Hog IPC and 3PC Questions - Live Gig

Hi all,

I have been asked to do a live gig at a large venue in Melbourne Australia. I am looking at hiring a Hog IPC, 6 Robe 575 spots' and 2-4 Robe 575 wash's. I am new to the Hog systems, I have downloaded the 3PC software and had a brief play with it and it looks great. I am going to under take some training with my intended set-up closer to the gig date. Until then I have a few questions regarding the Hog IPC and 3PC software.

[LIST=1]
I intend to run the 3PC software on a laptop connected to a long range wireless network in the venue. Can I use the 3PC software to remotely control all of the IPC's functions or only a few limited functions? It would be great if I could take my laptop down on stage and control the lights.
How easy is the IPC to set-up, use and program?
If I create a show on the laptop and do some pre-programming can I transfer this show to the IPC? How easy is it to do this?
If I create a show with fixtures patched and addressed differently can I change the patching and fixtures with out loosing any of my programming and settings?
Any recommendations or suggestion you would make? (lights, controller, tips, theories, ...)


Thanks,
  • Hi,

    Let's have some answers for you..

    1. You can with a wireless laptop connected to the same network as the IPC login to your show on the IPC, and with the laptop do programming/editing on the show which runs on the IPC. So no remote desktop, simply an extra 'desk' running the same show but on your laptop.
    2. IPC, or any HOG3 system, is fairly easy to setup. Once you have patched your fixtures you basicly can go straight to programming.
    3. If you create your show on the laptop, save a backup on stick and load that into the IPC. simple as that.
    4. In a created show you can allways edit your patching later, without losing any show information you allready programmed in.
    5. When programming make sure you are using the position/color/beam pallets. Programming with these pallets makes it possible to change positions or update color/beam later without having to program your show over again.

    Hope this helps to get you started. SUCCES

    Fons
  • Hi Fons,

    Thanks for your reply, it's very helpful.

    I do have another couple of questions:

    1. The colour and beam pallets/directory are self explanatory as the colous and gobos are assigned to a number. But the position directory is empty besides one entry which is for "open white". My question is do I have to assign a position to a directory listing or does each listing (1 - 32768) already have a position assigned?

    2. Say I want to make a light swing back and forth (0° - 180°) do I assign 0° to a entry (say #5) an then assign 180° to another entry (#6)? Then somehow do I program the light to start @ position #5 and then move to position #6 over a period of ~3 seconds and repeat?

    Thanks,
  • [QUOTE=Meh 626;44624]
    The colour and beam pallets/directory are self explanatory as the colous and gobos are assigned to a number. But the position directory is empty besides one entry which is for "open white". My question is do I have to assign a position to a directory listing or does each listing (1 - 32768) already have a position assigned?

    Hi,

    You have to record your own position palettes. Auto palettes works fine for slotted parameters such as a colour wheel or a gobo wheel as the console knows how many slots each one has and what is in them. But position can be anything, so the console can't make palettes for it as position depends on venue, fixture placement, stage etc.

    [QUOTE=Meh 626;44624]
    2. Say I want to make a light swing back and forth (0° - 180°) do I assign 0° to a entry (say #5) an then assign 180° to another entry (#6)? Then somehow do I program the light to start @ position #5 and then move to position #6 over a period of ~3 seconds and repeat?


    Unfortunately, I don’t think you can enter two values for an effect and make it swing between the two... yet. However there are two ways you could do this.

    1) A chase. A cuelist with two cues set with a specific fade time and BPM. However this would be a little hard to offset the fixtures using this method.

    2) An effect. You could use the Sine Wave Table to fade the pan between 0 and 180 over a period of seconds (rate). Make sure you set 0 as the base value for the fixture. You can then fade the size up until the fixture is fading between 0 and 180. Offsets can then be assigned if using multiple fixtures so they are not all panning the same direction at the same time. If you wanted the fixture to jump straight from 0 to 180 and not fade you could use the Step Table, this way the fixture will jump from 0 to 180 in the fastest time it can physically manage.


    I hope this answers your question...


    Best Regards,
  • Joe,

    Thanks for your reply. Regarding the swinging I've looked at the effect palette/directory and I have set up a Sine Wave Table for Pan and entered 0º as the start point. How do I fade it between 180º and 0º? If possible a step by step would be greatly appreciated.

    I haven't looked at doing a chase yet, but I'll do that next time.

    Thanks,
  • [QUOTE=Meh 626;44655]
    Thanks for your reply. Regarding the swinging I've looked at the effect palette/directory and I have set up a Sine Wave Table for Pan and entered 0º as the start point. How do I fade it between 180º and 0º? If possible a step by step would be greatly appreciated.


    Open the Effects Engine, and make sure you have your fixture base value as 0º on Pan. Then set the effects table for Pan to be sine and set a rate (not too fast or the fixture won't be able to complete the cycle. Now fade in the size until the pan is swinging from 0º to 180º.

    There is an extensive section on Effects in the manual. Section 23 page 243.

    Best Regards,
  • I had a play with the 3PC software and the effects engine today and all seemed to go well. I'll have to do some training soon with real lights instead of imaginary ones.

    The knowledge of this forum and members is great, thanks to all who have helped.

    I'll re-visit this thread once I've done some training.
  • Just a little update on my progress so far.

    10th March I am undertaking 4 hours of training with the Wholehog IPC and a Robe 575at.

    19th March is the big day, 9:00 - 13:30 programming, 13:30 - 18:00 rehearsal, 20:00 - 22:30 gig.

    I'll probably have more questions after training so I'll post them here.
  • I had my awesome four hours of IPC training today, all went very well. I was surprised at how easy it all is and it's great to have a light to control instead of imagining it on the computer.

    Started work on the show file, put in all the entries for the colour, beam and group pallets in and patched all the lights.

    Quick Question/s:
    - We briefly went over this in training but it would be great if I could get some more help. Say I have two lights on the same lighting bar, I would like those two beams to meet in the middle what's the best way to do this?

    - Any other tips/suggestions for a good show?

    Thanks,
  • Not sure if this is what you're after, but you can reverse pan on one of the fixtures. That way they mirror each other.
  • [QUOTE=MLassi;45512]Not sure if this is what you're after, but you can reverse pan on one of the fixtures. That way they mirror each other.

    Okay, the trainer was mentioning the use of the "Fan" key. Is this what I would use to create a reverse position on the second light?
  • [QUOTE=Meh 626;45514]Okay, the trainer was mentioning the use of the "Fan" key. Is this what I would use to create a reverse position on the second light?


    Yes, use the Fan key, this will split your selection (you can also use grouoing and buddying combined with this) and will "reverse/mirror" the values.
    When used just with 2 lights and no grouping and buddying activ this will have exactly the effect you want to have

    Also fanning is used when using effects (fanning the offset in most cases)
    Give it a try ;-)
  • [QUOTE=MLorenz;45515]Yes, use the Fan key, this will split your selection (you can also use grouoing and buddying combined with this) and will "reverse/mirror" the values.
    When used just with 2 lights and no grouping and buddying activ this will have exactly the effect you want to have

    Also fanning is used when using effects (fanning the offset in most cases)
    Give it a try ;-)

    Thanks for your help, he did mention using Fan to offset effects.
  • The gig went very well on Friday. Staff where impressed with my lighting and congratulated me. We also got a free upgrade from Robe 575's to 700's.

    I am left with one question that really annoyed me on the day. Say for example I have a cuelist with 5 cues in it, I want to upgrade cue 2. I prepare the new cue with the lights, set the beam/colours/positions/ect. hit ‘update’. All works fine, but all the other cues in the cuelist look the same! How do I stop this happening? I have set for 'Cue Only' in the cuelist options.

    It really annoyed me, if I wanted to change a cue I would have to delete the whole cuelist and start again.

    Thanks,
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