Problem is that I don't always get the time to dial in a spot focus in at least 9 positions for the show I am using for this example. Under conventional means I would run my follow spot positions from a conventional console and once a focus is dialed to a point, I make it a sub-master. I can dial in my entire 3 hour show from just the first 3 songs.
But as I convert this show to PC based programming I wanted to try doing my focus points from palettes, rather than from a wing console. But the software posed a number of problems:
- 1. The moment I activated Pan or Tilt on a fixture, they would both become active...
2. The only real way to focus during a live show was to open the scene in Editor for whichever focus point I wanted to update and then save it. 9 basic points in my show, 3 lights to each point would mean opening and adjusting 27 scenes in Editor while running the show is a hefty task.
- 1. I made a generic single channel, fixture not in 3D view. and even left the channel description as a question mark. Then I labelled it as "PAN". I made another one and labelled it as "TILT".
2. I assigned them to unused DMX channels and then used the DMX INPUT/OUTPUT screen to assign and used the DMX OUTPUT tab(Also know as "Soft-Patching") to assign the new PAN and TILT channels I just made to the PAN and TILT of my first fixture I wanted to use as a follow spot. For some reason I have found that the DMX OUTPUT works best if you also assign the channel you are using as a 1 for 1 patch as well. So in my case the patch looked like this:
- Ch 19, my PAN outputs are patched to Ch 19+221. 19 affirms my one 1 for 1 patch and 221 is where the Pan is for the fixture I want to use.
I then repeated with Ch 20, I patched Ch 20 to Chs 20+222.
3. I then made a scene first for Pan with only it activated, a 255 step scene with each step speed of 00:00.05 with a fast transition, going from 0 DMX value, right up to 255 then saved it. Then I did the same for only TILT activated.
4. I the put the PAN and TILT lightscenes into Live as a Preset Buttons, engaged my macro to strike the lamp, engaged my Preset Scenes, then dragged and dropped my Preset Sliders to the focus I want.
But its a start to a process that may get improved.
For example:
1. A Live button with 2 faders for X(Pan) and Y(Tilt) for each moving fixture for adjusting palette focuses and for grabbing focuses on the fly.
2. Or the preset slider can be scrolled and clicked through up and down smoothly for live dialing in of a focus.
I don't know what is feasible, nor what Support would find a worthwhile feature but for now I am happy to hear anyones feed back, suggestions and experiences...
