Fixture Builder is there and works. I have used it in anger many times :-). But it does rely on these manufactures providing good, (and complete detailed) DMX Protocols.
Whilst I agree that the fixture builder does work, it can be difficult to get to grips with. I also do think that the point about virtual dimmers is valid.
The builder works for sure, somewhat of a time vampire though. Most of the time I would be just attempting to correct a personality in the library which happens to be needed more than is acceptable in my view. I think being able to by pass real world values when needed to speed up a process by some sort of continuos function which I can do on a colour wheel for example (as my colour encoder never works and the tool bar is useless when the personality is off)
Building from scratch: I think its okay, really its only real world values that slow the process down, nothing seems sorted in alphabetical order, I build line by line as nothing is more soul destroying than the load of nonsense error messages after doing a 40 channel fixture as doors draws close.
I have a new year eve event where they seem to have a couple of items not currently involved with the library, I know that can be rattle out in 10 minutes on the event console (Chamsys) and I will look like a confused old man as I waste too much time fumbling around with the fixture builder. It would be also nice if whatever you created was not connected with the show file another time vampire. Also would be nice to write rude words into fields as you could with the wonderful number 2.
Problems with all this (I guess) are the real-world parameters, and the way the console handles the translation between them and the DMX values. Parameters sorted in alphabetic order or a search field would help even more. Most stuff exists already. And the problem is more often a DMX charts that does not tell any valuable informations. Most of the times I go then with continuous 0..255 0..100% or so... This gives you at least the chance to get the fixture working.
Andy: For you the VL4000 would be the fixture of you choice when starting a show... Hell lot of gobo and color-wheels ;-)
Can I actually get a continuous parameter on anything? I can do this with colour, but never managed it on "everything"
+1 on sorted alphabetically.
A VL4000 is not enough Marc, I get more colour problems that anything else, so I have a profile fixture and wash fixture that I program with that has CMY, 3 colour wheels, amber and white channels etc along with 3 rotating gobo wheels. I think they both where made to cover anything I had come across in the past 2 years.
I am interested in your thoughts on the following as I thought it rather long winded and wondered if I was getting it wrong. Arrived at the gig which s about far up north in the UK as you can go and perhaps limited in what they have. As suspected a couple of LED par can things not in the library cropped up. Same problem for the event console and dealt with in a few minutes, I took a while longer.
Have built line by line and patched the fixture to find out that it needed to be edited a bit, I found that having to edit (copy) that fixture and re-patch it a bit of a chore, one of the par cans certainly had a nice config of channels placed randomly and took 4 attempts before it behaved how I felt it should.
At this point being able to copy something, add and insert more channels or reassign an actually DMX number seems not possible.
Personally I think a section in the manual or a Colin video giving some guidance, some proper tuition on using the builder is needed, it seems a dark art. I say this as currently I find the library quite bad, simple stuff, zooms inverted, a clay paky fixture with 4 tilt channels and daft stuff, thats very easy to fix, but a better understand of real world values seems something to know about.
Not sure people are saying it doesn't work, only that it is not very easy, that it can be confusing, long winded. Personally I think it needs a re-work, make it less daft to interrogate, update from the edit, make everything user sortable for example i amber and i white together to at least in alphabetical order, options to make quick continuous routes in desperate times. I managed to fluff my way through a 6 week tour of China, building new ones, editing the incorrect ones already in the library.
I don't see much instruction stuff on using it, I think a lot of us would benefit to being let into the ins and outs. I say this as I think it sort of works in a time vampire way, but a lot of people seem to think it does not who I meet along the road, so that ratio should be lessened. I rattle files out for H2, Chamsys, MA and Martin without to much bother, but this one and more real world values is a right old 'mare most times
