Moving lights Movement

[b1nuzz]

Hi

 

I am touring a show soon with moving lights. The stages I am going o are completly different in size.

 

When I load the sow into the new venue, soft patch etc, the moving lights will be off place, because the previous venue (where the show was programmed) was twice the size of the next. Meaning that all the movers will be half way up the curtain tab, when they are meant to dead centre on the stage.

 

Is there a way to set parametres into the movers etc so that you can just adjust the limits the light can go to.

 

If so, how do you do it, and does it work well?

 

Cheers

[Light Console]

Sounds to me like you need to program with palettes. That is where you set up all of your positions, colour and gobo settings on their own. When you program your show, use the palettes to make your stack/subs. When you move venue, just re-program the palettes and the desk will then run correctly, as the stack/subs are pointing to a collection of palettes which you have changed for the venue.

However having re-read your post, I fear it may not be possible to do what you want. The only way I can think of doing it is to have your stage and rig designed to fit in the smallest venue, then rig all others to the same size.

Hope this helps, I know others on here will know better than I about the potential of limiting movers.

Good Luck.

[b1nuzz]

Im running a 520i by the way!

 

thanks

[Light Console]

Ah right, apart from the Light Console and the MX, I have never used a big Strand desk!

A quick look on their site tells me they might call palettes "preset focus groups" or "preset focus reference groups".

Look at page 25 onwards of this.

HTH

 

Edit: link added.

[gareth]

Yes indeed, preset focus groups are the way to go. Set your moving lights to the position you want, and record that position into a group between 1 and 750. Give the group a short text name so that you know what it is when you come to use/modify it. Then, to use that position in a cue, rather than setting it manually with the trackball apply it as a preset focus to the heads concerned ([channel][@ATT]{Position}[group_number][*]).

 

When you then move the show into a new venue, you only have to update each position once, regardless of how many times it's used in the show - each cue references the group (which you've updated with the new pan/tilt values) each time it occurs.

[b1nuzz]

top guys.

 

Thank you

[TommyToad]

Or try the Jands Vista <_<

[Tomo]

The Hog2 has a thing called XYZ programming.

You program four position palettes for every fixture - USL,USR,DSL, and DSR, and it calibrates a set of transformations making it possible to program each light relative to these points - makes it much easier to grab several fixtures and point them at the same spot as well.

 

In theory, when you move to a different venue you only need to update these four palettes, and every palette programmed in XYZ is automatically adjusted to correct for the new stage and slight alterations in rig.

 

It's not perfect but it's good enough for a starting point, leaving you with only fine adjustments in the remainder of your palettes.

 

(I believe the Vista and probably the Pearl also have it, but not certain right now and can't be bothered to reread the manuals)

 

Note - palettes == focus groups. Avo, High End and Jands call them palettes, Strand and ETC call them focus groups. God only knows why.

[eviljohn2]

(I believe the Vista and probably the Pearl also have it, but not certain right now and can't be bothered to reread the manuals)

I think you need the graphics tablet to do this on the Pearl.

[Oovis]

Note - palettes == focus groups. Avo, High End and Jands call them palettes, Strand and ETC call them focus groups. God only knows why.

 

I'm willing to be shot down in flames if I'm wrong, but the way I understand the ETC software to work is you have focus points where each mover is aimed at the same location onstage, but Strand focus groups can contain any position information for any number of units.

 

Is this right?

[tuxlux]

The Hog2 has a thing called XYZ programming.

...

(I believe the Vista and probably the Pearl also have it, but not certain right now and can't be bothered to reread the manuals)

 

I was lead to believe (by A.C.)that the Vista didn't do this because they considered it was unreliable. How well does it work, and how widely is it actually used? I've always been stuck with the palette option.

[Tomo]

I've never used it the way it's 'supposed' to be used - as in moving to a different venue - so I don't know how effective it really is.

It should work as a starting point requiring only minor changes to some of the derived palettes, rather than almost rebuilding every palette from scratch.

 

The way I've used it is to make it easier to land a group of head/scans/whatever on the same spot, and it worked fairly well for this.

Say you want a four-point special somewhere - grab all four fixtures and place them simultaneously, rather than individually.

When you've only got an hour or two for band rehearsal and design, any shortcuts are valuable!

 

It also theoretically guarded against mover drift (the electronics dept had a tendency to damage the endstops on Cyberlights and radically change the home position), although nothing changed during the time I was on that ship so I don't know how much it would have helped.

 

XYZ is extremely sensitive to the accuracy of the calibration points though - I did it by placing a chair on stage and focusing using that, and it worked fairly well.

[AndrewR]

to Oovis,

 

Re: focus groups/points. They both contain position information for movers, I know the strand groups can be recorded with both some or all of the movers in the rig. However even assuming that the ETC points record info for all movers, the desk has no way of 'knowing' that they are pointing at the same spot. I think its just a case of ETC assuming thats what everybody will use them for (I have a couple of groups/pallettes on my 520 which are movers crossing in the air for haze effects, but most are for things like mic 1, mic 2, drums, etc) and then naming them and telling you what they are 'for' rather than what it does

 

Still love the moment when the man from ETC said,

 

'Programer? oh no, the congo doesn't have a programer!'

 

Luckily I didn't respond with: 'Really, so how do you...mmm....well you know, PROGRAM?!?! (And what the heck are all those buttons and wheels then?)

[Oovis]

to Oovis,

 

However even assuming that the ETC points record info for all movers, the desk has no way of 'knowing' that they are pointing at the same spot. I think its just a case of ETC assuming thats what everybody will use them for

 

-- snip --

 

Ah, I've only seen ETC desks demo'ed hooked up to WYSIWYG/Emphasis and it looked to me like that's the way they did it.

[SClausen.ETC]

Hi all-

 

To clarify - ETCs Focus Points are just like the Strand version in that you can have any data for any fixture included in any Focus Point. What may be causing the confusion here is that with Emphasis, you can speed the creation of Focus Points for Pan/Tilt using the point-and-click functions of WYSIWYG. In this case, you can select whatever fixtures you want (that have Pan/Tilt control, that is) and then click on a spot on the stage and all of those selected fixtures will go to that point in space. You can also create these positions manually using the encoders on the console.

 

Hope that helps -

 

Sarah

 

Sarah Clausen

Controls Product Manager

ETC, Inc.