ION and LEDs on Submasters

Hello every one,

Hope someone can help on this, but at our theatre we have 20 RGB LEDs and the work flow we would like to be able to adopt is to have the LEDs RGB split across three sub masters so that we can do additive colour mixing on the fly.  A more perfect solution (or traditional) may be to have one sub as the intensity, and individual subs for R, G and B

Our attempt so far to achieve this have been in vane, as several problems seem to prevent us from succeeding.

1. The fixture that I have created for this (none available in the library for this brand) work fine as a fixture, but we have been unable to change the home default valve to 0 instead of 255.  With all the home values for R,G,B at 255 it results in the LED starting to fade up from white instead of just fading up the channel we want (such as Red, Green or Blue).

2. We would like to be able to colour mix from the subs, but as we bring one channel up it cross fades out any other channel (example start of with blue up at 100% and we wish to add some red, the blue will decrease proportionally when we increase the red).

Hopefully, someone can suggest a solution as we think it may be an easier way to work rather than using the encoder wheels when working on the fly.  We had believed that we were just being a bit inexperienced and that is why we have not been successful, but we have asked many touring operators, and so far no-one has been able to suggest a solution.

 

Thanks in advance

Barry

Parents
  • Barry,

    There are some ways that the Ion can function to help you with your LEDs and programming. 

    Have you tried using the Generic LED RGB fixture?  It was created, among other reasons, to adapt to LED fixtures for which we have no profile.  This however, may not solve the issue with all the color parameters being at full.  There are two options to handle this -- you can define a home preset, or you can change the home value for custom fixtures.  To record a home preset, set the RGB parameters to zero and record a preset that is way out of the range of what you'll use (I usually use Preset 1000).  To apply this as a home preset, go to {Setup} > {Show Settings} > {Home Preset} and enter 1000 (or whichever preset you used).  For your custom fixtures, you can include them in the home preset or change the home value for your LED parameters.  Go to {Displays} > {Patch} > {Fixtures} and select your custom fixture.  From there, select {Edit} and adjust the home values for the individual colors.  By setting them to zero, you should be able to act on them on an HTP way with submasters.  

    Are you sure that your submasters contain only the red parameters for the red submaster and only the blue parameters for the blue sub?  It sounds like there is other data that's trying to play back in the sub.  You can use Record Only or selective storing to record your submasters with only the data that you want, i.e., it is possible to type ## (Channel number) {Red} (from the tiles in the CIA) [Record] [Sub] ##.   This will only store the Red parameter information from the channels you selected into the submaster.

    That said, I am curious to see how and why the behavior of the submasters is as you are saying -- could you describe what these submasters are set up as (press [Sub] [Sub] to get a list of recorded submasters), or send your show file to me at hans<dot>hinrichsen<At>etcconnect<dot>com?  It might be a simple few settings, but it's hard to say from the description for me.

    Thanks!

  • Thanks Hans for you quick reply, I will try the fix that you have suggested when I am back in the theater.  Yes, Have tried the generic fixture (with the sales rep present) but our LEDs seem to have some idiosyncrasies which needed a custom fixture created. 

     

    regarding the values of the other colors, yes that has been noted at work as a possible cause, but as yet I have not figured out how to exclude the other values (the other colours) from the sub, but with what you have suggested, I will have a look at when I can get in front of the desk (or my offline version).  That may be the solution for our problem.

     

    Thanks for your quick reply I will send info about the Fixtures and the files ASAP as it may help some others.

     

    Barry

     

     

     

     

     

Reply
  • Thanks Hans for you quick reply, I will try the fix that you have suggested when I am back in the theater.  Yes, Have tried the generic fixture (with the sales rep present) but our LEDs seem to have some idiosyncrasies which needed a custom fixture created. 

     

    regarding the values of the other colors, yes that has been noted at work as a possible cause, but as yet I have not figured out how to exclude the other values (the other colours) from the sub, but with what you have suggested, I will have a look at when I can get in front of the desk (or my offline version).  That may be the solution for our problem.

     

    Thanks for your quick reply I will send info about the Fixtures and the files ASAP as it may help some others.

     

    Barry

     

     

     

     

     

Children
  • Big thanks Hans,

    The suggestions you made worked (on the offline version at least).  The question that I have is why is it that changing the home preset to 1000 made the difference to allowing us to set the default to 0?  Anyhow, it worked and now I can sleep tonight.

     

    Thanks again.

    Barry

    p.s. I will still send the info though.

  • Barry,

    Every personality in the library has a predefined "Home" value, which is what it goes to when there is nothing else controlling it.  Our generic LED profiles default the color parameters to 255 (or 100%) -- with the idea that  when you turn the intensity up, you have light come out of the fixture.  This home value is defined in the profile stored in the fixture library, and you can't change this unless you create a custom profile OR, as we did, make a home preset.

    When you told the Ion that Preset 1000 should be the new Home values for the fixtures, it replaces the background (or default) level of those attributes to what Preset 1000 contains. It's a basic way for you to override what a fixture's default is.

    Hans

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