Programming a specific effect

regarding the effect of moving from the central point out into the audience: make an absolute effect with two steps. as levels for those two steps use a focus palette each. one for the starting point and one for the end point. if you're lucky, depending on their mounting positions and angles it works without crossing. if it doesn't you would need to do use an absolute effect with more steps and amek focus palettes of inbetween steps.

for the strobe: make an absolute effect with two steps. in the level column you enter 100 and Bkgrd (Bkgrd should already be the seconds step, if not type At Enter). you will want to change the steo timing, but that should do what you want.

Too easy, that's kind of what I figured for the strobe. If I want to cascade that strobe from top to bottom would I switch over to a step based effect and program each pair of lights in a step?

unless you want to use a channel more than once within an effect cycle, there is nothing you can do with a step based effect that you couldn't do with an absolute effect. i like absolutes better because they're independent of channel numbers.

so if you want to do an effect where you need pairs of lights to do the same thing, you would use subgroups:

(Chan 1+ 6)(2 + 5)(3 + 4) Effect 1 Enter

you can get to the brackets with [Shift] & [/], or even easier by using the offset function

So, I got the strobe working how I want to, thank you very much. The other effect isn't quite working how I want it to. I can get the fixtures to change position how I want them to, but they move instantly.

FP1- lights at the stage, FP2- lights at the ceiling. With a cycle time of 10 seconds (dwell of 5 seconds in each of 2 steps) they sit at FP1 for 5 seconds, then move to FP2 as fast as they can and sit there for 5 seconds. I was playing with the various attributes and couldn't find where I could slow up the sweep. I would like it to move from FP1 to FP2 in 10 seconds, not spend 5 seconds in each position.

Is this possible with an absolute effect, or should I just use 2 separate cues?

You just set the In time rather than the dwell.   thats how long it takes to do the transition and dwell is how long it then says like that before doing the out transition