Moving lights on left and right - invert patch, or invert grid?

[o865324]

Just wondering what everyone does when you have moving lights at both sides of the stage, and you have some grids that move them in mirror image and some that move them in the same direction.

Do you set them up in patch to be mirror image, or do you them up in patch to be in the same direction, and make the grid mirror image?

Thanks!

[Mathieu]

Usually, you use the invert and offset in the patch to make sure all moving lights react the same. This will make the movement programming much easier. So when you move right, all lights should move right, etc. 

Once that's done, I think you should use the invert option of the pan&tilt attributes on your grids to create mirror effects. If you're using linked grids, you could use two sources mirroring each other by having one source's power inverted.

[o865324]

Thank you.

I have started with all offsets and inverts Off. and all power set to 0, so all pan and tilt are set to 0deg.

Back to some basics for me...

Question 1. The monitor shows this symbol. To me, this shows the beam going Right and Horizontnally. Is that the correct interpretation. If not, how does the symbol work? What does the line represent. I can't work out whether it represents a light from above, or below.




Question 2. My lights are hung upside down from a T bar. And in this 0 position they are actually pointing Backwards and Horizontally. If I adjust the offset in Patch to 90, then I lose 90 deg of movement. How can I get the monitor to reflect reality? And it might be -90 depending on the answer to question 1.

As I increase Pan, then the monitor moves anticlockwise, but the real lights move clockwise. So now I tick Invert PAN on the patch window.

Question 3. Movement now matches the monitor, but I've lost 90 degrees of movement. And now all my PAN values need to start at around 270 and go upwards from there rather than starting from 90 ish. Is this correct?

Thanks.

[Mathieu]

>> What does the line represent. I can't work out whether it represents a light from above, or below.

It's a top down view. The long horizontal line shows the pan degrees, which is 0 degree in this case. It goes counter-clockwise. So 90 degrees will be pointing up. The other line is the tilt, where 90 degrees means the head is pointing directly up or down. So the intersection of both lines represents where the light beam is.

>>  If I adjust the offset in Patch to 90, then I lose 90 deg of movement

That's why most moving heads goes over 360, so that you have room to do some adjustments. Is this causing any trouble for you?

[o865324]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to use the offset and lose the 90 degree movement.

There's no way to tell Lightjams how your moving heads are positioned in the real-world. So the monitor doesn't reflect the real position. It's just an indication to get a feel of the movement.

I find the monitor really critical because I don't always have the lights here and set up, and other than this, I've not found anything inaccurate. I do find it confusing to have to mentally adjust what I'm seeing on the monitor if the offsets don't match up. Also it means I'm setting my base positions in the grids up in the 270 to 540 range, rather than the 0 to 360 range which I'm more used to!

Would you consider adding a monitor offset for pan and tilt somewhere please?

[Mathieu]

>> Would you consider adding a monitor offset for pan and tilt somewhere please?

Well, as you've noticed, you can adjust the pan&tilt offset and invert in the patch to make the monitor positions match the real positions. I've edited my reply stating that Lightjams doesn't know. In fact, you let it know in the patch.

>> Also it means I'm setting my base positions in the grids up in the 270 to 540 range

You should be able to use the offset in the patch so that 0 degrees in Lightjams match your fixture position. 

[o865324]

Well, as you've noticed, you can adjust the pan&tilt offset and invert in the patch to make the monitor positions match the real position. I've edited my reply stating that Lightjams doesn't know. In fact, you let it know in the patch.

The offset in patch also serves to adjust for variations in the real lighting mounting which is independent from what the monitor shows. It would be helpful to be able to set where zero is on the monitor.

In Patch I have pan inverted, and a -90 offset. Now the monitor matches the fixture position, BUT the 1st 90 degrees of the pan slider does not do anything. Not a stopper by any means, just doesn't feel ideal to me.

I'll stop going on about it now...! :-)

[Mathieu]

Are you sure you don't need a 180 degrees pan offset? If you prefer, inverting the tilt might also do the job.

[Mathieu]

Try a different offset. I even think that allowing negative offsets is an error. 

[Mathieu]

Inverting the tilt is equivalent to a 180 degrees pan offset. So my guess is that you only need a 90 pan offset without tilt invert.

[o865324]

Definitely a 90 degree offset. I've only noticed it today because I've now mounted the lights on a bar in a position that makes most sense for the wiring. Previously I'd just aligned them to the monitor.

Ok inverted pan and tilt, and a 90 deg pan offset will work for me. That gives me monitor matching reality, and I don't lose the 0 to 90 degree portion. I do lose the top end between 450 and 540, but I can live with that. I don't do much up there anyway. Thanks.