Ocean Optics SeaChanger

Hey All

 I work for the University of Iowa and we just purchased some SeaChangers.  They all came with a color matching spreadsheet and I thought to myself "I wonder if I could make a parameter for the SeaChanger that had all of the colors premade.”  That way every time I would load that template it would have everything already there, I wouldn't have to start from a pre-made show or anything.  I tried looking at the guide to template making that is on this forum's homepage but couldn't make sense of it.  Has anyone done anything like this before, or do  you, ETC, have plans to add this in newer versions?   Also I tried to understand the template file in the Congo directory but couldn’t, would it be possible to get a “key” of some sort as to what each digit position means?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks

 Shawn Maxwell
Master Electrician
University of Iowa

  • There's no 'key' per se as to how the templates in the show files work - Congo is a native-ASCII console, so the template section simply lists the options and references.

    We don't expect anybody to work with the ASCII file directly, except when repairing a corrupted showfile.

    The built-in editor is fully-featured - it is exactly the same editor that we use to create templates.

    Congo isn't designed to do what you're asking though, as single attributes aren't expected to change multiple DMX parameters simultaneously.
    (The exception is obviously the strike/douse/reset functions, which force a value to as many DMX parameters as required)

    There is one method that might work, whereby there are a huge number of ranges in a 'Gelstring' dummy attribute, and each of the CMYxG attributes have a table that indicates the 'correct' position for the 'Gelstring' colour.

    You then pick a colour on the Gelstring, and manually jump the CMYxG wheels to range 1 in order to mix the colour.

    It wouldn't be very user-friendly though - once there are more than 100 ranges on a given wheel it gets very fiddly to use as the Direct Selects can no longer offer shortcuts, so you'd need a spreadsheet showing the 'Range number' for each colour on the 'Gelstring' attribute.

    I think what you're really after is a set of commonly-used generic palettes using the values taken from your spreadsheet, that you then import into every show that uses the SeaChangers.

    The spreadsheet Ocean Optics have provided is probably the most user-friendly way to program the colour palettes you're likely to use in a given show

    Remember that palettes can be recorded as "For Each Device Type", and they then apply to every SeaChanger in the rig, rather than having to program them all individually.



    [edited by: Richard at 3:12 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Oct 05 2007] [edited by: Richard at 3:12 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Oct 05 2007] [edited by: Richard at 3:09 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Oct 05 2007] [edited by: Richard at 2:37 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Oct 05 2007] [edited by: Richard at 2:35 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Oct 05 2007]
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