Sunset Help?

Robert;

This is where the advantage of having two fader pairs really comes into play on the Expression and Express consoles. You can run one long cue in one while you run other cues in the other. 

I have programmed shows doing this many many times.  it can be as easy as simple creating your cue and timing for your sunset and then pressing go on the fader you want them to run in. So for example if you are running your regular cue sequence in the AB pair, when you get to your sunset cue, press go on the cd fader pair. Then press go on the ab fader pair for the next cue. The long cue in the cd pair will continue to run and fade.

NOTE:Remember NOT to record the completed sunset into any cues that will play while it is running!

As I mentioned in your other post, the faders pairs play a combination of their cues using the highest level  takes precedence as priority ( also known as HTP). So if one of your regular cues has higher levels than your sunset cue, if will override that cue and your timing. If I had a buck for every time I forgot that when programming.. well let's say the first few rounds would be on me.

Assuming that all made sense, let's take it up a notch as something I like to do is automate it so I (or my operator) don't need to remember where they need to press go.

You can do this with a macro that is linked to a cue.

When  it is automated, when my long cue needs to happen, I can press go on the AB pair and a cue plays and the macro will fire that plays the long cue in the cd fader pair for me.

Program the macro thusly [cue] [your sunset cue number] [Go CD].

If I don't have any other lighting changing with the start of the long cue, I simply re-record the active cue with a new number and link the macro. Then the stage manager can call it easily and no one is the wiser. 

This gives you two advantages, first you don't have to remember which go to press and secondly if your long cue turns into a series of short linked cures running in a long sequence. Like designers like to do, you can place your long cue number sequence outside of your normal cue numbering and it will all link and play together in the cd pair. 

The last bit to remember is because you now have 2 faders active, you need to remember that simply playing a blackout in CD or AB will not clear the other fader pair. Again An easy thing to forget. So once your long cue is complete you need to clear the CD pair. This can also be automated, by doing two things. 

1. Record a cue that happens after the long cue is complete but before the blackout that includes the completed levels from the long cue. 
2. To this cue add a macro to play on completion of the cue ( you will need to add a link and a delay time to the link) with the following steps [Clear CD]

This gets you back to a single cue stack again. so fade to black actually goes black

I hope this makes sense. If not please feel free to get in touch with me here in the forums, or contact anyone in Technical Support. 

 

David
I really want to thank you. I might be experiencing problems because I am practicing on the virtual board on my desktop. I'm up to speed on Submasters, Cues and a lot more but for some reason this simple job is evading me. I will have to spend time tonight to go over it bit by bit. I do understand I should be able to play back the sunset on say CD while using AB for other stuff. But for some reason things get mixed up.
To keep it simple lets say I have 20 lights up for the scene which will need a few cues to bring som eup and down etc etc. On the back scrim I have Red and Blue Cycs. I want to run my 'regular' lights and their cues. And in the background have the reds cycs fading down, blue cycs up. When I do this in the virtual program one of the regular cues "Finishes off" the long fade! putting the Blues to full. Something you mentioned about not using the cyc in any other cures is tugging at me. I need some coffee and a long deep look at your reply.
Thanks again.
Robert

i really think david's answer is the solution. if your sunset fade is still fading in CD and you run a cue in AB there are two things that can happen: either CD is continuing or it is run to the end. there are two common things that would make the console drive the fade to the end too quickly: i guess the one happening in your case is that the "bad" cue in AB has values for your cyc channels. as long as in AB the cyc values have no (changing) values, the cyc channels will not be "stolen" from CD

Thank you. Even after a few minutes reading David's rather full reply things seem to be making a bit more sense and in fact an experimental run in the virtual console simulator got things working. But still hazy around the edges and I haven't gotten to Macros yet but with his ammunition will soon be there. Your comments are added value.

You are most welcome Robert. I am happy to help. Check your cues, the key to making this work is to EXCLUDE any of those cyc lights from the cues running while the long fade is playing. Otherwise the HTP behavior in the console will bite you as they have bitten me so many times in the past.

The other thing I would look at is splitting the up and down fades for your red and blue cue. You can set an up time (which is the fade in) and the down time (Which is the fade out) as two separate times. This lets you really linger between the colors much like a real day to night transition will do.

While running this all in the offline program is a great learning tool, it can get kinda wonky compared to actual console use, especially in seeing timing.

After going back and re-reading all your replies and uelirieggs answer that great "Aha" did occur I see two cues running sequentially using the same fader pair as "Serial" - One FOLLOWS the other. Good. Now crossing faders the cues are in parallel. Running cue 2 in CD then does not purge/replace cue in AB. It makes sense. (Sorry it took so long)

And all agreed on the virtual stuff. Our board is being set up for a show so I'm loathe to "experiment" at the theatre. Technical support gave me a very precise and informative answer to my question about linking virtual light show software to my .shw file. It can require some file conversion etc but this is on my to-do list.

I'll move to another topic now for a LED question but thank you again - this forum has been so useful.
Robert