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Live Blind Mode

I do quite a lot of programming lights on the fly for festivals, concerts, dances, and the like. HOG is already laid out quite well for this sort of thing, but there is a feature that I thought up one night that would add an even greater level of flexibility for situations where one has very little (if any) lead time to program cues.

Imagine a mode that, if enabled, allows you to make changes in the programmer and effects engine without affecting the current output, until you trigger the changes you have made to go.

Obviously, you can achieve this currently by recording what you have running as a cue, opening the cue and changing parameters there with the current blind system. But if you were able to cut out the cue system entirely, this in combination with the existing palate system and effects engine would make an extremely powerful tool for those of us who make the majority of our living busking!

Also, a locking clear key to prevent the show from stopping accidentally!! :p
  • You know you can just hit Blind for the Programmer too right.....
    Then just hit Blind again for the look to go "Live".
    Gets even better if you use Fade Changes in the Programmer to fade things in the time you set.

    Hope this helps. :)
  • Marty gives a good example of using blind to set things up. I use this often and along with fade changes you can set up new looks and give them some complex timing. Its very easy on when unblinding to have set up a range of fixtures moving up to a roof show and then fan a colour change, using time or time time to set fades and delays is really quick.

    You can also do this with clear as well, something like group 1, time, 10 enter, time, time 1>10 enter clear can make clearing the programming look very complex. Using colour time and position time can further split up the blind or clear actions.

    I am doing cued shows, but I do find this very useful when something odd happens and needs to be covered. If you are running with "fade changes" the the default time will always smooth the transition, but there s a lot you can do with blind and clear.
  • Andy and Marty give excellent advice.

    My small tip to add is that when I know I'll be busking or enabling fade changes a lot, I'll assign one of the trackball buttons to 'fade changes'. Makes it much quicker to toggle back and forth.
  • Thanks for all the replies! I didn't know about the trackball buttons for key binding! Ill have to play around with that and see where the PC version has hidden them. Andy and Marty; I know you can use blind directly from the programmer, but when enabled this causes anything that isn't being played back from a cue to go dark. And while useful in most situations, this is what I would like to work around. looking back at my original post, I didn't describe what I was looking for very well; let me try again.. When I am running a dance the only cue I have running is all the UV at full (naturally). I control all of my other fixtures from the programmer. I'd like a way to make changes to what is in the programmer without any change to the output, and then be able to trigger all these changes at once - without a blackout or having to mess around with recording cues. Thanks!
  • Okay James, I can understand that better. What you have is stuff in the programmer already and then what to add some other looks, but not have it show until you unblind. I would say that not possible, but interested if anyone else thinks its a goer for a new feature.

    Your not going to like me at all, I am the opposite, I rarely go into the programmer when I do a dance or festival event, understand the lack of programming time, same here, I just had to make sometime to get a base show together that can be cloned to whatever the event rigs ends up being. There are a few ways to skin a cat here, but certainly understand what your after.
  • Look under "Preferences" > "Trackball"

    you can assign the buttons there.
  • [QUOTE=Wolfblade;66333]I'd like a way to make changes to what is in the programmer without any change to the output, and then be able to trigger all these changes at once - without a blackout or having to mess around with recording cues. Thanks!

    Sounds like you need to look at using multiple editors.
    Record some blank/empty Scenes. You can then Open one of these to have another editor in addition to the Programmer....keep it Blind, then when you want it to go live un-Blind.
    If you get confused as to which Editor is currently "active" look to the right side of the command line.

    Hope this helps. :)

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