Pan/Tilt 16bit channel order

[Robin Larsson]

Hello Mat,

Thanks for a great software, just started using it a few weeks ago:)

 

Last friday I made a fixture template for my 4 Stairville MH-X25 Moving Heads, and ran in to a slight problem. The problem is that my heads have the following order on the 16bit Pan/Tilt channels, 1:Pan 2:Tilt 3:Pan Fine 4:Tilt Fine, and I cant see any way to select that in Lightjams, since you can only select 16 bit on two adjacent channels and the choose MSB or LSB.

I dont know if it is common for moving heads and scanners to have their 16 bit channels like this, but I´m guessing that its not just these ones. I would like to be able to specify in Lightjams that Channel 1 is Pan and channel 3 is Pan Fine, same for Tilt on 2 and 4.

I would very much like it if there could be a change to this, so I and maybe other users can be able to use 16bit Pan/Tilt function on fixtures that doesnt have them on adjacent channels. This is possible in other DMXsoftware, so should be possible here also, or is there already a way to do this? Please tell me in that case :)

As far as I can see, it doesnt work to just select Pan in 8 bit mode on both channel 1 and 3 for example, it just gave me 2 Pans and 2 Tilts on those fixtures, so last friday I simply ran them with 8 bit P/T. 

If I´m making no sense at all, please tell me:) English is not my first language... 

Also, I would also like it if there was a way to select between percent and actual dmxvalues, atleast in the Fixture Template, but also in other places, it makes more sense to me to not have to calculate everything to percent. and I mean, the system is based on 256 values, and all manuals for all dmxlights I have, and all the other ones I´ve read, only states actual DMX values, but perhaps Martin and the other topnotch mfgs specify in percent also, as seen in one of Mats tutorials :)

It is of course not a real problem, and the calcs only need to be done ones, but well, if there was a tickbox where you could choose to input/display percent or dmxvalues, I sure wouldnt mind;) But the 16 bit problem above is way more important :)

Thanks!

Best regards

Robin Larsson

[Mathieu]

Hi Robin,

You're right... there's no way to use 16 bits pan&tilt when the MSB and LSB channels aren't adjacent. That's a shame, I know. It's on my todo list, so hopefully I'll find a nice solution to this problem. Meanwhile, as you already know, you can use 8 bits pan & tilt and set the fine channels to a fixed 0% value.

For using DMX values instead of percent when editing templates, I agree. There should be an update in the next few weeks for that.

Thanks for your great feedback!

[Robin Larsson]

Hi Mat,

Thanks for your fast reply! Good to know that you are looking at a solution:) Hope you can find one soon. In some other dmxsoftware, like for example Freestyler, you simply fill in the correct channel for each function, but their fixture creator is completely different from yours, so might not be so easy to implement. But I belive you will find some solution!

Great to hear that you agree on the dmxvalues, I look forward to the new update :)

One other thing I´ve been thinking about when it comes to the fixture template, would it be possible to implement some way of specifing a bunch of dmxvalues on say a Gobo or Colorwheel, instead of just a min and a max? On many fixtures there is no point in sending al 256 different values if say you have a Gobowheel with 6 Gobos, and maybe 15 different "positions" on it. It could perhaps then be better to have those give those positions to Lightjmans in the Fixture Template, and perhaps a name for each, or even a small picture. 

Then when clicking on that attribute in the grids, you get a "list" of the different positions, instead of just a 0-100% scale, a bit like you do with RGB channels.

I think that would make it easier to create the effect you want, and if the 2DVisulator could aslo show you what gobos and colors on a colorwheel you are currently using, it would be even better :)

I have no idea if this is very difficult to do, or if it even is needed in Lightjams, perhaps I´m looking at it the wrong way, or maybe there is an other way to do this already?

Perhaps you could also look at making it possible to have more than one attribute on the same dmx channel, for example there are lights that has Dimmer and Shutter/Strobe on the same channel, my Geni Shiva scanners does this, Channel 1 is Dimmer and Shutter, so from 0-160 it has Dimmer, from 160-254 it has Strobe effect, and 255 is Open. I belive other fixtures with mechanical shutter also have it this way.

Is there a good way to handle this right now? Of course it means that you cant Strobe the light at 40% output, but thats is because there is only one mechanical shutter. But I think it would be nice to have a Strobe attribute with 0-100% and a Dimmer attribute with 0-100%, instead of a Shutter attribute and having to remember were it goes from dimmer to strobe, or having to test it everytime :)

Thanks for reading, and thanks again for a great software!

Best regards

Robin Larsson

[Mathieu]

That's my personal taste reflected in Lightjams there for sure...! I usually never use fixture pre-defined effects like strobe and auto-music and cie. I prefer creating the effect I need in Lightjams (for example, a strobe effect is quickly created using the pulse function). 

So for the shutter, I set the min and max to avoid including strobe effects. And on many fixtures, setting the dimmer to 0% closes the shutter, so in this case I don't even need the shutter - just set it to open.

About gobos and the visualizer, for now I leave this for the big guys with the few thousand dollar visualizers! And in all due respect, I'm not a big fan of gobos and all canned effects coming with many fixtures. But that's just personal taste!

One thing on my todo list though is to better support defining ranges in the fixture editor and, at least, give them names to be displayed later on the grids.

[Robin Larsson]

Thanks Mat!

Yeah, I was kind of expecting it to be something like that :) Even if I admittedly hadnt thought about using Lightjams effect for creating a strobe, mainly because when I used Freestyler, I asked if it would be possible to create a virtual Strobe or dimmer channel on LED fixtures that doesnt have them, and basicly was told that dmx was to slow to do that! But, I guess dmx itself isnt to slow, not with 50fps or so! I´ll have to try doing strobeeffect that way for the show on saturday:)

I can understand that a much more advanced visualizer is way of, and I wasnt really asking for a really advanced one:) More along the lines of a simple indication in the current 2D visulizer, just like  a small picture next to the fixture or something:) Is´nt the current color of say a movinhead displayed in the visualizer? Maybe only if it has RGB/CMY colormixing? I do understand that adding a indicator for Gobos would require a lot of changes to the current setup, so I do understand that it most likely wont happen, but if it did, I wouldnt complain;)

I do understand your view on both gobos and built in effect, and I do agree to an extent. But in smaller show with only a few moving lights I think it adds something, mainly to change between gobos to create more and faster movements:) And well, dmxlasers are more or less based on gobos;)

But, with only a few hours of Lightjams-use, I already start to feel that I dont need gobos:)

Thanks for your answer Mat!

regards

Robin

[Mathieu]

As I said, that's my personal taste only! I don't want to offend gobo-addicted people out there ;)

About generating strobe, DMX is outputted at about 40 frames per second. So this is enough to generate good strobe effects and trigger epileptic crisis if maintained long enough ;)

[James Elliott]

I have a couple of fixtures for which the pan and tilt have non-adjacent LSB channels as well, so please count me among the people eagerly awaiting this feature (and also wondering why lighting manufacturers are so inconsistent in their use of DMX, even within a single brand)!

[Mathieu]

Alright, alright ;) I really need to dig into this. What is your fixture model just out of curiosity?

[James Elliott]

My four Blade RGBWs have this quirk. While my Torrent F3s, also made by Blizzard Lighting, have a more conventional arrangement of channels where the MSB and LSB are adjacent.

[Mathieu]

Hi James,

The beta version has an improved engine for RGBW. You can get it here:

64 bits: http://www.lightjams.com/app/lightjams64_test.zip

32 bits: http://www.lightjams.com/app/lightjams32_test.zip

Like with most led fixtures, the dimmer does't do much, so you can use a fixed capability for the dimmer and set it to 100%. This way, you only have to use the hue, saturation and intensity attributes created by using the RGBW capability.

Mathieu

[Robin Larsson]

Mat,

The beta you just linked to, does it have anything else fun to try out for those of us that dont have/use many RGBW fixtures right now? :) I guess it doesnt adress the issue with 16bit pan/tilt for fixtures that doesnt have the MSB/LSB channels adjacent? It would be great if a fix for that was coming soon ;) 

But I have to say that so far I have been extremely happy with Lightjams, both when running my own Stairville MH-X25 moving heads wiht "only" 8bit movement, and when running with a bunch of Mac 250´s. I mostly do shows were I need fast movement rather than very slow, so it has worked out.

Thanks again for a great program! 

[Mathieu]

HI Robin,

Of course the beta improves many things! At each release, I try to make Lightjams even faster and kill as much bugs as I can.

Cheers,

Mathieu

[Robin Larsson]

Hi Mat,

Well,I kinda thought so;) any particular reasons not to use the beta? Apart from perhaps stability issues since it's a beta?

Can I have both the latest stable release and the latest beta installed at the same time, and select which one I use? Beta testing at some gigs might not be the best idea...

Looking forward to seeing the fix for our little 16bit problem;)

Cheers Robin

[Mathieu]

You can't have two versions installed but you can easily install the beta version and then uninstall it and install the latest stable version. Just be sure to keep the stable version installer on your computer since I'll update the website soon by promoting the beta to the new stable version.

Cheers,

Mathieu

[Steve French]

I also have a new fixture with non-adjacent Pan & PanFine... I could not set it up properly in Lightjams...
Chauvet Intimidator LED Spot 150
DMX Channel1 = Pan
DMX Channel2 = Tilt
DMX Channel3 = PanFine
DMX Channel4 = TiltFine

Thx,
Frenchy of VoltVision.com

[Andrew Sim]

I suspect that all Chauvet Intimidators are like this... :(

[Mathieu]

Hi Andrew,

Unfortunately, the intimidators are all like this. Frankly, for most pan/tilt effects, not using the fine channels doesn't do a lot of difference. When using high end moving heads (with real precise motors!), then you want to use their full capabilities. The good news is (most if not all) high end gears don't commit atrocities like not putting the fine channel after the coarse one...!

That's why I'm still wondering whether it's worth it to add this feature (and make Lightjams more complex) since for the fixtures in question, the result wouldn't be noticeable. So for now, just use fixed capabilities at 50% for the mispositionned fine channels when creating your fixture templates.

[Mathieu]

As a reference, here's a workaround to compute the LSB channel. Add an effect attribute to represent the LSB channel in your fixture template. Then use this formula to compute the LSB value from the pan attribute:

(floor({REPLACE BY THE PAN VALUE} / 100 * 65535) % 256) / 255* 100

Create a grid specifically for this with all your pan and lsb effect attributes. As you'll see in the project file, the source gets the pan value by using the grid.attributeValueAt function. By putting the pan attribute in the cell above the source,  grid.attributevalueat(x,y+1) returns the pan value and then the remaining of the formula computes the LSB from it.