Auto Move While Dark

[Brent Smith]

I really dig the Auto Move While Dark feature and use it a lot when programming my own shows. But when programming for other designers, I've been unsuccessful at convincing them to embrace it.

The feature works great once the show is programmed. The problem arises when, during cueing sessions, the designer wants to jump to cues out of order for editting. At this point, it seems unless you Load the desired cue then hit Go, the Atts are not presetting for the next cue. When the light comes up in the wrong color its invariably embarrassing and its a meek argument to say, "Just trust me, that won't happen in the show." I've given up even trying to use it with visitting designers lately.

Presetting attributes is no big deal, it's old school and it works, but having a gadget do it for you is cooler.

Being in the States, I am prone to Light Pallete mode in Setup. Does anyone have a work-around?

[gareth]

That's the way it is - unless you load the cue into playback before running it, you won't get it to auto-move into position. But to be fair, you can't expect the desk to predict which cue you want to run, can you? You have to tell it! Any decent LD will understand that when you're jumping around a show out of sequence you're going to see movers and scrollers doing odd things occasionally ; it's not just a function of using AMWD - you'd also see it if you'd manually programmed mark cues to preset your automated stuff, because when you jumped to an out-of-sequence cue you wouldn't go via its mark cue, so you'd still see odd things happening.

[Brent Smith]

I'm willing to accept that that is how it is. I suspected as much.

Though I don't think its unfair to expect the board to know which cue will happen when you push Go.

When Goto cue 10 is executed and complete the board knows that cue 11 is next, it should'nt be that difficult for the board to then initiate the AMWD as if cue 10 had just been loaded and executed.

While "Trust me, that won't happen during the show'" is a meek argument, (remember, the designer is usually sitting in the house with the director and therefore repeating the the same argument to defend himself) I think any form form of "well, you're not a decent designer," is generally less well received...

[matt_beal]

I know on a 500 series you can set cues to "Attributes only" when recording, but it would be really usefull if you could do the same temporarily during playback.

 

Scenario... You miss a cue in a show so have to jump several ahead... if there would have been an auto move somewhere in there it all goes mad (understandably) but It would be really usefull to be able to say CUE # Attributes GO , then you could follow with intensities once thats done. It might save many embarressments. Does anyone know any boards that can do this?

[AndyJones]

Hi

With the strand series, say I have 4 movers, numbers 1 2 3 4. You can record groups with all your movers at different positions. for example:

 

500= home

501=audience

502=cyc

 

You can easily type

1+2 @ group 502

Which will move only movers 1 and 2 to the cyc.

 

What I'm trying to get at, is can you do with with cues? For example:

1+2 @ cue 5

 

Might give it a go tomoz!

 

HTH

 

AndyJones

[Tomo]

Does anyone know any boards that can do this?

Congo - it's really a programming rather than playback tool, so the attributes will snap into place.

 

Select the channels involved: # [Preset]

- This will select every channel in the preset - if you only want to grab a few, then only select some of them!

Then fetch all the parameters: # [Fetch] & [Palette]

- Or [Focus], , [beam] if you only want the focus, colour or beam stuff.

 

I really like [Fetch] - seriously useful key.

[woody74]

I really like [Fetch] - seriously useful key.

 

Sounds like my favorite function on the Virtuoso: recall with filters.

[GridGirl]

You can easily type

1+2 @ group 502

Which will move only movers 1 and 2 to the cyc.

 

What I'm trying to get at, is can you do with with cues? For example:

1+2 @ cue 5

 

AndyJones

 

Yes, this does work - it's a very useful little function!

[Rob Halliday]

1+2 @ cue 5 also has many more options, eg:

 

1+2 @ cue 5 ATTS ONLY - just set the light's attributes to that cue, leave the intensity where it is (ATTS ONLY is a softkey; need to go @cue 5 RECMODE ATTS ONLY on a 520 since it has one fewer LCD display)

 

1+2 @ cue 5 @ATT function filter softkeys - pos, col, beam etc to just bring back 'bits' of what those lights are doing in that cue.

 

1+2 @ cue 5 time 5 * - to set the light to what it was doing in that cue, but gently.

 

 

 

Re: the original post, auto move while dark does need a 'load' to trigger it to work.

 

One workaround might be to go:

 

1 THRU OFF 9999 @ CUE (whatever cue) ATTS ONLY *

 

 

This will select all of the lights that are currently not on, and set them to their correct position/colour etc for the cue you specify. You could add a 'time 5' on the end if you wanted this to happen gently.

 

You get 'OFF' by pressing shift-ON.

 

'9999' could be replaced by the highest channel number in the rig - I really want to use the 'LAST' key here, but it doesn't seem to work :-(

 

Any lights that are on in the current cue and the cue you're jumping to will still change live, but that's sort of unavoidable.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Rob.

[Brent Smith]

thanks rob, that's the very nearly the elegant solution I was looking for.

For a moment I was a bit excited about my future [1 THRU OFF 9999 @ CUE X ATTS ONLY] Macro button. Of course that won't work because X will always be different. And then it still won't work because X would have to be whatever cue the intensities come up (no way of telling on the fly without scanning preview.) It would get worse too, if I had more than one system with atts and intensities coming on at different cues.

Brent

[Rob Halliday]

Hi Brent,

 

Yes, I know what you mean. I was offering a solution where you could at least get the lights preset when you knew the cue you were jumping to. There isn't really any elegant way of achieving what you're after through a sequence of cues. Other than letting auto move do its thing. Or perhaps having every cue trigger a macro that says '1 THRUOFF LAST @ CUE NEXT ATTSONLY *'....?

 

What I had been asking for for a long time was a 'preset' function, so in a cue (in live or preview) you could say 'preset lights x, y, z'. The console would figure out where they were used next and in the cue you were in next to each light you'd see 'set for cue 5' (or whatever). The clever part being that if you then used the light earlier - say in cue 3 - the first cue would now say 'set for cue 3'. It was meant to offer the advantages of auto move (ie. you didn't have to manually look forward through the show to see where the light was used next, you didn't have to manually update the preset if you changed what the light was doing), but without the disadvantages (ie. you got to choose where the moves happened, and in what time).

 

It could also theoretically have been used live to work around the problems you're seeing '1 THRUOFF LAST PRESET*'

 

 

Sadly it never made it into the 500-series consoles, and so now - even more sadly - never will.

 

Interestingly ETC's new Eos has a function a bit like this called 'Mark', but it doesn't quite do what I want it to do. Yet. And the new Strand 'Malette' (Horizon Marquee meets Light Palette) has a 'chan x @ CUE y' command that sets a light to say 'referencing cue y', but you still have to know the cue you're trying to set the light for, so it doesn't solve the problem either.

 

 

Though it's not a solution for a 'busked' show or a show that runs out of order, I try to minimise this problem by 'tidying up' as I go. So, if I've got a state on stage then before I record it I will:

 

- go into preview, scroll down, see where the lights are used next, block their attributes the cue before (@ ATTS ONLY SOFTBLOCK is a really useful macro to have around for this)

 

- scroll up to see where I can set the lights

 

- set them directly in that cue (usually in a part 12, which is my code for 'this is presetting some moving lights): chans @ ATTSONLY LIVE will pull the current 'live' attributes into the cue I'm previewing; they'll now track through until the cue I blocked them in later

 

- go back to LIVE and record the cue. Doing it this way round means the attributes aren't 'blocked' in this cue and so it's easy to make any changes later, particularly using TRACKBACK to make a change run through the whole run of this 'look'.

 

 

Trying to get things into one position for as many cues on either side of the one they come up in as possible minimises the amount the lights need to jump around as you run between cues ('lights throwing up on stage', as a friend of mine so accurately described it!)

 

Rob.

[LeeStoddart]

I bow to Rob's greater experience on this and will try hard to remember the 1 THRU OFF 9999 @ CUE x ATTS ONLY. But one way I avoid some of this "worry" is to GO the cue before the one requested (which will involve live moves and changes) then having allowed AMWD to do its magic GO the requested cue.

 

I find that the designer understands this better because the cue that the requested looks right. I do tend to say something like - "OK we'll go to the one before and then run into it"

[Tomo]

"OK we'll go to the one before and then run into it"

Personally, I think that's good practice anyway - it lets you see the transition, which is at least as important as the looks themselves.

A series of stunning looks is nothing if you can't get from one to another equally as beautifully.

[KtV2000]

I really dig the Auto Move While Dark feature and use it a lot when programming my own shows. But when programming for other designers, I've been unsuccessful at convincing them to embrace it."

 

I'm really suprised by this attitude as it negates one of the big advantages of the 500 series board - if they don't use it they may as well go back to using a Galaxy! From memory "GOTO" gives the cue and loads the next cue into the playback and all fixtures should preset themselves - I haven't had a chance to double check this as I'm not in a theatre at the moment. In tracking I always use this command as it gives me the full state and not just the plotted cue. (excuse if preaching to the esteemed converted)

 

On a side note I love the macro function of this board and the seemingly limitless ways it any problem can be worked around if time and access allow.

[JMC]

I don't think goto will do it... Strangely enough, modifying the text on the current cue will run an AM for the next cue however B-)