Console operator upgrade required

[chris_c-lighting]

Hi there

Am just about to embark on a big job with a HOG 2 console

It will be running moving lights,LED,pixelmad and also catalyst

I have for years and years used avolites:-pearl,sapphire etc

How easy is it to get your head round the board-from the manual

and get a show up and running.

 

Failing that-where can I do a hog 2 training course...!

 

cheers

[Cormac]

Hi,

if you haven't already signed up to the High End Forums I would

http://forums.highend.com/

You will also find out about support and training by posting.

As an aside I would make sure you have all your required fixture libs as and from July of this year High End no longer support new fixture library files within the Hog II platform so if it's a new fixture your going to have to make it yourself with this perhaps

http://www.hoglibrary.com/schwarzes_brett/...=view&cid=1

 

Hog II is not that hard to understand or learn but what may be harder is making the transition from a long time Avo user to new flying pig user,

 

Hope this is of some help

C

[Congo]

Personaly That sounds like a dangerous leap, I take it you have not even used it on some little shows first, I would recomend sticking with what you know for a big show, failing that get an op that can do most of the programing and you play with faders on the wing ie all conventionals may be led looks he looks after moving lights, and watch what he does get a feel for the desk that way.

 

Mark

Lighting Design and console programming

[Cormac]

Forgot to mention that you should download Hog II PC so you can get a feel for the way it works and start figuring out some basic's like patching etc.

 

Cormac

[Congo]

for a quick and easy guide to the basics this is well worth reading

 

Susan Rose's Quick Reference Guide for the Wholehog 2,

 

http://www.flyingpig.com/support/hog2/down...ed%203%2003.pdf

 

 

Mark

[chris_c-lighting]

Cheers for all your guidance folks

Looks like I will have a competent operator there to talk me through it initially

I'd still like to learn as much as possible though to give me a heads up

Is the hog pc similar to an avo visualiser ie:its an exact replication of the desk on a pc ?

Where can I download this ?

 

cheers again folks

 

chris

[IRW]

Is the hog pc similar to an avo visualiser ie:its an exact replication of the desk on a pc ?

Where can I download this ?

 

You can download Hog2PC from here

 

This is the actual Hog2PC console, although obviously it will not control anything (except maybe a visualizer on the same computer) unless you buy the rather expensive dongle!

[paulears]

I've been a confirmed Strand man for years and picked up the hog operating system basics pretty quickly. I'm now getting into the more complicated bits and they're great. I never got on with avos, odd really as they are so popular. The cue stack works pretty well, and once you work out how to jump around in the stack, it does make sense!

[mac.calder]

Just make sure that your HogII is in good nick. Our HogII has been arround the block a few times, which makes it almost impossible to see the touch screens in certain light - or rather, the touch screens are only visible under exacting conditions.

 

Hogs are very pallet based. The first step in your programming of the Hog should always be making decent pallets - to be honest, I would not use the pallet generator if I had time - as it is very dependant on whoever wrote the fixture definitions using the same names for things.

 

If you are busking, the expansion wing is a must. I have found pages on the HogII to be rather odd, and more difficult than they should be.

[niclights]

The Hog2PC is the same software in contrast to the Avo Sim which is actually quite inaccurate.

 

I found it invaluable in understanding the basics like patching/fixture selection etc.

 

Things to note when moving from Avo:

 

To busk with palettes you must enable 'live programmer' ([setup]/Control Panel). To use timing you must first press the 'time' key. Moving from Avo I felt this cumbersome and awkward. Additionally, [clear] will return fixtures to the last values obtained from playbacks. By default this will be like 'locate' - awful if you're not expecting it! After speaking to experienced ops the consensus was to not operate live from palettes but to build cue stacks instead.

 

Get to shapes with [hog]+[effects]

 

To adjust shape size/speed by fader (as in mode2) enable option 'crossfade IFCB'. Note that if you recall a positional palette it will stop the shape from running.

 

To adjust chase timing you must hold relevant 'choose' button and use wheels.

 

HTH

[Tomo]

Hog II is very big on the concept of the "Programmer".

 

This is the field that you work in that over-rides everything else (in Live mode, obviously not when in Blind!), but does NOT contain all information about eveything.

If you want to save an exact state of the rig, you have to load everything into the programmer - anything that isn't in the programmer will track back to the values given at the start of its cuelist.

- This is different to 'sequence of values played'!

 

In Hog II, the basic building block of a show is a Cuelist, not a 'state'.

It's a mostly-tracking console, with the ability for individual cuelists/playbacks to override the others or release control back to the remainder.

 

For your first show, try to ensure that you don't control any individual fixtures in more than one playback without clearing the first one - while this is a very powerful technique, it's easy to get confused about where a given value is coming from!

 

I tended to divide the playbacks by putting each 'section' of the show onto its own individual playback - so I'd put the Catalyst and DL1s on one playback, and the remainder of the movers on another.

The other way was to divide it in time rather than space - Song 1 on the first playback, Song 2 on the second etc.

The first step of each cuelist would pre-position all the moving lights into a known state, so that I could be sure where I was starting from.

 

Patching is very easy to get wrong!

By default, Hog II will patch LEDs 1 thru 5 as LED 1-5, Mac 250 Entour 1-5 as MacEnt 1-5.

This makes life extremely difficult, as selecting channel "1" won't give you the same fixture each time.

Make sure you manually give each fixture a unique number - it's common to patch Mac 500s as "501...", 600s as "601..." etc.

- Pick a layout that makes sense to you.