Avolites Shapes - The Maths

[numberwrong]

What do the numbers mean on the Avo shapes?

 

for example, what is the difference between 'Dimmer pulse 3:1' and 'Dimmer pulse 1:1'

 

On pearl classics what does 'User mean? like Red User'

 

Is there a link to info on all the shapes maths?

 

 

 

[timsabre]

What do the numbers mean on the Avo shapes?

for example, what is the difference between 'Dimmer pulse 3:1' and 'Dimmer pulse 1:1'

On pearl classics what does 'User mean? like Red User'

Is there a link to info on all the shapes maths?

 

This is a very good question and I have often wondered the same. I think I can answer the first question only because I went through trying them all out.

Dimmer pulse 3:1 has 3 off periods to 1 on period (so if you spread it over 4 fixtures you would get one light on out of the 4). 1:3 is the other way round, 3 on and 1 off. 1:1 has half on half off.

 

I have never worked out what the "spread" ones do.

 

edit: have a look in the sg.dat file with Notepad, this is the shape definition file and you can see the patterns there

[indyld]

As I recall, the Spread preset shapes just start off with an Even spread rather than None. The User shapes were there in the shapes table to be custom edited (via text editor) if I remember rightly. Timsabre is right about the Pulses, it's the ratio of counts for on vs. off.

[timsabre]

As I recall, the Spread preset shapes just start off with an Even spread rather than None.

 

They don't seem to though, not in Titan at least. It would be nice if they did because this is a feature of the Avo shape generator that really annoys me, I always want the shape to start with a fairly slow speed, small size and a spread of 4. Instead it starts very fast, very huge and with a spread of 1.

[Joe Bleasdale]

What do the numbers mean on the Avo shapes?

 

for example, what is the difference between 'Dimmer pulse 3:1' and 'Dimmer pulse 1:1'

 

On pearl classics what does 'User mean? like Red User'

 

Is there a link to info on all the shapes maths?

 

The number:number seems to be a "Duty Cycle" measure as timsabre has already mentioned. I describe duty cycle as the on time vs the off time, its just that in this example its the other way round - the off time vs the on time, but the principle remains the same.

 

Thanks.

[niclights]

I can't say for sure what the original purpose of the user shapes might have been, but the important difference between the the majority of 'user' and 'standard' shapes is the whether a channel offset is applied or not.

 

The Classic shapes have a base offset definition. This is particularly useful for colour-mix rainbow shapes where, in order to achieve a full spectrum, it is essential that the base value for the three components used (ie. CMY or RGB) must be 50%. When combined with a sinewave modifier which adds or subtracts up to 255 for each component 120 degrees out-of-phase you get the full rainbow because the sine-waves effectively get chopped where they hit the limits (all additions or subtractions beyond 127).

The 'standard' shapes have a base channel offset of 128. The 'user' shapes do not have an offset. Sometimes these were referred to as 'absolute' or 'relative' respectively. So you can think of the 'standard' shapes as being absolute where appropriate and the 'user' shapes as being relative. Unlike parameters such as size and speed, there is no UI control to override this setting and so the definitions and the differences between them are significant. That said, I can't see any logical reason for 'Dimmer 1:1 User' etc. at the end of the file. These are identical to 'Dimmer Pulse 1:1' etc.

Sadly, Titan doesn't have a way to achieve 'absolute' shapes at the moment. It was one of my early campaigns but has dropped low on the priority list now.

 

Spread is a shortcut to the phase offset between fixtures. Where Coarse=n (Spread in Titan), phase = 360/n. The idea being that you dial in the number of fixtures here and the offset is then automatically evenly 'spread' across them (or as close as possible). If necessary this can be manually set with Fine (or Phase in Titan). 'Even' in Classic took this one step further and looked at the number of fixtures selected and set the phase to spread 'evenly' across them all automatically. Unfortunately this is not available yet in Titan either, although it's obviously not difficult to do manually.

 

The Classic shapefile has a 'spread' field. So, shapes that say 'Even' on them have a spread value pre-defined, presumably this would be Even, although that's not exactly what I see when I test. I do not understand much more about this function.

 

 

As for initial shape size and speed this is a long-contested issue. In the history of the Titan shapefile there was a time when default size was changed to zero but it was quickly reverted. The problem here, as with many other functions, is operators (especially the inexperienced) will be confused why nothing is happening when they selected a shape and bad things will undoubtedly result, probably in the form of forum-based support...

Speed is also tricky as it can vary greatly between fixtures for any given shape. At the end of the day all the shapes and their default size/speed are freely editable in the file for those that want to. Titan has no way to set default spreads at the moment, albeit only 'even' would really be of any use. I'm sure the final solution to all this will be in the form of shape generator improvements scheduled for a future version.