Lighting executor pages

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jaso...@gmail.com

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Sep 25, 2022, 1:02:44 AM9/25/22
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Hello, 

I am working on a project (haunted house) that has 3 separate rooms, lets call them Room 1, 2, 3. I need them to be independently controlled and triggered. 
For instance Room 1 has a "preshow look" and then has about 10 cues for a "show"  which is triggered by a guest pressing a midi trigger to start the show which i have in a Timeline group and then back to preshow. Pretty simple. 
Where it gets complicated is i want Room 2 to stay the same in a looping 3 step chase throughout the whole night. 
Room 3 is similar to room 1: Preshow look, then a few "show" cues triggered by a guest via Midi and then back to preshow. I don't want what happens in Room 3 to be linked to Room 1. Room 3 and Room 1 might have "shows" going on simultaneously. Does that make sense? I can't have them in linear fashion.I need Room 1 to be independently triggered and able to jump around no matter where Room 3 is at. 

The hard part is this is a non-linear show.  If this was a GrandMA or Hog, I would record them on executor faders per room. I could have multiple executor faders going at the same time.  Is there a way to have the different rooms recorded to a separate location so the rooms don't step on each other? Having them all on 1 workspace is a bit of a struggle programming wise. If i clear everything out and i don't remember to bring Room 2 back in and record a new cue, then room 2 isn't on anymore. 

I am sure i a missing a simple solution to this. Anyone have any advice on how to set up my workspace to multiple cue stacks firing when triggered a the ability for them to go simultaneously but not impact each other?

I hope my rambling is making sense. 

Thanks all. 

Thanks
Jason

micpool

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Sep 25, 2022, 5:50:06 AM9/25/22
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Multiple workspaces might be the best way of programming this

Workspaces have individual Lighting Patches and dashboards but the all workspaces share a DMX output set at the application level in QLab preferences.

You can use OSC to communicate between workspaces where necessary and scripts to open all the workspaces when you open the first etc.

Mic

Richard Williamson

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Sep 25, 2022, 7:29:38 AM9/25/22
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I’ve used QLab in a very similar situation without problems - the key to remember is that in lighting you only store the changes. So your easiest method is to keep each room in a separate cue list and record them separately (I would just turn off the other rooms when working on one). That way each room will not affect any of the others 

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Jason Dino

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Sep 25, 2022, 10:17:54 AM9/25/22
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Just what I needed to know mic!  Thank you! 

Do you happen to know the scripting to communicate between work spaces?

Thanks 

Jason




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Sam Kusnetz

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Sep 25, 2022, 12:46:31 PM9/25/22
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I am working on a project (haunted house) that has 3 separate rooms, lets call them Room 1, 2, 3. I need them to be independently controlled and triggered. 

I don't want what happens in Room 3 to be linked to Room 1. Room 3 and Room 1 might have "shows" going on simultaneously. Does that make sense? I can't have them in linear fashion.I need Room 1 to be independently triggered and able to jump around no matter where Room 3 is at. 

The hard part is this is a non-linear show.  If this was a GrandMA or Hog, I would record them on executor faders per room. I could have multiple executor faders going at the same time.  Is there a way to have the different rooms recorded to a separate location so the rooms don't step on each other? Having them all on 1 workspace is a bit of a struggle programming wise. If i clear everything out and i don't remember to bring Room 2 back in and record a new cue, then room 2 isn't on anymore. 

(I’m assuming we’re talking about lighting only here, since you mentioned the GrandMA and the Hog. If you’re talking about other design disciplines as well, let us know!)

I would do this in a single workspace with three cue lists, one for each room. There are two essential ingredients to ensuring that each Light cue only does what you want, and doesn’t interact with other cues.

The first is to ensure that you’re only recording levels for the parameters you want to adjust. If you create Light cues by adjusting levels in the Dashboard and then using the buttons at the bottom of the Dashboard, make a habit of using the “New Cue With Changes” button only, not the “New Cue With All” button. “With Changes” means that the new cue will only contain levels for the parameters you’ve adjusted. If you create a cue this way and then select that cue and look at the Levels tab in the inspector, you should see levels only for the parameters you adjusted.

When QLab runs this cue, only those parameters get changed in the actual DMX output stream. Any other parameters in your system will be left alone. So if you make a cue that sets instrument 8 to full, and does nothing else, running that cue will just bring instrument 8 to full and leave everything else alone.

The second ingredient is setting all light cues to *not* collate, which can be done via the checkbox at the bottom of the Levels tab in the inspector. You can set this checkbox to default to unchecked in Workspace Settings > Cue Templates > Light.

When the box is checked and you run a cue, QLab compiles all the changes for every cue before that cue and adds the end result of those changes to the set of commands issued by the cue (temporarily; it does not actually change the cue itself.) This allows folks who are doing a linear show to run, say, cue 10 out of order and still see the correct look, as though they ran cues 1 through 9 first. Since you’re doing a non-linear show, you don’t want that!

While I don’t disagree with Mic’s concept of using separate workspaces, I personally would find that more challenging to maintain over time. The multi-list, changes-only, no-collation approach is another way to achieve the same result in a single workspace. I don’t advise you to choose one or the other, but I think it’s useful to consider both approaches.

Best
Sam

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Jason Dino

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Sep 25, 2022, 1:35:26 PM9/25/22
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Excellent! 
Thanks for both of the paths from the kind and responsive folks at Figure 53. You all rock. 

And to answer your question, I’m controlling audio, lighting, and video for this Haunt. 

Jason 

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