Hog Fixture Builder Limitation with Multi part profile with functions non contiguous.

Just wrapped up a tech support session with a very nice and helpful Hog support tech.  I was sad to learn about some serios limitations of the fixture builder and Hog software in general.

We have a fixture that really should be a multipart fixture.  It is a moving head LED with a main emitter "plate" and an LED "ring" around it.  Currently, Hog does not have the ability to make a fixture profile that properly supports this fixture in a reasonable multi-part way.  This is not just a limitation of the fixture builder, but also not possible at the factory, according to HES Support.

Hog developers... Please fix this major limitation!  Sadly, I had to jump over to a Grand MA for this upcoming show to make this work.

Here are the rough details of the problem:

The plate and ring both have Dimmer, RGB Color, Strobe, Color Temp, Macro FX etc...  In this case, the Manufacturer has chosen to lay out the DMX profile as follows:

  • Plate - Dimmer
  • Ring - Dimmer
  • Plate - Strobe
  • Ring - Strobe
  • Plate - Red
  • Ring - Red
  • And so on....

The limitation is if the channels for each instance are not grouped together, it is impossible to make a multi-part profile for the fixture.

So for Hog to deal with it the dmx profile would have to be:

  • Ring - Dimmer
  • Ring - Strobe
  • Ring - Red
  • ...And so on
  • Plate - Dimmer
  • Plate - Strobe
  • Plate - Red
  • ....And so on

They can't even do this at the factory.  It is just currently impossible.  

I spent waaay too long trying to figure this out, hopefully this info helps someone else.

Hog 5 (Latest)