How can I program a moving light to be a followspot in a fader?

Yes it's possible (but not necessarily pretty)

I've done this once or twice, with a back light IQ for a comedy show.  lots of L to Right, no Upstage / Down stage

1: make a Preset (focus position, colour, iris, etc) Palette at the top of the stairs, or just before the FS loses the performer.

record the preset onto a sub, Proportional fader.

2: make a second preset, or a focus palette, as the ending position (further up the aisle, ideally a straight tilt command to the Mover).  add iris to widen out if necessary.

Record onto a second sub, proportional.

sneak lamp out.

Run up Sub 1: lamp should roll over and turn on at FP 1.  (or have lamp turn on via cue, another sub, etc)

fade in sub 2: lamp should start drifting towards the end point.  time your fader push/pull with the movement of hte actor.

when actor is finished and heading back to stage: pull down sub 2 (lamp moves back to first position).  when actor clear, turn lamp off, and pull down sub 1 (lamp will return to position previous to adding sub 1.)

possible, but not necessarily pretty.

Andrew

Is this one planned move from a point on stage to another pre-defined point in the auditiorium? Or could the actor walk wherever they want?

If pre-defined:
You could try this: In your cuelist you move the moving light to the beginning of the followspot sequence. Manually move the sub to the end of the followspot move. Record only Pan and Tilt into a sub (Chan 1 Pan Tilt Record Sub 1 Enter). This should take care of the move.

If different every time:
That's less fun. You could still do it, probably best two subs (and Pan, one Tilt), but that can get messy quickly because you would have to find different solutions for increasing vs decreasing the Pan or Tilt value.

But just as important as getting the fixture to move along is how to elegantly get out of it again. probably best fade out intensity from the next cue and then bring the subs down and assert the cue to make sure that the cuelist is back in control.

There's a thing you can buy for pretty cheap that's a miniature mover on a gimbal, but that's how you control movers and it sits on your desk and you just point the miniature. So it's basically like your sitting up there in the electrics physically pointing the light, but you're still at the desk.

Another approach is to use Augment3d with a touchscreen and a model of the stage.  A mouse or other pointing device can work but a finger seems steadier.

m.youtube.com/watch

be careful with that, when using the click to ficus functionality at some point the fixture will flip, and that will be quite ugly...

You could also try to go for a (Move-only-)Cue with manual Controll/Time. Only works, if the Path is not to complicated and always the same.

This sounds like an extremely complicated solution to an extremely simple problem. Just get one of the gimbal controller things. Then just point the light where you want it to go, simple as that. Zero potential for error ever. Zero programming needed.

What is this gimbal controller thing?

can you share a bit more details for me. Because i don't know what you mean.

Thank you very much.