of making a personality unbelievably user unfriendly. This will always be a compromise between minimising handles and making something easier to use.


So, presumably by 5xfixtures, Glatti means 1x master control (ie. Global Pan/Tilt, Motor speed etc.) and then 4xcontrols representing the Pan/Tilt for each lamp?

By creating a custom personality with just Pan/Tilt/Pan Fine/Tilt Fine & patching four times, you can make use of standard Pan/Tilt shapes.

The other way of achieving shape control would be to write a custom shape where Pan is applied to all Pan related attributes, and similarly with Tilt. This is not ideal though since you won't have any way of creating spread offsets across units (unless specifically defined in the shape).

Therefore I believe using 4 x simple pan/tilt personalities is the best way.

This does have the disadvantage of requiring five handles.
However, since you will always need to patch four dimmers as well, regardless of personality, it might make sense to write one that combines the 'master' settings with the first set of Pan/Tilt. If, additionally, pending dimmers are defined in both types of personality then the dimmers can be patched over the top and you minimise handle use.

I hope that makes some sense. I realise it's complicated and difficult to explain. A 'pending dimmer' is just a pretend dimmer channel in a personality. Unless it exists, you cannot patch a dimmer & a fixture on the same handle.

If I get chance I will post some code here.

Also, FYI it is never a good idea to post email addresses on forums unless you like spam. Either put in the email section of your profile or PM a person with it

Hi

If I can hijack this question because it's effectively the same thing as I'm playing with. I'm using a Pearl 2000 running 2004 software. I've got some CS-4s and a couple of custom personality files (from someone via the Blue Room) which I'm trying to tweak and make more user friendly. However, I'm battling with some things not wanting to 'locate' properly!

I have a 'master' personality, then four 'slave' personalities - each with a dimmer and pan/pan fine - as discussed in this thread. It works, but I want the locate function on the master to set tilt to 128 (50%), pan mode to 100 (pan mode 1), and on the slave mode dimmer 100%, pan 128 (50%). My questions are these:

On the master personality, when I hit locate the 'tilt' locates to 128 (as required). However, the 'pan mode' doesn't set to 100 as part of the locate (I want them parallel rather than crossed) and no matter what I do I can't get it to do it. Even using a Martin Mac personality as a reference (because I think I know how it works!) I can't get the things I want to locate locating; on a mac, locate makes everything go 128/128, shutter 35 etc...

On the slave personality(s) I have a similar problem... locate works on the dimmer (to full) but not the pan (even though it's set to 128/128).

Can anyone please advise how to get certain attributes locating when I press the locate button? Many thanks. Extracts of code follow:

Master (locates tilt fine, but pan mode is left at 0)

DMX
3 61 s 5 100 1N E 1 "Pan" 0 0 0
0 0 L 6 100 1N E 1 "Pan Fine" 0 0 0
3 1 s 7 100 1N F 1 "Tilt" 128 -1 -1
0 0 L 8 100 1N F 1 "Tilt Fine" 128 -1 -1
8 1 I 17 100 1N 0 1 "Pan Mode" 100 -1 -1
8 61 I 18 100 1N 0 1 "Pan Speed" 0 0 0
9 1 I 19 100 1N 0 1 "Reset" 0 0 0
9 61 I 20 100 1N 0 1 "Aux" 0 0 0
END

Slave(1): (locates dimmer fine, pan is left at 0)

DMX
1 1 H 1 100 1N H 1 "Dimmer" 255 255 255
3 61 s 9 100 1N E 1 "Pan" 255 255 255
0 0 L 10 100 1N E 1 "Pan Fine" 255 255 255

For comparison, Mac 300: (locates pan/tilt/shutter etc)

DMX
2 61 L 1 100 1N O 1 "Shutter" 35 35 35
1 1 H 2 100 1N H 1 "Dimmer" 255 255 255
10 1 L 3 100 1N B 1 "Cyan" 0 0 0
10 61 L 4 100 1N D 1 "Magenta" 0 0 0
9 61 L 5 100 1N C 1 "Yellow" 0 0 0
4 1 I 6 100 1N A 1 "Colour" 0 0 0
9 1 L 7 100 1N 0 1 "Frost" 0 0 0
3 61 s 8 100 1N E 1 "Pan" 128 -1 -1
0 0 L 9 100 1N E 1 "Pan Low" 128 -1 -1
3 1 s 10 100 1N F 1 "Tilt" 128 -1 -1
0 0 L 11 100 1N F 1 "Tilt Low" 128 -1 -1
8 1 L 12 100 1N T 1 "Speed_p/t" 0 0 0
8 61 L 13 100 1N U 1 "Speed" 0 0 0
END

Any tips please?! Ta.

I have the D4 file fixed and ready and I am currently working on the R20 files for this fixture so that everyone will be able to use the CS-4s with individual shapes.

I would appreciate anyone who is having problems with this fixture to email fixture support with the problems and any solutions as some people are having problems using the fixtures individual pans on the modes that are patched to one handle.

I will try to get the updated personalities up on the website as soon as possible

David.Hunt wrote:I will try to get the updated personalities up on the website as soon as possible

Thanks very much - the new personalities are fine and, although they take up loads of fixture handles (10 per unit!) allow you to use shapes on the individual heads. I used them successfully last week.

Thanks

Peter