Hey I just updated my board to the newest software, and I noticed 2 lamps are now gone from the device library in the console and on the smartsoft software. The Mac 250 Krypton and Entour in extended mode. The standard modes still exist. Why was the extended mode removed? or was this an error. I have a bunch of both types in the air right now, and It will be a pain to have to go up in my lift and re address them all.
I don't think that was intentional, but I'm looking into it now. In the mean time, you could make custom personalities for those modes. Sorry for the inconvenience - I'll let you know what I find out as soon as I can.
Thanks for your speedy response. That's 1 thing that seperates etc from other companies. I find the tech support here is amazing compared to some other companies. Thankfully i dont have a show untill thursday night so I have time to figure out how to create the custom personalities for them.
I currently loaded a previous save file with my entours in extended mode, and they do seem to be working as they should. But I also notice that everytime I update the board and reload my show file little things like pallettes and effects get erased. I e-mailed Adam Bennette about that and a few other slight issues I have found but have not received a response from him as of yet, But I know he must be extremely busy and dealing with much more important things.
Thank you again Sarah for looking into this for me.
[edited by: fate at 9:27 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Mar 07 2008]
I am the developer of the software for the SmartFade family of products. Palettes and effects (and all other show data) should always be read correctly by newer versions.
Do you have any old show files that don't load properly in newer versions that I could have a look at? If so, you are welcome to send them directly to me and I can check them. (I cannot promise you an immediate response because I am very busy at the moment, but I will give it a try.)
If you have a description of exactly what goes wrong, it makes it easier for me to analyze, so that is also appreciated.
I regret to say that we made a bad decision when we took out some personalities recently. We figured that since we did not offer any greater resolution to some devices in extended mode (for instance color or gobo values) we could eliminate them and leave the standard modes. I admit I hadn't thought through that someone might have to climb into a rig to re-set their devices to the other mode.
So, anyway, we will put those extended versions back in. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Anders, unfortunately I have re recorded over my showfile after correcting the missing pallettes. If this happens again after another update I will make sure to save a copy of the file.
Adam, thanks for the update. Im kinda new to the moving light world, but i was told extended mode gives more control of fine details controls of pan and tilt where in standard mode you get much jumpier responses from the lamps. I may have been told a lie, as I said I have only been using moving lights for just over 5 months now. Its a pain to have to go re set my lamps for standard mode, but its not the end of the world for me either. Im just being lazy, lol.
Anders I think I may have found the issue. I sent a showfile to Adam Bennette to look at a prism issue im having, and when i loaded that file into smartsoft some of my pallettes are missing as well. So I think maybe my console is not properly recording all the info of the show. And that would explain when I update my console and reload my showfile values are missing.
With these particular fixtures you get exactly the same Pan and Tilt functionality regardless of Basic or Extended mode.
The Extended mode on these fixtures gives increased resolution for intensity, CMY colour mixing and gobo indexing when used with consoles that support 16-bit data for these attributes.
SmartFade ML doesn't support these particular 16-bit attributes so I thought it was unnecessary to include these variants - but I didn't think about the possibility that the fixtures would already be up in someone's rig and set this way.
This was my mistake and we will put them back
- Several other fixtures can select 8 and 16-bit modes for Pan and Tilt which do make a big difference so this is probably why you were told that about Pan/Tilt.
[edited by: Richard at 10:48 AM (GMT -6) on Fri, Mar 07 2008]
