Color timing problem with a Mac550 basic and tracking

Brian,

I just took a look at the fixture profile and it looks like the Color Select parameter has Snap enabled as a default. This is why your colour wheel is not moving smoothly between colours, even though it is in Continuous mode.

To fix this, copy the fixture in Patch>Fixtures. Edit the copy you made and click on Enabled in the Snap column for the Colour select parameter - this will disable snaps. You may also want to do this for Colour Select 2 if you need to do live changes on that wheel too.

Then re-assign the fixture type for your channels to be the copy you just made, rather than the library fixture.

Graham

Another option if you don't want to edit the profile is to put a discreet timing on the color parameters on that channel. Putting Discreet timing on a light will disable the snap parameter for that cue. 

So Chan <X> [Color] [Time] <Y> [Enter] and then update your cue.  EDIT. 

Chan <X> {Specific Parameter to override} [Time] <Y> [Enter]

Specific Parameter being Color_select, Color_Select2, Gobo_Select etc.... Using the overall [Color] or [Beam] will not work. 

travisres said:

Another option if you don't want to edit the profile is to put a discreet timing on the color parameters on that channel. Putting Discreet timing on a light will disable the snap parameter. 

So Chan <X> [Color] [Time] <Y> [Enter] and then update your cue. 

This will not actually work because the light itself is in snap color mode. I have this happen frequently with my Mac 250's. This would merely lengthen the snap time. You have to actually change the mode as Graham suggests above. 

Hmm, I guess I"m a little confused. I don't have a light infront of me to test this on so there could be other things going on that I"m not seeing, but if we are talking about the SNAP column in the fixture editor, this is an ETC parameter that the console handles and has nothing to do with the software in the light. The way to override this SNAP timing is via Discreet timing (per this post from Anne. http://tinyurl.com/3s3n5ta).

The light does have a scroll color and step color mode, but this is accessed by changing the mode on the encoder and you shouldn't have to get into the fixture editor for it unless you want to change its default, but currently the default is scroll mode.

Of course as I was fact checking myself before I typed this, I did give incorrect information in the previous post. You do have to be specific on the actual parameter you want to temporary disable the snap parameter on, not the overall category. So <X> {Color_Select} [Time] <Y>[Enter] or {Color_Select 2} or whatever the parmeter is.

But as I said, I'm not in front of the lights, so while this has worked for me in the past on a different fixture, something else could be going on with the Mac's that I don't know about. 

I did try descrete timing before posting and unfortunatly, with snap set in the device definition, it has no effect.  The only thing that worked was to copy the defintion and edit it.

Bizarre. There must be something else going on that I'm not familiar with as I just tried it for myself on a VL 3000 that the ETC profile has Snap Enabled for Color Select and it worked fine. I also tried on a Mac550 offline and at least by looking at the Data of the light, the discreet timing worked off line. When running the cue with discreet timing, I could watch the color select scroll (Color 1+... Color 2 - etc..) on the screen from color to color. With no discreet timing, as soon as pressing go, the channel showed the destination color. 

I hope this isn't coming off as being pushy. I'm just trying to root out an issue.  Unless Iam completely mistaken, this is  how the Snap feature was implemented in 1.9.5. Snap is the new "default" for Color / Gobo / Strobe channels on most fixtures I've seen, so I can't imagine that it can't be defeated.  Maybe one of the Ann(e)'s can chime in here?

Okay, I just confirmed this on my Mac250's. When you change from color time it has no effect but when I did color select time (as suggested by travisres) it worked. Two things to make sure of: make sure you're hitting color select time in the NP screen and then the time you want. Then you need to update the cue (as with all discrete times) otherwise the timing goes away. 

So the answer to the question is:SYNTAX!!! :-)  Color time has no effect, but yes, color select time does.  I only wish there was an easier way to get {color_select} on an ION than having to go into ML controls and mouse click on that field.  Or is there a soft key hidding that I just can't seem to find today?

If you open the CIA to the Browser, the left side of the screen should populate with all the attributes of the light you have selected in the command line. You may have to scroll up or down to find them and then click on the one you want. The other option is to press straight down and release on the encoder of the attribute in question. This will post that encoder attribute to the command line. 

Seems like you've all worked out the way to apply the relevant discrete timings now. Ben is absolutely right, I had temporarily forgotten about the Snap override with discrete timing when I posted about changing the fixture profile. This is by far the best way to deal with it, unless you are doing live colour rolls all the time, in which case turning Snap off might save you a lot of discrete timing work in the long run.

Graham

Seems like you've all worked out the way to apply the relevant discrete timings now. Ben is absolutely right, I had temporarily forgotten about the Snap override with discrete timing when I posted about changing the fixture profile. This is by far the best way to deal with it, unless you are doing live colour rolls all the time, in which case turning Snap off might save you a lot of discrete timing work in the long run.

Graham