Element - problem with using submasters with S4 Luster 2 LEDS

You have a red sub and a blue one. You have the red one up and then raise the blue one. What should happen? You bring down the red or the blue one. What should happen in either case?

It's been a while since I sat at the programming desk, but I'll give this a go.

How are you recording the submasters? Are you just hitting: Record + Sub + [Number] + Enter?

The issues is that color is an LTP property and Intensity is an HTP. Add to that, most fixtures have white (all LEDs full) as their 'home' setting. I-masters have color saved in them unless you clear it out on purpose. So color acts much like an effect where you can use the bumps to de/activate that setting. Submasters have gotten significant upgrades in the last few updates to help with smoothly applying colors set in them, but it's still a confusing area.

There are several solutions; make a new fixture profile with the color home values at 0, clear out the color levels and have only one color address on each submaster. If you had an Ion or better you could set a home preset. (for others reading this) I like to put intensity on a separate sub from color information. That way I can know clearly which set of information I'm changing.

Note that color formats get a huge re-write in v2.3 so you probably don't want to do something with HS values until you upgrade. And I strongly recommend updating, I am in awe of the new color tools as they now work the way I think about color.

Is that clear?

Red Sub up - red light comes up - red bump button flashes
Add Blue Sub up - red light becomes white (hue & saturation at 0) - blue light comes up - blue bump button flashes
What should happen - both red and blue lights - on separate channels/instruments - should come up
Push blue bump button - red sub operation becomes normal - blue sub channel goes to white
Red sub to 0 - red light stays red until out - blue light stays white
Blue sub to 0 - blue channel remains white but fades out to 0 - blue bump button flashes
Blue sub up - blue light comes up - blue bump button flashes
Red sub up - blue light becomes white - red light comes up - red bump button flashes

Both subs are zeroed except for the test channels. Both are set for additive/I-master/HTP

Each sub is operating channels that are not in the other sub. Each sub should control it's own channels and not effect the channels in the other sub. Each sub is actually zeroing the hue and saturation for the channel in the other sub.

If one sets each sub to 1% or higher and pushes the flashing bump buttons, both subs will operate correctly - putting both colors on the stage - as long as neither sub goes all the way to zero. If either sub goes to zero, operation is as described above.

I prep each sub by copying a cue that is loaded with hard zeros in each channel and each color parameter to the submaster. Then I set the sub to I-master operation. Then I set up the channels in live to full intensity and a color palette to get the gel that I want. I actually record the sub in live by using Record, then the sub bump button or by using the sequence in your question. Both methods result in a sub with the channels and colors that I've set.

I'm running S4 Luster 2 fixtures in Hue - Saturation - Intensity mode. The saturation at zero with an intensity above zero and any hue produces white light. My basic set up for all of the fixtures places a "hard" zero in each fixture's hue, saturation and intensity field. My real problem is that bringing up a color setting in one channel is wiping out the color setting in a different channel that is not referenced in the submaster that causes the problem. Color is an LTP but only on the channels that are specifically being changed. I don't have this problem with cues. I'm also not having any problem with intensity control - each sub controls only it's assigned channels. The sub I-master setting is supposed to "lock-in" the color settings so that they won't change with the intensity. That seems to work as I don't get color changes on an individual sub as I change the intensity.

I'm looking at V2.3. We do 9 productions per year here and I have to have a schedule gap to bring up a new release. At this point, I can get any custom or gel color the designer wants from the color picker and direct edit capabilities in V2.2.1, so that's not an issue.

HSI mode will not allow anything other that LTP fades regardless of their source.

Did you know that you can program in HSI while the fixtures are set to Direct? In v2.3 you can jump from HSI to native to RGB to CIExy at any time. Then there are Color Paths, I'm still trying to get that into my head.

Pete, I will read through you posts on a bit, but what caught my eye is that you have heard zeros in stuff you don't want to control, instead you should have nothing there. Nothing and zero is not the same thing

So I ran into this sort of weirdness a good bit when I would want to create submasters to do whatever. When you just say record without specifying a channel list, it captures all values that are manual (and I think that are just active from a cue or whatever) into the submaster. So it'd get colors and such as well. It's basically pulling the state of whatever is active into the submaster.

What you might try instead when you record the sub masters is the following:
chan 1 thru 10 Record Sub 3 Enter

Replacing "chan 1 thru 10" with whatever channel list you might need of course. It should then only record the selected channel lists information into the submaster this way and not record hard "zeroed out white values" for color. It sounds like when you are recording your sub, it's taking the white "zero" values that are active from the cue and recording them into the sub master. So then when you pull up the later of the two subs (LTP) it over rides the first subs color information since all the channels were recorded into both subs.

Just to clarify which channels are affected by record: record (without being filtered by a filter or selective recording syntax) will take every parameter of any channel that has at least one parameter not at its home value anymore. The only exception are contributions from subs that are set to.

Thanks for the clarification ueliriegg. :)

It sounds like you only want the sub to control intensity, not color. If you don't want the sub to control color, remove the color parameters from it.
[blind]
[Sub X]
[Chans 1 thru 10 Color at Enter]

Otherwise, once you made it an I-Master sub, it will try to set it's channels' color any time you press the bump button, or move the submaster from 0.

Thanks for all of the help and suggestions. I think that I understand why I'm having this problem now. I'll change my set up procedure and see what that does.