The Avolites Discussion Forum

Hi guys, is there some way that we can download more shapes/effects for the Pearl Expert?

The default P/T shapes are great but it lacks on dimmer and shutter chases unlike with the Wholehog 2's/3's. Dimmer and shutter shapes are useful especially on fixtures without random strobe attributes like Cyberlights and some China products.

I dont mean to compare, we still prefer to use our Pearls rather than our Hogs, but most of our programmers here say that it will be great if we can combine the shape or effects of the two boards.

Thanks and more power to Avo.

Dimmer shapes do exist.

For shutter it would be quite easy to make your own if you require, although I've never been convinced of their usefulness.

Shape file is SG.DAT stored in personalities directory. Edit in Notepad or similar. It should be reasonably easy to understand - patterns are the effect itself consisting of hex values ranging -127 to +127 and shapes are the application of a particular pattern to one or more attribute (along with offset, size and speed).

Searching this board should reveal more info.

Note that because shapes work on the principle of +/- 127 around an origin it is necessary to program a dimmer origin of 50% and a size of 255 for a dimmer shape to be fully effective.

Also note that 'load new shape file' function does not work on the Expert. To update you must go to Program mode/Patch/Fixture - at this point the desk will search and load the shape file. Then exit. There is no need to actually patch anything!

HTH

Thanks!... That was quick..