Custom fixture selections

Good morning- or afternoon on the East.

I have been working on a rig with 24 color blasts all lined up in a row across the stage, lighting different scenic elements. I have been trying to create a chase or an effect where all units have a base color of purple, then creating a green color shift that uses 3 units at a time, but fades from one to another in a marquee fashion. So for the first step all units are purple and units 1-3 are green. The next step units 2-4 are green, rest are purple including unit 1. Step 3 is 3-5 at green rest at purple. I know that buddy's and repeats are used for fan effects, but is there a efficient way to select a group of 3 fixtures then hit "next" and the group of 3 moves over one fixture?

I have ended up creating 25 individual groups, representing the different steps and created the chase that way. It just took a lot of time setting up the groups.

I do not what fixtures to pass through other colors getting from green to purple, otherwise I could just use a fanned effect from the effects pallet.

Looking for any suggestions. Thanks for any help.

Glen
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    I believe you can still use the effects engine without the fixtures passing through a range of colors. Try using the "mark on" or "step" wave forms applied to hue. Fan the offset and play with the effect length to get the three fixtures at a time look. I haven't tried this, but I think it would work.
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    Thanks for the quick reply. I have not tried the "Mark on" I ma not sure what that one is really supposed to do.

    I am offline from the live show later this afternoon, so I can play around more.

    Glen
  • 0
    OK, here is an update.

    Was able to work the effects to create an effect that was close.
    Selected the LED, turned them to full, then I had to put them all to a red before starting to modify the hue effect using step. I was able to modify the size to alternate them from green to purple. Seems that the selected color needs to be the opposite side of the spectrum in order to get the 2 colors I am looking for.

    I then saved the effect, went to fanning/groups, turned repeating on and selected 24 (total number of fixtures) then played around with the fanning controls to get the look of the marque. Now my only issue is that I would like to make the transition from one unit to the next a fade rather than a bump.

    I could not find a way to smooth that out, so I might be back to making a real chase so I can control the ins and outs.

    Would appreciate any other ideas.

    Glen
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    Here's another way to do it. May not be exactly as you're asking for, but much easier to program.

    Cue1: 1 thru 24 green; color fade 0s; follow
    Cue2: 1 thru 24 purple; color fade 0.5s; color delay 0 thru 24s;follow
    Cue3: 1 thru 24 green; color fade 0.5s; color delay 0 thru 24s; wait 3s

    The logic here is that cue 2 will start turning the lights from green to purple one every second with a .5s fade time. After three seconds cue 3 will start turning them back to green. Once cue 3 has completed turning them back to green the cue list repeats. The net effect is a purple band, 3 lights wide that takes 24 seconds to travel from fixture 1 to 24.

    Adjust the timing by using delay 0 thru X and wait time of 3*X/24.

    I think it will work (but I make no guarantees)
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    I just tried this out and it works. Here's the programming syntax

    1 thru 24 full enter
    apply green color palette
    color time 0 enter
    record choose (over open fader) enter
    apply purple color palette
    color time .5 enter
    color time time 0 thru 24 enter
    record enter
    apply green color palette
    record enter

    go to cuelist view. make cue1 and cue2 follow, make cue3 wait 3s. This assumes your fixtures are numbered 1 thru 24.

    Hope that helps. Anybody have other solutions?
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    Thanks for all the help. I will try in the AM. It started as a simple idea that got more complicated as I got into it. Sometimes the best solutions are the simple ones.

    Glen
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    Yes, it's tempting isn't it, to try to make color effects in the effects engine using specific colors only, but I have yet to do it successfully myself. Close on occasion, by messing with the starting values and efffects sizes etc. but still not ever what I was looking for. Virtual masters running a cuelist triggered by a macro help, but it would be nice to be able to make color effects with specific color fades, like you wanted. Anyone who has info on solving this problem, namely, a color sine effect (sine) where you can specify color A and a color B to fade to, I'd love to know it.
    Dave
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    I was able to get the effect I was (the client) looking for using the delay times and also added a 3rd and 4th color to the sequence so it looked pretty cool once I was done.

    On the same note as beefing up the effect generator, I would love to be able to apply the repeating and buddy selection option to fixture selection in the programmer instead of just for fanning. This would allow for real quick and creative fixture selections without having to create groups or to use auto menus to the nth degree and fill the pallets up with tons of extra cells being used, taking up valuable real estate.

    Any thoughts???

    Thanks for all the prior help. Got me through this show with "flying colors"

    Glen
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