So I have been doing some research on an idea to allow for greater Live control. It all comes down to having 2 basic ideas that I think could really help save many of us time and work.
1. I have been asked many times during my show, in smaller venues if I can turn my lights down. This should be as simple as turning down a dimmer on a wall. Instead, the only way this is currently possible is to rebuild all my scenes and use lower DMX values. Or use Car window tint and magnets on the face of those fixtures to limit their light output. I would really like to see something that can limit RGB output DMX values. So if I want my lights dimmed, I can just grab what I will call a "Master Intensity" slider that will turn down all RGB values.
Let’s look at this feature like a DMX value limiter. If I set all my main scenes for RGB lights at 100% (DMX value 255). Life is good for large stages. So I have a Large stage folder for this. But smaller venues can vary, so I have to guess at a lower common light value ahead of time or go there and set all of my lights up and build all my light scenes again. I am a mobile DJ so this is not practical... I am rarely in the same venue more than twice a year.
I want this "Master Intensity" slider (aka dimmer) to limit the maximum DMX value. Almost the same way that you can currently change the speed of a scene and using a % value. This would only affect RGB channels and if my RGB channels were set to DMX value of 255, I could move this slider to 50% and it could limit all my RGB channels to DMX value of 128 (now 50% light output, theoretically). Or just mathmatically calculate 50% of any RGB slider, so that if one is already lower, calculate and report 50% of that value to preserve the color.
It would be great to have this option on fan and strobe speeds as well.
2. Most other lighting apps give you manual control of lights during a live show, using a color wheel and intensity slider that you already have in your Editor app. That being said, I am not sure why it is so awkward to get to and use during a live show. With Editor you can select channels, groups of fixtures, color and brightness in just a few total seconds. I have seen many people ask for Advanced "per channel" control in live and as I mentioned above using this with external DMX controllers to get some of this control.
Because you already have all these tools available in your Editor app, why not make using Editor during a live set more user friendly. I would love to have a way to enable a “Live Advanced” mode that opens Editor and allows me to jump in at any time, make my own scene on the fly. Temporarily over riding the Live data for only the fixture that I am changing in Editor and provide an instant release button to go back to the Live app control. Maybe this "Live Editor" can Clone or Load the Live scene that is currently running, over ride Live and then we could just make the changes we want. Then release this "Live Editor" control. This should be a WAY better option for manual control.
Right now, if I enable Editor DMX during Live scene, it blacks everything out. I want this "Live Advanced" mode to allow Live to do everything it normally does, until I modify something manually in this new "Live Editor". Then have an "instant release" button to Zero out Editor and release Live Editor control back to the Live app.
I know these are all tough items to do. I have also seen that maybe I am not using the software the way it was designed to be used. But I have seen people ask for this control, Pro consoles provide this control and I have seen others offer similar features. Your support and presence on this forum is amazing, but the above 2 items are the only reason I am still considering other solutions. Even at a High $ cost on software, I am still considering $500 to $1000+ to get this kind of control.
Advanced Live control > Master Fader
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JohnRichards
- Posts: 362
- Joined: 26 September 2011, 16:42
Re: Advanced Live control
Good explanation. Spells out in detail what I was trying to say.
Only difference is that all my RGB channels are always controlled by a dimmer(ie Led ParCans always greater or equal to 4 channels) and would therefore like to have control on which channels the "master fader" is to control. There would also not be a limit on the number of buttons created for "master faders" as one might want to control different groups.
Only difference is that all my RGB channels are always controlled by a dimmer(ie Led ParCans always greater or equal to 4 channels) and would therefore like to have control on which channels the "master fader" is to control. There would also not be a limit on the number of buttons created for "master faders" as one might want to control different groups.
Re: Advanced Live control
Thank you for this explaination.
1.
So you would like an "endless" fader, which overrides proportionally the levels of the "fade" channels*:
- whatever you do with the "endless" fader, the lightshow always run (all channels keep moving, even the "fade" channels)
- when moving up the "endless" fader, the dmx values of the "fade" channels take some % more than they have in the current lightshow
- when moving down the "endless" fader, the dmx values of the "fade" channels take some % less than they have in the current lightshow
Could you please confirm ?
* "fade" channels: sames channels than with function fade in/out ("RGBAW", "dimmer", ...)
2.
We effectively saw a few times users asking to move several functions of Editor inside Live. But why ?
To override channels when Live is running:
- open Editor and switch on the dmx. Until now, there should be no action on channels, because all channels are supposed to be not activated (except if you defined a specific scene called "Default")
- then call groups, grap fixtures on the fly, and adjust channels
- and use the "desactivate channels" function, or the "new scene" menu, to clean up the channels
To create/modify a scene when Live is running:
- open Editor
- make the scene with dmx button off (or "on" if you want to see the result on dmx outputs)
- save it
- add a new button with this scene, in Live
May be we just need to add only a few features in Live, like an option "Open in Editor" for buttons, in order to make the couple Live/Editor working together in better harmony ?
1.
So you would like an "endless" fader, which overrides proportionally the levels of the "fade" channels*:
- whatever you do with the "endless" fader, the lightshow always run (all channels keep moving, even the "fade" channels)
- when moving up the "endless" fader, the dmx values of the "fade" channels take some % more than they have in the current lightshow
- when moving down the "endless" fader, the dmx values of the "fade" channels take some % less than they have in the current lightshow
Could you please confirm ?
* "fade" channels: sames channels than with function fade in/out ("RGBAW", "dimmer", ...)
2.
We effectively saw a few times users asking to move several functions of Editor inside Live. But why ?
To override channels when Live is running:
- open Editor and switch on the dmx. Until now, there should be no action on channels, because all channels are supposed to be not activated (except if you defined a specific scene called "Default")
- then call groups, grap fixtures on the fly, and adjust channels
- and use the "desactivate channels" function, or the "new scene" menu, to clean up the channels
To create/modify a scene when Live is running:
- open Editor
- make the scene with dmx button off (or "on" if you want to see the result on dmx outputs)
- save it
- add a new button with this scene, in Live
May be we just need to add only a few features in Live, like an option "Open in Editor" for buttons, in order to make the couple Live/Editor working together in better harmony ?
The Lighting Controller
Re: Advanced Live control
- whatever you do with the "endless" fader, the lightshow always run (all channels keep moving, even the "fade" channels) - Pretty much
- when moving up the "endless" fader, the dmx values of the "fade" channels take some % more than they have in the current lightshow - I think these last two are right, I just want to make all my scenes at 100% light output in Editor which would be DMX 255 and then have a way to turn that down on the fly. So it would really never be more than 100% in my case. This would just take whatever DMX value is for each RGBAW channel, subtract X% and output that reduced DMX value to my fixtures.
Like you said, it would affect each step of each scene. Side note, it might be nice for my RGB strobe scenes to remove that scene from this dimmer.
On #2, overriding Live is what I think others have been asking for. I have worked with a band in the past and wanted to go Full solid white for a period of time and fade out to another scene. But live and not knowing the speed they play, I guessed the time, made the scene during break and tried it. I was off by allot and could manually have done it. There have been some other times I needed similar items.
I know my show well enough and it is below 200 channels, so I rarely make a change and get it wrong. I definately see that Editor is too crazy for some to use live. This was just my approch to people who want to use an external board, etc to get this manual control. It would also address the other thread and allow per channel control on the fly and get greater contorl that I think we would all like from time to time without extra hardware.
The create and modify scene, I have done this already and love how it works. Modify a scene that is already linked to a button in Live. Open that scene in editor, fix it, save it and flip back to live. Works well, just sometimes I don't have to save the scene because it was for that one moment and I had not anticipated that moment enough ahead of time. Like if an announcer says "bring up the lights" for a contest or "can we dim these down" if that is too much. I guess that can be done with a 2 step Off then FUll white Presets preset button if it had a smooth fade. I could do that for each color...
- when moving up the "endless" fader, the dmx values of the "fade" channels take some % more than they have in the current lightshow - I think these last two are right, I just want to make all my scenes at 100% light output in Editor which would be DMX 255 and then have a way to turn that down on the fly. So it would really never be more than 100% in my case. This would just take whatever DMX value is for each RGBAW channel, subtract X% and output that reduced DMX value to my fixtures.
Like you said, it would affect each step of each scene. Side note, it might be nice for my RGB strobe scenes to remove that scene from this dimmer.
On #2, overriding Live is what I think others have been asking for. I have worked with a band in the past and wanted to go Full solid white for a period of time and fade out to another scene. But live and not knowing the speed they play, I guessed the time, made the scene during break and tried it. I was off by allot and could manually have done it. There have been some other times I needed similar items.
I know my show well enough and it is below 200 channels, so I rarely make a change and get it wrong. I definately see that Editor is too crazy for some to use live. This was just my approch to people who want to use an external board, etc to get this manual control. It would also address the other thread and allow per channel control on the fly and get greater contorl that I think we would all like from time to time without extra hardware.
The create and modify scene, I have done this already and love how it works. Modify a scene that is already linked to a button in Live. Open that scene in editor, fix it, save it and flip back to live. Works well, just sometimes I don't have to save the scene because it was for that one moment and I had not anticipated that moment enough ahead of time. Like if an announcer says "bring up the lights" for a contest or "can we dim these down" if that is too much. I guess that can be done with a 2 step Off then FUll white Presets preset button if it had a smooth fade. I could do that for each color...
Re: Advanced Live control
I forgot to say that I LOVE the idea of being able to right click a Live button and select "Open in Editor". There have been a couple times that I forgot which scene was on the button (if I change the button name) and just created a new scene and linked to that. It would just be a fast way to fix a scene.
Re: Advanced Live control
I would like this idea,
But I think the master dimmer (nr 1)would be very difficult if used in live
Live doesnt look what channel is what
Live only send dmx valeus ( ore live has to be very different than it is now)
In order to have this working the masterdimmer should be in editor
Open the scene, set the masterdimmer to lower the output of the fixture( dimmer, rgb), save the scene,
Open live again create the new button
And this u have to do for every scene
And this very much work ( this is how it almost has to be do e now except the the dimmer channel extr)
Please correct me support if im wrong
Gr marco
But I think the master dimmer (nr 1)would be very difficult if used in live
Live doesnt look what channel is what
Live only send dmx valeus ( ore live has to be very different than it is now)
In order to have this working the masterdimmer should be in editor
Open the scene, set the masterdimmer to lower the output of the fixture( dimmer, rgb), save the scene,
Open live again create the new button
And this u have to do for every scene
And this very much work ( this is how it almost has to be do e now except the the dimmer channel extr)
Please correct me support if im wrong
Gr marco
Re: Advanced Live control
Hi
(sorry for my bad English, i'm from France ...)
Concerning the " master Dimmer" or "master Strobe" why don"t you use the "step" fonction in Live ?
i/e you create scenes with only dimmer chanel activated (one step 100 % , one step 50%, one step 25%...) for a fixture or a group of fixtures.
then you add a new button in live (called maybe "Dimmer") with the "step" function, it will allow you to control only the dimmer intensity by clicking on the required intensity.
Then if you create more that one buttons you can put all buttons in a page call 'dimmers" where one button will control 'face Par" another will control "side moving heads"..... same for Strobe...
Concerning the possible function of "open in Editor' from Live , I think it would be a great function to save time, but must also can be possible in Timeline .
jean-marc
(sorry for my bad English, i'm from France ...)
Concerning the " master Dimmer" or "master Strobe" why don"t you use the "step" fonction in Live ?
i/e you create scenes with only dimmer chanel activated (one step 100 % , one step 50%, one step 25%...) for a fixture or a group of fixtures.
then you add a new button in live (called maybe "Dimmer") with the "step" function, it will allow you to control only the dimmer intensity by clicking on the required intensity.
Then if you create more that one buttons you can put all buttons in a page call 'dimmers" where one button will control 'face Par" another will control "side moving heads"..... same for Strobe...
Concerning the possible function of "open in Editor' from Live , I think it would be a great function to save time, but must also can be possible in Timeline .
jean-marc
Re: Advanced Live control
@Marco - I really only see this as a calculator. It figures out the % of a number and calculates the final DMX value for each scene. Also, Live does know RGBAW channels. If you had seen, they have a Beta Live right now that can see the RGBAW channels and fade between Live buttons that do not have fade programmed into the scene.
So this is possible knowing that. That is also where this discussion started. Which is why I made mention to the other thread.
@JMD - I have so many scenes that I make patterns that I can do, I make a "chase" of steps. If I use the step method, then I have to make each step it's own Preset button in Live and run in chase play. I see your point, but I run Chauvet Color Pallet RGB panels wich do way more than just solid colors. I run them in the 27 channel mode so that I can do things that most RGB lights don't do. So the step method is not really practical for that.
Also, if I made each button preset, I would have to set the levels on all the buttons in Live every time I want to dim. Not easy to do fast..
So this is possible knowing that. That is also where this discussion started. Which is why I made mention to the other thread.
@JMD - I have so many scenes that I make patterns that I can do, I make a "chase" of steps. If I use the step method, then I have to make each step it's own Preset button in Live and run in chase play. I see your point, but I run Chauvet Color Pallet RGB panels wich do way more than just solid colors. I run them in the 27 channel mode so that I can do things that most RGB lights don't do. So the step method is not really practical for that.
Also, if I made each button preset, I would have to set the levels on all the buttons in Live every time I want to dim. Not easy to do fast..
Re: Advanced Live control
The option "Open in Editor" for button is added in the TODO list.
But let's speak on point 1 (not easy for us to manage 2 different points):
- we understand the option "Preset" can not cover this requirement
- Live is effectively able to spot specific channels (RGB, dimmer, ...) and execute some operations only on these channels.
Our first worry is the GUI (Graphic User Interface) ; in other words: where to put this gadget ?
We have the possibility to put one per button (like we do for presets):
- it will override exclusively the "fade" channels of the associated scene button
- regarding GUI, this solution will be easy
- but regarding function, this is certainly not what you want (we guess you want the function overrides all "fade" channels)
If the "one gadget per button" solution is not suitable for you:
- is one gadget for all "fade" channels enough, or do you need more (one for dimmer, one for RGB, ...) ?
- how about other lighting desks ; do they have a lot ?
- since the purpose is to proportionally increase/decrease dmx values, don't you think it would make more sence to use "+ / -" buttons instead of standard fader ? (a bit like the "arrow" buttons above/below each fader, in Editor). The reason of this question is it is much easier (for coding and for room on GUI) to use buttons. Moreover, we do not see how to do this with a standard fader, since the fader is limited by end points.
But let's speak on point 1 (not easy for us to manage 2 different points):
- we understand the option "Preset" can not cover this requirement
- Live is effectively able to spot specific channels (RGB, dimmer, ...) and execute some operations only on these channels.
Our first worry is the GUI (Graphic User Interface) ; in other words: where to put this gadget ?
We have the possibility to put one per button (like we do for presets):
- it will override exclusively the "fade" channels of the associated scene button
- regarding GUI, this solution will be easy
- but regarding function, this is certainly not what you want (we guess you want the function overrides all "fade" channels)
If the "one gadget per button" solution is not suitable for you:
- is one gadget for all "fade" channels enough, or do you need more (one for dimmer, one for RGB, ...) ?
- how about other lighting desks ; do they have a lot ?
- since the purpose is to proportionally increase/decrease dmx values, don't you think it would make more sence to use "+ / -" buttons instead of standard fader ? (a bit like the "arrow" buttons above/below each fader, in Editor). The reason of this question is it is much easier (for coding and for room on GUI) to use buttons. Moreover, we do not see how to do this with a standard fader, since the fader is limited by end points.
The Lighting Controller
Re: Advanced Live control
That all sounds pretty good. More than one fader would get cumbersome too. Even some of this sounds complex, which is why I was thinking of using a "Live Editor" concept with the fader that is already there next to the color wheel. Also, not sure +/- buttons are as quick as I would like them to be. Going from 100% to 30% would stink, but I often find myself in the 35% range or 100%. I have show folders for either value, but have to turn off and restart to get to the other. Not very "on the fly" but fine if I guess right the first time or don't forget to check when I start.
Per button faders would get cumbersome, but I see your point about space and it would fix the "over ride" that I want. I tried making 2 step color scenes, 100% on and the other step is off. Then I made each one a preset. I like the concept if the preset could be faded, but I had too many buttons for the preset sliders to show up. I moved a couple buttons and could see them. So that takes up some extra room.
I think a slider within the Live button page could work. So I have 4 button pages per screen. Each of those 8 pages (across 2 screens) controls a different type of fixture. 1 page for lasers, another for RGB panels in different configs. I only have a few pages of RGB options, so maybe the page could fade all the buttons for that Live page. It would be nice though to over ride the dim on certain buttons, as I still leave my strobe scenes at 100%. Maybe the page could set a global (whole button page) Intensity value for each button, but I could click on a button to over ride.
Then this page set up window would have a slider that shows the %, or lets you type the percent directly in could be linked to a Page. It would also be nice to show the percent that the page is dimmed to in the page title. So I would see "RGB panels - 50%" as the page title.
As far as a fader limited by end points, think of it like your scene speed fader that has limits as well. The concept of an "endless fader" was not really defined, but I see it as 0% to 100% (or whatever we deem necessary) but it applies to every step of every scene. Then realistically this fader could go from 0 to 100% (or 150% if you build in a limiter) because all we are doing is calculating the DMX value to output 0 (off) to 255 (100%). If I had dimmer scenes, let’s say somebody makes it for DMX value of 128 (or 50% for sake of conversation) we could amplify that by 150% to get 50% more light added. The DMX value would be 217, but there would have to be logic for that to know that it can't go higher 255, so if the value was calculated as greater, then just return a 255 (full on).
Per button faders would get cumbersome, but I see your point about space and it would fix the "over ride" that I want. I tried making 2 step color scenes, 100% on and the other step is off. Then I made each one a preset. I like the concept if the preset could be faded, but I had too many buttons for the preset sliders to show up. I moved a couple buttons and could see them. So that takes up some extra room.
I think a slider within the Live button page could work. So I have 4 button pages per screen. Each of those 8 pages (across 2 screens) controls a different type of fixture. 1 page for lasers, another for RGB panels in different configs. I only have a few pages of RGB options, so maybe the page could fade all the buttons for that Live page. It would be nice though to over ride the dim on certain buttons, as I still leave my strobe scenes at 100%. Maybe the page could set a global (whole button page) Intensity value for each button, but I could click on a button to over ride.
Then this page set up window would have a slider that shows the %, or lets you type the percent directly in could be linked to a Page. It would also be nice to show the percent that the page is dimmed to in the page title. So I would see "RGB panels - 50%" as the page title.
As far as a fader limited by end points, think of it like your scene speed fader that has limits as well. The concept of an "endless fader" was not really defined, but I see it as 0% to 100% (or whatever we deem necessary) but it applies to every step of every scene. Then realistically this fader could go from 0 to 100% (or 150% if you build in a limiter) because all we are doing is calculating the DMX value to output 0 (off) to 255 (100%). If I had dimmer scenes, let’s say somebody makes it for DMX value of 128 (or 50% for sake of conversation) we could amplify that by 150% to get 50% more light added. The DMX value would be 217, but there would have to be logic for that to know that it can't go higher 255, so if the value was calculated as greater, then just return a 255 (full on).