Hog 500

[Joe Bleasdale]

(dbuckley @ 2 Mar 2010, 10:35 PM)

You need to get a copy of Brad Schiller's "The Automated Lighting Programmers Handbook". Quickly. Run, don’t walk.

 

There is stuff you need to know before you can make movers do anything at all, let alone anything useful, and this book will help you lots.

 

 

I have a copy of Brads book, a very good read! And the man himself is a true Legend with a wealth of knowledge!

 

(CharlieH @ 2 Mar 2010, 8:52 PM)

Sorry, but this is my first experience with any sort of intelligent lighting. What is tracking?

 

There is a good explanation of tracking in the wiki, I would suggest you read it, then read it again, and then guess what.... read it again. You may get it first time... but it would be understandable if you didn't. (I trained somebody on Vector not so long ago who had no idea what tracking was, but he picked it up in a matter of minutes.)

 

Tracking can be a hindrance if you don’t understand it, but it can be an extremely useful tool if you do understand it. If you want my opinion, throwing yourself in at the deep end with something’s you don’t know could actually turn out to be a good decision. Learning tracking at an early stage in your career will enable you to focus on other features further down the line; hence saving some time.

 

Like others have said, download Hog2PC and learn using that. The HES forums are also a field of knowledge - http://forums.highend.com (Brad himself is a member there ). Almost all Hog 2 support items such as software, manuals, fixture libraries and tips & tricks are available from http://www.flyingpig.com under "Legacy Controllers".

 

TIP: The Pig Key holds many useful combinations!

 

Good luck with your show, I hope you learn the console and put it to good use!

 

Best Regards,

[paulears]

I think the only time I really found the turn of 'maintain state' handy was in creating chase like cues. When moving to tracking controls from non-tracking, in practice building states isn't hugely different from the old way of doing it - but it's just a head thing of remembering that just because you can see something doesn't mean it can be recorded without a few extra button stabs. In most cases, it all works perfectly well, once you realise what you have to do. The reality of trying to turn a tracking control into a non-tracking one, is that you can't really - you can make it appear to work another way, but it's usually simpler to just convert yourself and make use of all the facilities it was designed with - with usually link to the normal way of working.

 

Hog wise on the 500s and 600s where you have plenty of faders - people seem pretty split in their operating style. Obviously it depend on the show, but some people put one state (or cue) on each fader, and simply change pages when they're full. Others program everything on a single fader, theatre stack style, enter times and run things from the single button, while others combine the stack with specials and single functions on others. They're great for busking with - and on a show like Hairspray then probably I'd run as a cue stack with cue numbers, but assign a chunk of faders to additional things for musical numbers where what happens might be a bit less predictable - Perhaps certain positions that performers are supposed to hit at points in the number. Then I'd 'play' them in by hand. One of my colleague hates manual operation and runs these kind of things as pre-programmed sequences, but these to me are never quite right or in time, so I prefer manual operation. When building your cue stacks, most people just use 'rec' then hit the stack select button, adding the next state in the stack. Others like to actually record cue numbers directly, which does make copying cues easier, as you don't have to look up the cue number in the list and cross reference it. Not difficult, but I'm always surprised how many cues get recorded when you are using lots of faders - and the number sequences often get messed up a bit.

 

If it's your first outing on the Hog, then you can choose any method that will work for the show. If it's going to be cued properly by the SM, then single stack operation makes sense, with maybe house lights and working lights backstage on some separate faders. If you are not using moving lights then setting the faders to LTP will be useful too.

[Calder]

Search for "Avolites Cue Stack" on you tube, ok different desk however it visually shows tracking with generics and movers.

 

C.

[CharlieH]

Great, thanks to everyone who has spent the time posting!

 

I will have a read about tracking on the wiki, and will download the Hog2PC app. The hire company guy is giving me a crash-course hen he drops it off which will make life easier - but I would still prefer to know the basics before.

 

As reagards faders vs cue stack, I will decide when I know how many effects and chases e.t.c. the director wants. There's no point putting them onto faders if their all pretty basic chases, but if I have movers spinning accros the audience, whilst having some sort of chase on stage I might put the movers on a fader, for example.

 

Thanks once again, and any more tips are welcome <_<

Charlie

[billy jim]

One thing I will point out about the Jands Hogs (which is what I'm presuming you're referring to, and we have a Hog1000 as our main desk) is that each chase etc will have to be on a separate cue stack, be it a physical one with a fader or a virtual one without. Also be careful if you decide to use the Effects Engine with the movers within cues, as you will have to plot them back to 50/50 pan/tilt and so on when you want the cue to stop, as well as turning the intensity to zero.

[paulears]

Good move Charlie - make sure they leave you the manual, or have it available on your comp. The one thing that always gets me is that I know how to do something, but can never find it in the large number of menus!

[CharlieH]

Thanks Billy, will bear that in mind.

And thanks Paul, just downloaded it now. <_<