Combining FX Generations?

Chris, just read your reply to Wes Rutland on 10/23/08. Come up with a better idea yet? I mention Wes' post just so you don't have to retype everything!

As far as copying from one set of fixtures to the next that wont work. you could copy the values per step down but that will take a while. This is one of the things about my dmx once you have a certain set programmed and then you add a set and try to add it in it gets messy and sometimes not do able easily. sorry. unless im not understanding your question.
Sincerely,

I think you understand the question just fine. Think of a group of moving head lights moving in a sine wave, while another group swirls around in a circle. Different groups responding to different FX generated steps. If the steps are all additive, then it seems like melding the timelines together for different pan/tilt FX is a manual thing. Perhaps too many moving things will make people vomit. Wait, that's what our playing is for.

I see how to do opposites; just use your invert buttons in list view setup. A pain to switch setups, but you'd be loading different files with different setups all the time anyway, if you want to get REALLY involved and make people gasp.

I will play with this concept some more and report back. Chris, your comments are absent, but always eagerly read. Thanks again, Jingles.

KCnoTek

My comments are absent for 2 reasons:

The first reason is I've been excessively busy. A 55 DVD project that also involved NTSC to PAL conversion, tight supevision and then me making the occasional mistake and losing 36 hours of work sometimes. Ugh. No timeline, but I want it done and out ASAP. Plus, tied to that are 6 mix CD's with very specific themes(one being a 4 CD marathon that I may also put to DVD as a simple play list thing).

The 2nd reasons it that there is no change in what I've said before. I'm not going to go look up what I said to Wes so I can copy/paste it over because that's also not necessary. Why? Because you've done your homework and made a great effort to find an answer to your question. Clearly, you care, you get it and there's no need to repeat things to you because you're obviously paying attention to what people say. And in this case, I just don't have anything useful to add or contribute other than to say that I'm quite please by running across you because you care enough to put in an effort to find solutions first. That alone should be commended.

Really, the document and transfer method, as cumbersome as it is, is the only solution to what you want to do. The biggest concern is to make sure that FX A and FX B have matching numbers of steps. Otherwise, it won't transfer "cleanly". Even so, you gotta really double check your work. Thank goodness the 3D Visualizer helps you take care of that. It's not perfect, but if you've made a tiny value mistake you should be fine. Big mistakes, well, those will hopefully stick out for correction.

I do have other ideas but I am not in the mood to try those out and I suspect they will fail. Why am I not in the mood? Highly sleep deprived.

Here's my idea. But let me start off with my own project.

Recently, some little duo ws stinking up the stage, but their request was to have "red strobing" since that was the absolute "most metal thing to do". Well, unfortunately, I didn't do it right or perfect, and i ended up setting 1 64 LED Pro in Macro mode and the rest for strobing. They never noticed.

But, I was pressed for time and well, you know how it can go. Personally, I don't feel good leaving strobing going on for any good length of time. For me, fast strobing should last no more than 2 seconds, while slow strobing can go for 10 seconds.

I took my 64 LED Pro wash scenes that match my various other fixtures and copied those and relabelled them with "fast strobe" and "slow strobe" as applicable, but I did the fast strobes first, copied those, adjusted them to slow strobes.

Here's how I did the fast strobes:
First, I copied a scene. Let's say it was "64 LED Pro Blue), so now it would be "64 LED Blue Fast Strobe". I copied the first step. I moved back to Step 1 and did my strobe setting. Note: this is for 8 64 LED Pro fixtures. Anyhow, I have step 1 strobe for 2 seconds, then move onto step 2, which is regular wash for 2 seconds, then go to my regular wash scene. Slow strobes are the same as fast but with slower strobing speed and the strobe goes for 10 seconds before going into general wash and going to the root wash scene.

I don't see a mechanism for copy that allows you to copy to the clipboard. I only see "copy" functions for scene copying and step copying with a scene.

Even so, assumng copy/paste would work, you want more of a merge function. While what you're asking to do makes SENSE, it's not something I see being supported by MyDMX at this point in time.

Let's assume that let's say I have FX A, and I also have FX B, and let's say they both have 20 steps. Let's also assume that FX A uses moving yoke fixtures, while FX B uses intel scanners. I mainly say this to clarify that there is no conflict of values between fixtures involved.

In order to make this work, you first copy scene FX A and rename it FX AB. You go to FX B, Step 1, then go back to FX AB, step 1 and want to PASTE. Well, FX B Step 1 has either values of positive for the channels used for the scanners, while all other fixtures/channels still do have a value, but the value is ZERO.

How does the clipboard or MyDMX know what you truly want? It would make sense overwrite FX AB Step 1 with the values of FX B Step 1.

I guess if MyDMX had an option to ASSUME(via confirmation on a copy by copy basis) that you want to paste down values that are NOT ZERO. This would make sense, but requires the clipboard data to be processed a bit more prior to pasting. This isn't TIME CONSUMING for the user, as it would happen so fast we would not even notice it. But, it would require a bit of coding and may require MyDMX to maintain its own clipboard, which won't be a big deal because 512 channels of data with values ranging from 0-255 isn't that much to hold and track.

Assuming you say "well, that's just whack" and the manual pen and paper method still sucks to you, you might decide "OK, fine, I'll make a single 40 step scene. Odds will be from FX A and Evens will be FX B. Well, what happens is that those zero values between scenes go back and forth so stuff is going to be moving/changing excessively at least in regards to your scene.

As I said I see no mechanism in place for doing a true copy to clipboard function in MyDMX, copy/paste isn't even an opton in the first place. In the second place, it wouldn't be additive, it would be destructive, thus negating your objective.

In all honesty, I'm getting the impression that maybe Elation's Compu Live may be more suitable for what you're tryng to obtain via lighting programming.

It's not perfect but the old school method of pen and paper works with manual input works just fine and serves as a great but time consuming back-up solution. Great for off-line work, but not great for time-constrained on-site work.

Triggering is as easy or as hard as you want to make it. It can be quite easy. I'm playing with the low cost Korn nanoKONTROL and having decent results. I've got to make my rig a bit more complex to deal with triggering a sampler and have MyDMX control, so I'll be adding a powered USB 2.0 hub into my rig. Since I'll need MyDMX, a MIDI interface, a mouse, and up to 3 nano-controllers(KONTROL, PAD and KEY) in this configuratio, I'm going to need more USB ports than I have on my laptop. I may scale back by using my M-Audio F410 since it has a MIDI interface and would work fine, but I want to use the nanoPAD for sampler triggering, and the nanoKEY for MyDMX triggering along with the nanoKONTROL for on the fly programming and over-ride.

Damn that's a lot of work. To achieve what you're wanting to do you need a program that features stacking.

You can program scenes with the fx generator for fixtures 1-8. And do the same for fixtures 9-16. Then on your playback panel, set each of those scenes to stacking mode....and activate them. Each scene will playback for it's assigned fixtures.

PM me if you want more info.

To use your term, Stacking, is NOT supported by MyDMX.

Of course, I'm not a developer for MyDMX. They can't afford me.

People need to realize that MyDMX was designed to be feature rich but must be limited in its scope of capabilities in order to maintaain a super affordable product. Some things can't be thrown in. Elation has a "higher end" product.

The same type of stuff happens all the time, not just with MyDMX but people wanting something to do something it's not capable of doing.

I'm not in an "excuse oriented" environment. If I needed to do this sort of thing, this effect stacking, I'd have documented and transfered and gotten it done.

The bottom line is that it CAN be accomplished. The reality is that it's not a simple step like some would like it to be. MyDMX is simply not that product.

Right now I'm working on a 3 hour light show that will be a "hit and forget" thing for an event at the end of August. I'm going to have to pull from scenes I've made already with new scenes. Washes, strobing, movers, turning on/off Hi-Tech FX lights(duty cycling), the works for what I can do. Lots of repeats, plenty of time on some scenes. I think they only need 2 hours, I can always exit to blackout. Not like they really care too much what I'm going to be offering. Their last event was 2 gel'd Par56's, a Mystic and a strobe. I intend to offer something better than what they chose to bring.