DataFlash discrete timing

Question

So this came up in programming today. The goal is to have the strobe Intensity fade at a different time than the strobe shutter (or rate). The LD wants the speed of the strobing to slow down as the Intensity fades out. The first thing he tried was to put a discrete time on the Beam category for the whole cue. This didn't work. The Intensity fades with the cue timing, but the Beam parameters automatically bump to their new level. So he tried parting out the Beam parameters and applying the timing to the part. Still nothing. I tried assigning discrete timing to the channel's Beam parameters individually, and still the NIP just bump to their new levels disregarding any timing instruction. 
 I feel like this has to be something in the fixture personality. Any suggestions? We thought about going all "Express" on it and just patching the DataFlash as 3 dimmers so we could control it the way we wanted to, but then we'd have to reprogram the whole show that way... 
 
 Thanks, 
 -Tim

travisres · Accepted Answer

Hi Tim, 
 You are on the right track. Make sure that you apply the discreet timing directly to the Shutter_Strobe NIP. 
 What you have discovered is the Snap feature that was added in 1.9.6 to many NIP's. This prevents them from fading. To disable this feature on a cue by cue basis you apply discreet timing to the specific parameter that you want to temporarily disable snap on. 
 So Chan x {Shutter Strobe} [Time] x [Enter] Then update the cue. 
 You can find {Shutter Strobe} to the left of the CIA or if you have it up on the encoders, press straight down and release the encoder quickly to have that parameter post to the command line. 
 Option 2 is to go into Patch, make a copy of the DataFlash profile and disable Snap on that parameter. Then re assign your newly edited profile to your channels. 
 
 HTH,