I'm a bit late to the lighting party, but hopefully it's been worth the wait..........................
Not having easy access to a lighting rig, I was delaying doing any in-depth stuff with lighting until:
I could configure decent control panels on the mac which hopefully will eventually accommodate encoder wheels, faders, RGB Color selectors, gobo index,. proper parameter values like 0-360degrees etc.
I could use a visualiser on the same mac as QLab without an interface
The attached video shows the results of my first foray. I was going to wait until I had a super swanky demo written up on The Cook Book, but as this is potentially useful to lots of people. I thought I would share it now.
The best thing is, all the additional software to do this is free!
Open Stage Control
This will build all sorts of custom control layouts on a mac and has an extensive range of stock control types.
It's written in Java which makes it a bit strange on a Mac. I haven't found way of Quitting without force quitting yet, and you have to set up quite a lot of variables like OSC ports and the file it is going to load in a window prior to launching the main editor.
It produces JSON files which seem to open in web browsers, so I think this has the potential to allow browser access to QLab lighting, but I'm not sure yet.
Once you get used to it's extremely unconventional and un-mac like interface it's very powerful and seems quite stable for a 0.00x beta release.
Capture Nexum Student Edition
The Student Edition of Capture Nexum is a free version of Capture that may be used for any purpose, educational or not. Feature-wise it is based on the Solo Edition, with the following differences:
- Reduced amount of trusses and fixtures in the library. The the full list of fixtures is available here.
- 2 DMX universes can be used.
- Opens and saves Student Edition project files only.
- Does not export Capture Presentation files.
- Does not export (DXF or DWG) model files.
All console connectivity options are present and fully functional.
This is a fully featured lighting visualiser with Art-Net input that is cross platform. There is a limited range of fixtures in this edition. but there are moving lights to play with, trusses, smoke, irises gobo's etc. You have to persevere to get it to connect to Art-Net just using the standard Network on the Mac, without an interface.
Little screen video attached.
I think, it's fair to say that you have to have a fairly good knowledge of Networking, Art-Net, OSC, QLab, JSON, swearing, magic and the dark arts to get this all working. I'll write it up eventually, but until then, It's not something you necessarily want to try unless you are an advanced QLab power ninja or just want to get very cross and frustrated.
Have fun!
Mic
