Partial Frog Memories

[JMeG]

For an approaching show we will be using a Fat Frog desk to control a range of generics and a few moving heads/scrollers.

 

Can someone plaease explain partial memories and maybe put it into context so my little brain can understand?! I have only an oh-so-very vague idea of how the concept works...

 

Cheers,

 

Jamie

[Stu]

Ah Peters post explain this so much better...

 

*In the bin it goes*

 

Stu

[peter]

Right...

 

In a standard "Full" mode show, you plot in each cue exactly what you want. That means if you want a moving light pointing downstage left in blue, you move it to downstage left, change it to blue and plot it.

When you play back that memory, the desk says "right, I now need to move to downstage left and change to blue". All is good. Then you plot a submaster where you have the moving light in red upstage left. When you bring the submaster up, the light moves to upstage left and changes to red.

 

But suppose you want the ability to set the moving light into its position using the cue stack (Q1 = DSR, Q2 = USL, Q3 = CS) and want to manually change the colour using submasters. In full mode this would be impossible, because as you bring up a submaster, whatever the moving light was doing at the time you programmed the submaster will be recalled. Are you still with me??

 

Now in "Partial" mode, you can specify which attributes you want to program into which cues/subs. So you could plot a submaster with a colour attribute programmed into it, and when you play it back it ignores whatever attributes are currently being used (beamshape, position) but replaces the colour attributes with whatever you plotted onto that submaster.

 

So using our example, you would plot your cue stack and specify that you want to program the position attributes into the first three cues. Seperatly you would then create your submasters with your colours on them, specifying that you want to record the colour attribute and not the beamshape or position ones.

 

Then, when you go to playback Q1, the light would move to DSR. Moving your relevant submasters would trigger the colours to come on, and when you advance to Q2 the light will move whilst maintaining whatever colour you have currently running.

 

Does that make sense?

 

Its important to remember that if you plot the intensity channel into a cue or submaster, it will be mixed on a Highest Takes Presidence basis. This means that if your submasters have the intensity channel plotted, and you move to a blackout cue in the Playback X section, your moving lights will stay on. Thats not too difficult to deal with - just put some thought into whether you want the intensity up or down before you plot subs and cues.

 

Wow...long post.

 

 

Peter

[Potassium Neuf]

I think Peter explained that rather well

 

The partial programming aspect is most useful for the submasters.

 

Whether you program the submasters directly with channel/fixture data or transfer a memory onto them, only program the fixtures you want to be output when you raise the submaster fader.

 

You can also program partially down to attribute level, ie just have colour, beamshape, or position fixture data programmed on the sub for your selected fixtures.

 

If you have any other questions on the operation of the Frog desks, please pay a visit to the Frog Support Forum ... click on link in my signature below.

[JMeG]

Okay thanks for that, Peter.

 

So, to confirm... a scenario:

 

Say there's a small show with four scenes in, lit by wash movers. Sc1 requires wide beam DSL in a special orangey colour. Sc2 needs a narrow blue beam USR. Sc3 needs a narrow beam of that special orangey colour again, but DSR. And Sc4 needs a half brightness wide blue beam USR.

 

So, you'd

 

>Program a partial mem submaster for full light intensity, and then one for half intensity.

>Program a partial mem submaster for DSL, one for DSR & one for USR.

>Program a partial mem submaster for your nice orange colour and one for your blue.

>Program a partial mem submaster for your narrow beam and one for your wide beam.

 

Then for Sc1, you crank up the levels for full intensity sub, DSL sub, orange sub & narrow sub.

Sc2: fl intensity, USR, blue, narrow.

Sc3: fl intensity, DSR, orange, narrow.

Sc4: half intensity, USR, blue, wide.

 

Yes?

 

And to build on what potassium neuf said, if there's a mover cue that's needed often in a show, say a load of profile movers pointing centre stage to spot an actor, I could program that onto a submaster and bring it up whenever I needed it, regardless of what I do with the generics and wash fixtures..?

 

Jamie

[peter]

Say there's a small show with four scenes in, lit by wash movers. Sc1 requires wide beam DSL in a special orangey colour. Sc2 needs a narrow blue beam USR.  Sc3 needs a narrow beam of that special orangey colour again, but DSR.  And Sc4 needs a half brightness wide blue beam USR.

I think in this situation I'd just plot a memory stack... the submasters are mostly useful for live playback.

[Light Console]

Nice one Peter!

May I recomend always progaming in Partial Mode, at the start of the season last year, I had programed in full mode all of the submasters and 250 odd playback Q's. Then the Starcloth arrived DOH! I wipped the desk as it seemed faster than editing.

My other advise is to be looking at the flashing lights above the fixture buttons, as they will tell you if your state that took the last 1/2 hour to make will record the lights set to home! They do not select themselves!

A great desk though.