DMX Followspot joystick. Fact ot Ficiton?

I am sure I am not the first LD to want to operate a moving light as a followspot. I have a guy who I can assign the task of spending the whole show following the main performer with a trackball. But while he's doing it, I can't use the trackball for anything else.

What would be awesome is an external joystick that can just move the XY values and maybe intensity for an assigned fixture. That way, he can sit to my side and do it, with his own controller, and I can run the rest of the board, with the whole board to myself.

Does anyone know of such a thing? Surely someone makes something like this!

Mutley Eugenius
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It's always in the last place you look. I mean who keeps looking after they've found it.
  • 0
    You can put a second console or even a copy of 3PC on the network, and give that to your operator. He/She can just capture pan, tilt, and intensity and have entirely independent control from what you're doing on the main console.

    Now, even though it's possible, it may not work out like you'd hope. It's hard to get the fluid, even movement of a true followspot with a joystick or trackball.

    My favorite trick for doing this is to take a moving light, disable pan/tilt, attach a handle, and let the operator use it like a followspot. You get much better tracking, and the console can still run the color, intensity, and other attributes of the followspot. Even better, the operator can never miss a blackout since it's now DMX controlled.

    High-output moving mirror fixtures work great for this if you remove the mirror head. Cybers and Robo 1220CMY's come to mind. Then even feel like a proper followspot if you rig them properly.
  • 0
    These are good ideas and you are right. But I'm on a cruiseship with a single deck concerthall, and the overhead is really low, and my spotlight is above the crowds heads, so I can't put an operator there, it's gotta be remote. I like your 3PC idea. I did get good response with a trackball instead of a mouse, with the right sensitivity settings.

    I also have another trick of mounting a tiny security camera on the front of the light which shows on a monitor by my assistant, so he can always see exactly what direction to go to keep the performer in the dead center of his screen.

    I'm still having real difficulties getting the 3PC to run the show too without crashing the IPC...

    I was hoping for a controller that was designed just for that.
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