ColourBlock newbie

hi andrew

i have never worked with these specific products, so i will only answer some of your questions:

color palettes will never store intensity. there are four kinds of palettes: Intensity, Focus, Color, Beam. whenever you want to record parameters of more than one group to a referenceable target, you want to choose a Preset for this task.

i'm a tiny bit confused. you write about ColorBlocks, but also mention ColorKinetics. ColorBlock is a product by Chroma-Q afaik. ColorKinetics make ColorBlast...

ueli

Hi Ueli

thanks.  My question about the CP and intensity was because I remember previous posts about LEDs needing the intensity up, because without intensity, you have no colour.

I was guessing at the ColourBlocks being ColorKinetics.  Too many similarities in the names with these products.  My questions still stand, and have more to do with LED lighting than the specific product, in this case.

Andrew Riter

Hi Andrew,

Picking up on a couple of your other questions:

Andrew Riter said:

Would these be good units to patch "by-type?"

Using By Type with colour is always a good idea. If you mix a colour for one fixture add the By Type command into the record syntax when you make the colour palette and that colour will be available for any other fixtures of the same type. (By Type is a feature related to Palettes, not Patch)

Andrew Riter said:

Is the Colour Picker accurate to match to pieces of gel?

Well the truthful answer is probably not 100%. But it will get you close. The accuracy depends on many things, the main one being whether or not ETC have calibrated colour data for that fixture in the library. You'll know this by looking at the colour picker when you have the unit patched and selected. If you see a black line drawn in the colour spectrum we have the data for that fixture. Anything within the black line should be achievable.

Other contributing factors include how well the physical fixture is calibrated itself (particularly with CMY fixtures which have moving dichroics), age of the fixture (over time LEDs will lose some of their punch, so output will change), binning of the LEDs (depending on the batch LEDs can come out in noticeably different colours, so may not look the same as the calibration data).

So I would recommend using the gel picker or colour picker as a starting point and see what you get, you can then tweak if required. Remember though that a lot of LED fixtures simply can't cover the full colour spectrum with only RGB or even RGBA emitters so you may never be able to achieve exact matches for certain colours.

Andrew Riter said:

Where should I start programming: Hue and Saturation, or . . . . the other option?

You can use HSI or Native colour space to create your colours, it doesn't really matter. HSI is a useful place to be if you ever decide to do the show again with different fixtures. HSI values can migrate between fixture types giving you a much closer match if you do swap fixtures.

Using the colour picker or gel picker will mean you are creating values in HSI space, you can always switch to native values with the 'Colour Format' button in the colour picker.

Sometimes fading live from one set of HSI values to another can look messy due to the range of colours you go through on the way around the spectrum. Ion has a user setting called 'Allow HS Fades'. This is disabled as default, so even if you record HS values you'll still fade through native values unless you enable this setting.

Andrew Riter said:

Looking in Patch: Colour Kinetics, there are LOTS of options for LED units.  Different bits, different lengths,   (6' RGB 8B 6"). If the unit is 6' long, what is the 6" for, or vice/versa?  I understand the RGB, RGBA, etc, and the more bits, the better control.  Can someone give me a primer on breaking down the different profiles in the console?

You will need to find out exactly which fixtures you are getting and then decide which mode you want to put them in. Many LED battens these days have additional DMX channels for built in effects, or control of individual cells. Post back when you know which fixtures you have and we can suggest the best option. Where you see an 8B or 16B we are talking about 8 or 16 bit control (just like coarse and fine for pan and tilt), two channels of control on one parameter gives you thousands more steps, thus more precise control and smoother fades.

As you're doing an opera I imagine you won't be doing anything too rock 'n' roll (unless it's a rock opera!), so I would suggest picking the most basic mode which just gives you control of individual colours without all the bells and whistles of built in effects. You'll save on DMX channels too if you're getting anywhere close to you're 2 universes.

Hope that helps

Graham

Thanks for the Answers Graham.  it has helped.  Definitely need more research and manual reading before January.

I don't know which model they will be until they walk in the door.  I've asked to get them a few days early to play a bit on them.  I also see a bunch of Fixture types for the Power supplies.  Do I need to worry about those too (in patching), or can I just plug those into the wall?

By-Type seems a good thing.

I patched a dummy channel to look at the colour picker/gel picker.  I picked R80, adn the white dot moved.  Channel indicated G R80.  I clicked Colour Format in the CIA Colour Picker and nothing happened.  The H/S info in the Long channel display was still red; the Intensity 1 - 4 frames (different from the Channel level intensity) were still grey out at 100.  I'm assuming that going to Native Colour space would grey out the H/S, and make active the Intensity 1 - 4 frames.

I tried to disable HS Fades in teh Set-up, but again nothing seemed to change.

I recorded a few cues with different CP recorded.  I watched the white dot swing around the outside of the colour wheel to get to the next colour, and swirl in if the next colour was less saturated than the previous cue.  fun to watch.

Can I / Should I record the show in HS mode, adn then switch to Native once we start running cues, to get better transitions?  is that a good operator practice?

Can I bounce back and forth with Enabling / Disabling the Allow HS fades during the cue builds and playback sessions?

thanks for your help.

Andrew

hi andrew.

changing the colorformat only works, if the fixture natively uses RGBxy or CMY or x7. the desk thinks in HSI and translates into the fixture's native color mixing system. the colorblocks however seem to use HSI natively. i would guess, Intens1 through 4 are the brightness of different segments of the same fixture. those segments would all have the same color.

ueli

So I've got more information about which specific model of colourblock will be coming in.

(8) chroma Q Colour Block CHCB4M2

(2) PSU-05B (v1 or v2 unknown)

Reading the manuals online, my understanding is that I should find the profile in the Ion console for the PS and mode selected within the PS, since the programming IN the PS (which mode determines if the Colour  Blocks are grouped as 5 individual blocks, 20 individual cells, or 1 big group (least # of channels)) is what the console DMX channels are talking to; rather than using an individual library profile for each colour block.. . .

The Power Supply sets the first DMX address for the string of up to 5 Colour Blocks.  The Mode chosen on the PS will determine the number of addresses needed for that single string, whether all 5 units exist.  THe next PS would have to start above the last address of the 5th block on the first string.

would this be correct?  Please advise as to the best library profile to start with.

Thanks.

Andrew Riter

Hi Andrew,

How much control of the fixtures do you need? What are you using them for?

Do you need to control each cell of the fixture individually?

If not, I would suggest maybe using the PSU in mode 6, which will give you RGB control of each fixture.

Don't patch using the library fixtures for the PSU, simply patch some Generic>RGB fixtures sequentially from the start address of the PSU.

It really does depend on how many features of the fixture you need to use as to which mode you choose to put them in though.

Graham

The designer is lighting 6 columns at the back of the venue, and then MAYBE 2 units on the Choir Loft wall. (we have 2 PS).

I would assume (well, if I were designing), the designer would want control per block/head, since the 6th column will be from the 2nd PS.

What I'm not understanding (and I'll ask this of Chroma Q), is how the Magic Amber (fourth cell) works, since the paperwork says it will "magically" come on when needed, even if in 3 colour mode.

So, you're telling me to set the PSU to mode 6, and then use a generic RBG LED unit as the fixture profile.  I'll give that a try.

PSU #1: address 001, PSU #2: something higher than address 016, if using mode 6

Thanks

Andrew Riter

not having ever seen a chroma q other than on a pictures, my guess is, that magic amber works because usually a RGB fixture gets "amber" from mixing red and green. the fixture can detect color mixes that include red and green at similar levels and then add amber (or replace parts of red and green with amber)...