Magic Q offset of positions

[Richard CSL]

I have searched the manual and the forum , but can't find an answer.

 

 

 

So I have a set of moving heads and move from one gig location to another, one of the heads has been mounted slightly differently to the last show, but now it is high up on the rig.

 

 

 

Is there a way of setting a position off set to compensate for the difference in position throughout my programming.

[niclights]

Normally you would use palettes & update them at each venue to suit.

[mark_s]

Palette are the way forward, but you can (IIRC) apply an offset in the patch window (as well as invert the pan and/or tilt).

[DonkiDonki]

It sounds like you don't use palettes, that is the way to go for this kind of thing.

You record palettes for position, beam & colour and then select these when you build your looks and record them as cues. If your show moves to a new venue you can just update the palettes which have been affected (typically positions changed due to different rig layout) and it will update in all the cues that use the palette. Simples.

 

If your current show needs updating it may be worth building position palettes now (just include from the current memories), edit any that need it and then modify all your cues to use the palettes. If you have lots of cues which use the same positions this will be a fairly quick process and you are all set for when the show moves to it's next venue.

[Richard CSL]

Normally you would use palettes & update them at each venue to suit.

 

If you have a lot of pallets surely this would be a long drawn out process and then when you go to the next venue it may change again.

is there not a method of just ofsetting the DMX sent to the head as there is in Freestyler, for example.??

 

 

Also do you not use the palets for creating chases etc, therefore you might have pages of position palets? or am I missing the point here.

Would you not use palets for example on a set of heads all pointing to ctr stage, then one by on , or in pairs peeling to the side, in which case the offset would have to be altered for every position of the head

on each step of the chase?

 

Palette are the way forward, but you can (IIRC) apply an offset in the patch window (as well as invert the pan and/or tilt).

 

This is what I am looking for , can you explain how this is implimented please.

 

OK in an attempt to solve the problem I have looked at Patch. view chans. select pan on offending head.

now can somebody explain what linear / curve. offset function does??

or do I change pan min . max settings to change the offset. but I guess these are just as thay say min.max positions. not offset.??

[paulears]

There would be pages of palette positions, but if you had to adjust each head for correct orientation in the head editor, that could be just as time consuming. However, thinking about it, maybe you should submit this as a feature request - It would be quite handy for coping with the occasional knock of a moving mirror - which happens to me fairly often with tight bars - more than with moving heads, which usually recover. Knocking a mirror fixture just moves it physically, so being able to select the head, and then dialling in a pan and tilt offset would help. One adjustment, problem solved rather than lots of palettes.

 

The difference, I think, is simply geometry. re-hanging a bar in a different venue means that it's not a constant pan/tilt adjustment that's needed - you may need more pan, less tilt so when you do a palette position update, you're trying to find the drum kit, or centre mic position, or in theatre, the bed, table lamp, special position etc - and when you do the update, it's never the same for each position as the head position in the new venue has changed in 3 dimensions, not 2. So updating lots of palettes would be more accurate. Moving a fixture two metres out and up 600mm could mean that the success would need some more in depth maths to work - and probably it would then need to use all of the palettes that particular fixture is included in to re-create a new position for each instance?

 

Have I got the difference right?

[indyld]

 

The difference, I think, is simply geometry. re-hanging a bar in a different venue means that it's not a constant pan/tilt adjustment that's needed - you may need more pan, less tilt so when you do a palette position update, you're trying to find the drum kit, or centre mic position, or in theatre, the bed, table lamp, special position etc - and when you do the update, it's never the same for each position as the head position in the new venue has changed in 3 dimensions, not 2. So updating lots of palettes would be more accurate. Moving a fixture two metres out and up 600mm could mean that the success would need some more in depth maths to work - and probably it would then need to use all of the palettes that particular fixture is included in to re-create a new position for each instance?

 

Plus, in the new venue not only is your fixture in a new place, but there is every chance that the drum kit has moved in relation to the main vox, making this kind of fixture level position editing pointless that would need editing at palette or cue level anyway.

 

As you can embed position palettes in other position palettes, there is the possibility that can create your "pages" of palettes out of a few. Depending on the show, I usually end up with 10 - 20 positions anyway. Yes, this takes a bit of updating, depending the number of fixtures (and the number of different models!)

 

Editing a fixture at personality level would need some involved maths but we've had similar systems where the desk works out where each fixture is in relation to a marked out area on stage. If this is used to update absolute positions, then you'd have the same functionality. But how many of us have spent time calibrating the corners of that kind of set up, with the suggested cup on a mic stand of whatever?

 

 

Also do you not use the palets for creating chases etc, therefore you might have pages of position palets? or am I missing the point here.

Would you not use palets for example on a set of heads all pointing to ctr stage, then one by on , or in pairs peeling to the side, in which case the offset would have to be altered for every position of the head

on each step of the chase?

 

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this effect, but isn't this just two position palettes? In and Out?

 

A way to create this is a 2 cue stack/one shot chase, with a fanned (offset) delay time on pairs of fixtures. There is no reason for this to be a chase of any more steps, it's just In and Out but the fixtures go in their own time. You can achieve an similar effect "live" by applying offset delay times to move from one palette to another.

[niclights]

There is already the offset function within MagicQ. Unfortunately I don't know the exact details.

 

However, this is primarily designed for physical orientation differences - the most typical might be hanging 90 degrees out where a default 50% pan would give tilt to stage left/right. By offsetting the pan you get the tilt up/down stage and things roughly back where they should be.

But if you tried to use this to realign focus positions you would find it would be different for every position for every fixture and won't work.

 

Palettes were designed to overcome this problem. Indeed in the early days Avo called them 'preset focus' and they were only available for position.

A good structured show will base everything on palettes. This is not only important for making adjustments between venues and simulation/reality, but also for when you change fixture type (exchange).

 

I would agree that on average you don't need that many. 10-20 sounds right to me too. In your example of a chase this would not need a different palette for each step but rather just two positions - one centre, one side. You would apply the relevant position to specific fixtures for each step.

It is certainly the most time-consuming exercise on site, particularly when you have large numbers of fixtures. However, things like audience, roof, fan effects and combinations thereof often require little adjustment and are quick. And commonly focuses on specific areas such as centre vocal probably don't use all the fixtures so some notes or console tools to discover usage can help ensure you only adjust the minimum necessary.

 

An alternative way to solve the problem (in software) might be to have an XYZ plotting system where fixtures are positioned in 3D space and the extents of the space (ie. corners of a box) are updated at the venue. This has the advantage of being relatively easy to plot, make fixture orientation irrelevant and therefore be easier to pre-program. However, it would not take into account things like drum kit changing position and might only be an advantage if the number of palettes were significantly more than the minimum number required to plot the space.

 

Using automated tracking devices is the luxury way out although I've never had the pleasure!

[indyld]

It is certainly the most time-consuming exercise on site, particularly when you have large numbers of fixtures. However, things like audience, roof, fan effects and combinations thereof often require little adjustment and are quick.

 

Agreed, In, Out, Up, Down, Blinders, Stage 1, Stage 2 etc. should be easy to set and update if you are using what I call "herding" and not fiddling about with each fixture one at a time unless you really need to. Having Pan inverts sets and using Fan (Align for the Grandma fanciers) speeds things up no end. Treating them like individually focusing profiles is not the route to being back on the bus early.

 

A word of warning to those that bang through updating their palettes in double quick time: Because some consoles (including the MagicQ) allow you to nest palettes within palettes, there is a danger of getting in a mess.

 

Say you update your Down position.

 

Your programmer has Pan as Down, Tilt as Down. Now, if you tilt your fixtures into a new Crowd position but leave the pan set, your programmer reads Pan: Down, Tilt:226 (or whatever) This means you've nested the pan value of Down within Crowd. This might be a good thing for you, but it might not. The answer is to nudge the Pan encoder until the programmer value is raw DMX, rather than the Pan palette you just saved.

 

It only messes up a few hours of your life, before you never do it again.....

[mark_s]

Just to answer the original question (now that I'm sitting in front of MagicQ), if you open up the patch window and go to 'view heads', the last two columns are for pan and tilt offset. It's documented on page 57 of the manual.

[Richard CSL]

Thank you mark s that was exactly what I was looking for. Perfect.