Auto Mark

So, in the meantime, let's talk about Mark.  The term is actually derived from the Vari-Lite control systems. In VL-land, back in the day when all of the information was stored in the light, the only way that a light knew it should store cue data was if it was active (intensity above zero).  Otherwise, when the cue was stored, the light would not store that cue.   So, the VL guys introduced the term mark, as a way to allow a light that was not active to store its non-intensity parameter data.    The idea was to preset the color, focus and beam in a specific position, so that when intensity faded up, the light was where you wanted it, as opposed to moving into place as it faded intensity up (we call that a live move).  Today, almost everyone calls this "presetting the light" function "marking" the light.

Eos supports two different styles of marking.   Which style you used is based on what the show is.  We'll talk about "auto-mark" first, because its probably the easiest to understand.   Almost every desk on the market supports some type of auto-mark function.  It can be called "move while dark", "move before bright", "go in B," whatever.  In Eos, we call that feature "Auto-mark." The basic idea is that the desk takes care of presetting the lights for you.    When auto-mark is enabled (which you do in "show settings" in setup), the following rules apply:

Anytime there is a cue where the intensity of a light is fading from zero or out to any active level, and there is a non-intensity parameter transition, the desk will execute the non-intensity parameter moves in the cue immediately preceeding that cue.   Effectively, it puts the light where you need it to be before the lights fade up.  If the preceeding cue has an intensity move to zero for those lights, the desk will wait until the lights hit zero, and then move the focus/color/beam as needed to get ready for the next cue.    When auto-mark is enabled, any cue that is going to execute move instructions that are actually stored in the next cue will be noted by an "M" in the flags field in the cue list.    So far so good?   

Sometimes, you might actually want to have a live move (intensity fading up while some parameters moves into place).  If that is the case, you can disable automark on a per cue or per cue part basis to allow that live move.  When you press [Cue] or [Record], when automark is enabled, you will see that S6 = Automark Off.  This allows you to disable automark and have a live move for parameters. If you select this, you will see a "D" in the flags field for the cue, indicating that you have disabled automarking.   This is where multi-part cues become valuable.  If you wanted to preset color and beam, but have a live pan/tilt transition, you could build one cue, put the pan/tilt moves into part 2, and disable automark on part 2.  Clear as mud?  Well, let's move on (but let me know if you need more information).  

Automarking is a fine way to preset lights - but sometimes you don't want the desk to make marking decisions for you.  Perhaps the show is very quiet - so you want to choose exactly where the lights will preset.  This is where referenced marks come into play.

Go to setup and disable automark.  You will never see S6 = automark again.  So you are programming your show.  You are working on cue 10.  You bring up a handful of your 100 VL1Ks.   You set the intensity, focus, color and beam.  You decide that cue 6 would be an execellent place to mark (or preset) those lights.  All you have to do is press [Mark] [6] [Enter] and record the cue.   In the flags field, you will see an "M" next to cue 6, indicating this cue is going to execute moves that are not actually stored in cue 6.  You'll see an "R" in the flags field for cue 10.  This indicates that cue 10 has stuff stored in it that is actually going to be executed (or moved) someplace else.   When you run cue 6, you will see "MK" in the intensity field, indicating the light is marked.  You'll see 'Q10" in the focus, color and beam fields, indicating the lights are marking for cue 10.  If you hold the [Data] key down, you'll be able to see the values that the lights are actually going to.  Press Go until you get to Cue 10. Lights fade up, in the necessary focus, color and beam values.  Magic!  Or wait, you need to put them into a different color palette.  Just select the lights, change the color and update the cue.   You don't need to store the new color information back to cue 6, where the color is "presetting". The desk takes care of that for you. OK, so far?

Alrighty.... if you know in advance that cue 6 is a great place to mark your lights, you can place a mark flag in advance.  [Cue] [6] [Mark] [Enter]  -- you can do that while you are storing the cue, just like any other cue attribute.  When you get to cue 10, bring up your VL1K, just say [Mark] [Enter].  If you don't tell the lights where to mark, they will look back through the cue list for the first instance of "M" they see, and mark themselves there.  

Sometimes programmers like to mark to a specific cue (.99 cues are a common favorite).  That way, if they see a .99 cue, they know its a mark cue.  Eos allows you to mark to cues that don't exist, and create the cue while you do it.  Above example, but you like that .99 thing.  So you say [Mark] [6] [.] [9] [9] [Enter].  Eos will prompt "Create Mark Cue?"   You press enter and the desk marks the lights, automatically making a 6.99.  This eliminates the need to go to blind and make a 6.99, so you can mark to it.

Play with that for a while, and then we can talk about what happens you bring up the intensity for a light that is in a marked state. Have fun!  Come back soon.

Gotta go!

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We also need to talk about where the timing data comes from.  When lights are referenced marked or automarked, what time do they use?  Simple rule... if they have discrete timing, they use that time no matter when they move.  If they don't have discrete timing, they will use the time of the cue in which they actually move --- the "M" cue.....

Phone lines open!

a