On Stage Lighting » Console Programming

Pan & Tilt Invert – Why Life Is Sometimes Better Back To Front

Rob Sayer — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:25:16 +0000

This week we look at attribute inversions in intelligent lighting control, the use of Pan or Tilt Invert in particular. So what is attribute inversion, why would a console programmer use it and when is an invert most useful? On Stage Lighting turns your world upside down.

What is attribute inversion?

If you have some understanding of intelligent lighting, you might know that the word “attributes” refers to distinct fixture parameters such as Intensity, Pan, Tilt, Gobo Wheel 1 etc. Each attribute channel is controlled by a value between 0 and 255, in the case of Intensity 0 being 0% dimmer output, 255 being FULL. Pan, Tilt and other gradually controlled attributes such Cyan change on a similar sliding scale.

Attribute inversion is the practice of reversing the behaviour of the parameter relative to it’s control channel value – in the case of Intensity, a zero value would result in the dimmer output of FULL. An inversion of the Intensity attribute.

While it maybe possible to invert the behaviour of any fixture attribute, in practice the most common inversion is that of the Pan or Tilt parameter of a moving head or mirror. The end result of an invert of either a Pan or Tilt attribute is that it makes the control channel behave “back to front”. Instead of panning left, the fixture moves right. Instead of tilting up, it goes down.

Reasons for inverting a Position channel could be to either fix a rigging error or create any easier environment for programming moving lights.

Fixing an error – If the crew happen to have rigged a moving spot the “wrong” way round (180 degrees to the rest of the fixtures) then selecting a whole bunch of fixtures and moving them all together doesn’t work. The misplaced fixture moves in the opposite direction and pre programmed effects also run backwards during playback. Rather than bring the rig in and rehang the spot, the programmer can simply invert the Pan/Tilt channels at the console and order is restored.

Another common error is that many moving lights allow the user to invert channels at the fixture itself, using the on board menu or switch settings. This might be left over from a previous show, the heads not having been reset to factory settings during a hire prep.

Making programming easier – This is a positive move to speeding up position programming and fixture behaviour in some circumstances. Inverting the Tilt attribute of fixtures on the deck (sat on their bases) means that they move in the same direction as those hung in the air from clamps. Selecting all the heads and tilting them, all move upstage and downstage together.

Inverting the Pan attribute fixtures on one side of the centre line creates mirrored movement, where opposite pairs move toward centre together. This can speed up programming certain rig layouts and can even be used to rough-in a full rig of positions with only half the fixtures working. If you think this sounds pretty far fetched, it isn’t – I’ve done it. This workaround requires that at least one of every fixture “buddy” is running. More about these buddies later.

Another product of Pan inversion is that movement effects generated within the console, and moves from one position to another, happen symmetrically across stage.

Where to invert fixture attributes

There are two choices to setting a parameter inversion – at the fixture or within the lighting console. The worst situation is some inversions at the fixture, some set within the desk and know one knows what’s going on.

The preferred choice, given professional level equipment, is at the lighting desk. Knowing that all your heads are physically set up the same and leaving patch editing functions in the programmers hands is reassuringly structured. Inverting a channel at the console is usually part of advanced patching, setup or fixture editing control functions.

Setting an invert within the function menu of the fixture itself is usually reserved for situations where you are using control equipment that doesn’t provide the facility to perform inverts. Controllers with less than full functionality can often be quicker and easier to use if these local inverts are set. Something to think about when you are next running 4 scanners with a 12 channel, 2 preset desk.

Which ever way you decide to set an attribute invert, the most important thing to remember is that it must be done BEFORE any position programming takes place. Setting inverts will ruin any position work you have already committed to the desk.

The Downside to Inverts

The negative side to setting Pan inverts is that they make some fixtures move in the opposite direction. OK, you say, that’s what we wanted right? Having some fixtures pulling when others are pushing can be good or bad depending on rig layout and your aims as an LD/programmer. You might have a rear truss loaded with 16 moving spots and planning to use Fan effects on the desk to create some awesome looks. You may want to create some offset Pan sweeps, creating a horizontal wave effect from one end to the other. Modern lighting consoles have tools to speed up the programming of this kind of sequence but the effects are harder to achieve without all the heads moving the same way by default.

So you choose your poison.

Rigs for Pan inversion

The type of rig that can benefit from a few Pan inversions could be a concert or dance rig that requires quick position programming and symmetrical effects. Fixtures that have an “other side of stage buddy” are ideal candidates for pairing with one of the heads having an inverted Pan channel. Far Stage Left and Far Stage Right, Drum Riser Left and Drum Riser Right etc. Having these buddies working symmetrically means fine tuning your positions is often a matter of selecting a pair and moving them in one hit.

Top OSL Tip – You might find that you need to move both buddies in one direction, maybe to centre them up on stage. The quick method for moving both these guys, toward stage right for example, is to use the Fan tool. As one fixture has a Pan invert set, they actually move in the same direction.

Obviously, you might have some fixture positions that would be prime candidates for some inversions plus others that aren’t, like our rear truss spots.

Part of the rig could have inverted buddies, other banks of fixtures might work together. Some say that you should use fixture orientation and Pan/Tilt inverts to make sure that every fixture moves in the direction that you would expect uniformly across the whole rig eg. Wheeling the Pan encoder clockwise results in every fixture moving to Stage Left. This is dogmatic simplification that misses a host of programming and playback possibilities and can make certain looks a whole lot harder to create. If you are working in a 360 degree environment like a large night club, the idea of a “correct” way for a fixture to pan is plain silly anyway. Perhaps this is why such invert techniques are more likely to be found in the work of club or concert programmers, rather than theatre ops.

Tilt Invert

As we are talking about the nature of the rig helping to choose invert tactics, we come back to tilt inversion. Although Tilt invert is commonly used to align fixtures sitting on their bases with those hanging down from a structure, it can be used for other purposes. Perhaps the fixtures are laid out in both forward and rear positions and you wish to be able to wheel the entire rig either toward the stage area or away in one motion.

Once again, the choice depends on not only your preferences for programming but also the resulting playback of pre-designated effects.

Pan and Tilt Swap

A setting that does what it says on the tin: Swaps the Pan control with the Tilt control channel. This used for fixtures that are rigged on their sides, such as the side of an upright truss, that makes their pan/tilt movement apparently “wrong” in relation to the stage. Swapping the Pan and Tilt doesn’t allow us to reap any other programming benefits unless you’d just like to confuse the next person to use your console.

Inverting other attributes

There are occasions where it might be necessary to invert other attributes apart from Pan and Tilt. This sometimes applies to other linear parameters like Intensity and CMY or RGB colour mixing and can be done at the console or within a personality file. This kind of invert is a more unusual kind of housekeeping required when the fixture personality file is incorrect and the fixtures do not behave as expected. The inverting of other attributes is not usually employed to create a useful programming or playback tool.

Turn Your Life Around

We’ve taken a quick look the practice of fixture position attribute inversion, the different methods of doing it and some advantages for the moving light programmer. As setting inverts is something that should be done before any programming begins, it’s important to think about the pros and cons early on. Trying out position invert tactics on a small set up of around four moving lights should give you an idea of what they can do. If your control won’t do it, even the most basic scanners have some on board setting. When you are comfortable, you can unleash the power of “back to front” on your next monster rig.

Let us know how you get on.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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21 Ways to an Easier Programming Life

Rob Sayer — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:01:36 +0000

Programming moving lights is complicated, especially when you’re taking those first steps with some hired waggly heads and an unfamiliar console.On Stage Lighting lists 21 ways to make programming easier, more efficient and how to avoid mistakes that waste valuable time.

Based on an image by Jason Gulledge on Flickr

Compared to conventional fixtures, the intelligent light programmer has at least 10 times more information to wrangle. Many parts of the industry rely on the combined LD/Programmer role, meaning that design decisions have to be made by the unfortunate performing the frenzied button pressing. Time to get organised.

1- Be prepared

Turning up with the patch done (at least) saves time on the load in. Get the patch right in the quiet of the office, rather than trying to concentrate on 100 fixtures and their DMX addresses while some noisy chippy is jigsawing right next to you. Being able to slap a file into the desk and get it up and running while the rig is at working height makes the crew feel like you’re on the case. If you can’t access the console before the gig, most have an offline editor of some sort that is easy enough to patch with.

2 – Create a cheat sheet

Cheat sheets come in all shapes and sizes. Some easy to use reference material about your groups, fixture numbers or other stuff you will use regularly. When you develop a “system” to your programming with similar patching and desk layouts, the sheet becomes a routine in your head.

Another useful cribsheet is notes of ideas, scenes or looks considered during the design process – it’s amazing how your mind can go blank when faced with a “virgin” console. “So many things to program, I just can’t think what they are!”.

3 – Start early

While you won’t make many friends by slinking off to fiddle with the desk while the truck is being unloaded, don’t forget that nobody wants to be here all night. If programming is your responsibility, make a beeline for the console while kit is still being rigged. Depending on the complexity of the entire control system, there might be system issues. This needs to be done while the rest of the lighting crew are still putting barndoors in and colouring up – and the rig is still easily accessible. If the lighting department is just you, starting early isn’t so easy.

4 – Find a decent programming position

This is a lot more important than it might seem. Many final operating positions for the lighting console often have a limited view of the stage or are offset from centre, making programming positions harder. Auditorium centre and high enough to see the stage floor if possible. Seeing the floor gives a reference point for positioning and helps with sorting out beam symmetry. Different venues call for different programming positions – on an outdoor Orbital concert stage, I like to do most of the programming from Down Stage Centre and tidy up “in the crowd” positions from the FOH tower later. Being on stage makes it easier to see what’s going on when programming in daylight and you can check the band members focus by walking a just few metres from the desk.

Time spent moving the console to a good position is paid back ten times later. Just be prepared for a certain amount “no, I am not going to be here for the show” to the world and his wife.

Don’t let anyone hustle you off back to your final resting place until you are sure that most of the programming is done. Be friendly and ask if you can set up your cans (comms headset) and do the rehearsal from this position. Otherwise, those post rehearsal changes are going to take twice as long.

5 – Get comfortable

My inner Occupational Therapist says so (me, sitting on a roadbox typing on a tiny netbook). Chances are, you are going to be stuck at that desk for the next xx days with little chance of parole. Dedicated theatre style production desks are great but a significant number of shows are programmed from upturned Martin cases and the like. I prefer to work standing up if possible, but however you arrange your desk make sure that:

The console is at the right height so you don’t have to stoop.
You can see the stage and the desk without too much neck or eye movement. This can involve jacking the desk up a bit on boxes.
Layout any peripherals/ plans/ keyboards/mice to be easily used without cables being snagged etc.
If you have a chair, make sure that is the right height/ back is supported etc.

I have been known to spend 20 minutes hunting for boxes exactly the right size to bring the desk to a position that isn’t going to be a pain in the back/neck. The next 4 days went much better as a result.

6 – Check the fixtures

Check all the available fixtures are responding correctly. Pan and Tilt the right way and that the attributes are controlled correctly from the desk – colour1, colour2 etc. Winkling out any heads with an onboard Pan Invert or finding out that you have the wrong personality file version is a lot less heartbreaking at this stage.

Having “started early” you might not have the entire rig of fixtures available, some may still need to be rigged. At least you can check out what’s there. Many of the following tricks can be used with only a partial rig – in the world of corporate gigs and one night stands, you regularly get zero time to program with a full rig.

7 – Save a patch file

Once the desk patch is installed and checked, save a patch only show file with any amendments you have made to DMX addresses, fixture order etc – hopefully in a seperate file to the orginial patch. If you already have some colour / gobo palettes, great, save them too. Any spectacular screwups in the early stages of setting up the desk can be easily sorted by clearing the desk without having to repatching from scratch. Many consoles allow for incremental/ multi file saves nowadays but for the ones that don’t, taking the time to create a new disk/card is well spent. Especially when you realise that you wiped half the patch, thinking that you were programming.

8 – Set up Pan and Tilts

Many rigs involve some Pan/Tilt swapping (for fixtures rigged on their side) and you might like to invert the Pan attributes of certain fixtures for symmetry. Check these and sort them out early on – it’s no good programming position palettes until you are happy with the way the rig responds. Again, in three days time you will wish that you had corrected that accidental Tilt Invert on the second Spot from the left on the FOH truss.

9 – Create groups

Don’t skip creating groups just because your desk has a seemingly easy way to select individual fixtures. If the console has not got a macro to change the selection order (such as Random or Inverse) create some groups for that too. You can create groups without control of the entire rig but check them later.

10 – Create palettes

One of the fundamentals of moving light programming, palettes for colour and beam effects can be created early on (if not before) and should ideally be of the “universal” type. These apply to any fixture of that type (even those not patched yet,) meaning you can program the palette with only one head running. Adding more fixtures, they assume the programmed palettes too.

11 – Create a See Me position palette

Depending on the console position, you may not be able to see beams on the floor well . A position on the cyc, ceiling or other plain surface that you can see clearly and use to sort stuff out on. Create colour and beam palettes in this position, using it send a fixture to to check the colour or prism alignment during programming.

12 – Set up a quick “Director” look

Despite the fact that you have a mountain of things to get sorted before creating great art, it is a fact that if you linger near the desk for more than 5 minutes, the Director/Client/Money Man will come over and ask you to show them some looks. Swallowing the urge to tell them to leave you alone to get on with it, the best way to get shot of them is to have prepared some big n rough looks that they can gaze at while the Production Manager comes over to steer them off to catering and leave you in peace.

13 – Create some “Focus” looks

Once at the desk, the crew will delight in shouting for test channels, conventionals to rough focus and other general tasks. If you are using a programmer based console, you can placate the shouters by playing back memories that don’t interfere with your programming. It avoids the sinking feeling when you find that you have recorded some random Source Four into the last 20 memories.

14 – Minimise hand movement

Economy of hand movement and streamlining workflow are two useful tactics in programming of moving lights, particularly with large numbers of fixtures and cues. Different desks have different time savers, but just considering how much actual “doing” of stuff you can cut out is a start. On the GrandMA full size, a lot of economies are found by creating custom buttons and macros on the right hand Screen 3, near the encoders. One of the attractions of command line data entry is is the physical economy of entering data in one small area.

15 – Get “Herding” your heads

One of the biggest indicators of an inexperienced programmer is treating each moving head as an lovely individual to be nurtured and tended carefully on a 1:1 basis : Starting off – select 1 spot – move it into postion – set colour ….like focussing conventional lighting.

Think of them more like sheep. “Herding” fixtures into toward the stage, tilt up the entire back truss , tweak positions save a palette, set ALL colours to red, set half the heads to amber before quickly running through tweaking focusses.

The key point is to try to perform the big adjustments, before splitting the rig into chunks, then smaller chunks, then maybe opposite pairs before finally tweakin’ the odd head or two. When controlling a whole bunch of fixtures, get them all doing the same thing by winding an encoder (like Zoom/Focus) all the way down until every head hits it’s 0 point. Winding them all back up again, the parameter is now in sync. Or you could hit a nearby palette to line them up before adjusting once more.

16 – Use the mirror or fan function to position multiple fixtures

If you set half your symmetrical rig to Pan Invert, you can speed up the positioning of sets of fixtures by controlling them together. Use a Fan or Align (MA term) function to tidy them up in the same direction. The great thing about this method is that you can (and I have), program and entire rig with only half of it working (outdoor gig, wet distro, only six channels of hot power, don’t ask) as long as you can see at least one of every “pair”. If you prefer to have all your Pan set the same way across the rig, you can still use Fan or Align functions to wind fixtures into symmertical positions.

17 – Build looks from other programming

Cut and Paste whatever you have already to build palettes, looks and new shapes. No point in doing things twice. This applies at show level too – many LD’s have “previously enjoyed” showfiles based on certain fixture sets that they can use as a major building block for a new show. Already having the basics laid down give you more time to create.

18 – Use the tools

Whatever labour saving devices the console has, use them – Shape Editors, funky selection tools,mapping from video, whatever. We are all impressed by your ability to program 100 step Mexican Wave chase but we have computers to do that now – thank god!

19 – Keep lists

I note down everything that still needs sorting. Things that need tidying/fixing or programming that needs removal. Ticking things off on a list is satisfying and, if you have a memory like mine, vital.

20 – Discourage visitors

Some production desks have a big jar of cookies that create a hub of what we might call “connectivity” today. Directors and Production Managers need to constantly connect with the rest of the team – an LD/programmer often just needs to be left alone. The 1st law of programming is that within five minutes of sitting down at the desk either a) Someone will come and talk to you and you can’t get away or b) Someone will come and talk to someone else and stand in your line of vision.

No need to be antisocial, just make sure that your programming area is not the social centre of the universe and isn’t next to the tea making facilities.

21 – Get an iPod

I picked up this idea from a RnR programmer about 10 years ago, before the Ipod was the byword for personal stereo. This guy used to program the desk with a Walkman, supposedly listening to the next band he was LD’ing. I was struck by the genius of this plan – it cut out all extraneous noise and meant that you left him alone. The tinny sounds of Thrash Metal coming from the earphones and the cable dangling down to his pocket contstitued the subtlest of “F*** Off!, Go and chit chat to someone else” signs I’ve ever seen.

Phew!

So, over 2000 words and we haven’t even programmed a decent look yet. So far, we have spent time checking stuff, fending off distractions, hunting for furniture and recording memories that probably won’t be used in the show. Still, start early enough and maybe we can fit in some programming!

Hope the desk is the first thing off the truck

If you have any favourite ways to make life easier when programming, put them in the comments below.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Using Programmer Based Lighting Controllers

Rob Sayer — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:24:36 +0000

An article looking at the concepts and use of programmer based moving light consoles. The backbone of professional lighting consoles, using a “Programmer” is a jump from recording with a conventional “record output” lighting desk.

Traditional output based programming

Your first introduction to programming a lighting control often involves storing dimmer levels on a conventional light board. Set levels, see the changes on stage, hit Record. Make more changes, hit Record. Whatever you see on stage is stored in a scene memory, to be played back on cue. This is often referred to as “output based programming” for obvious reasons and is simple enough to understand.

// Bit to get out of the way – Some conventional consoles, particularly theatre orientated desks, use a concept called “Tracking” which complicates things a bit. If you know what tracking is, great. If not, it doesn’t matter – we’ll look at that some other time. This article is all about using a Programmer.

Programmer based recording is an efficient and powerful feature of most professional level automated lighting consoles – Whole Hog, Grand MA, Avolites, Cham Sys…. It also requires a different mindset of the operator which can seem alien to a beginner, used to a “record what you see” workflow. The programmer feature is extremely good for handling intelligent fixtures, but it is worth noting that entry level moving light controllers often only record output in the conventional way. On Stage Lighting recommends you try the MagicQ PC software precisely because it is a freely available system that uses professional lighting programming concepts and syntax that prepares a beginner for other world class lighting consoles such as the Hog, MA etc.

The Programmer

OK, so you might worked out that we are not talking about the palid weirdo with a Sharpie who haunts the FOH position. The Programmer is dedicated area of memory on the lighting console that the operator uses to create cues with.

The Concept

The operator starts with an empty paper bag – the programmer. They choose different parameters such as Colour, Gobo, Pan, Tilt for particular fixtures. Like shovelling different Pick ‘n’ Mix into the empty bag. “One of those, a couple of those – Oh no, perhaps I’ll put that one back…” When the operator is satisfied with their Pick ‘n’ Mix, they dump the whole lot into their shopping bag – a scene memory, chase or palette.

When they have finished, the operator shakes the bag upside down to make sure it’s empty. AKA Clearing the Programmer. The clear button is the one that wears out the second fastest on an automated lighting console, after the Go button.

OK, so maybe you’re confused and now I can’t stop thinking about sweets. The Programmer is a holding area for things that we wish to record, regardless of the overall output of the console.

But why on earth would I want to record stuff that isn’t exactly what I see on stage?

The advantages of programmer vs. output based recording include:

You can choose which attributes/parameters to save. An output based system just dumps all outgoing values into a memory.
Only certain fixtures can be recorded into a cue. This cue can be mixed with other cues “on the fly”. See Concert Programming in 30 Mins and Using Submasters for Busking Bands for some examples.
It doesn’t matter what the console is outputting – multiple scenes, chases. You can make quick edits and additions to cues, even ones that are not currently on stage. This makes sneaky editing during rehearsals (and even the show!) possible without ruining your programming.
Only recording the essential parts of a scene (ie. the fixtures that you actually need) conserves console memory.
Er, it’s just more flexible – OK?

The programmer view of the ChamSys MagicQ.
The red fields Intensity, Pan and Tilt are active in the programmer. All the other attributes are not.

Using Programmer Based Recording

We’ve looked at the concept, but what about a practical example? Every console programming operation starts with a blank slate. Clearing the programmer so that there are no fixtures, values or even crumbs in there.

Selecting two of our moving spots, we wind up their intensity. That gives us a Dimmer level in the programmer but nothing else. If we recorded that scene now it would just fade up the fixtures, regardless of their colour, gobo or position. Those parameters would remain from the previous cues. (a guide to Latest Takes Precedence / LTP attributes, if you are unfamiliar with them)

We move on. Keeping the fixtures selected, we make some position adjustments – Pan and Tilt. Doing this places those to parameters into the programmer along with intensity levels. If recorded now, the cue would also include a move to this new position.

Making adjustments to new attributes, gobos, colours etc. puts more values into the programmer. When you have finished, recording the new cue will incorporate these values. Finally, clearing the programmer will wipe the slate clean for the next time.

Can I just record all attributes of a fixtures, even if I didn’t change them?

Yes, any fixture that is active in the programmer (one that has been selected AND had some attributes changed) can have all of it’s attributes recorded in a scene. Different consoles call this different things – whole fixtures, record by fixture, whole memories. Recording a whole fixture cue will guarantee that all your chosen fixtures will do what you want, regardless of other cues still running.

The downside to recording cues using a Programmer is that it can be hard predict outputs to stage for the less experienced. There are a few things you can do about this:
Always record whole fixtures/memories. What You Saw Is What You Get next time.
Record your show cues in order of playback and never hit clear – ever. Or use a tracking console.

But these kind of defeat the object of using a Programmer in the first place.

Advanced programming options.

So, we’ve found out that using a programmer based console give us the option to choose exactly what information goes into our cues and which attributes are changed. There are other powerful programming features associated with the concept, ideal for mustering the large amounts of information in automated lighting control. These features include:

Saving only certain attributes to a scene memory, regardless of the information in the Programmer. This is like picking certain sweets back out of your Pick ‘n’ Mix bag again.

Using the Programmer to remove unwanted parameters from an already saved cue. This is seriously handy and is often called Record Remove.

Picking certain fixtures and attributes from existing cues, putting them into the Programmer and adding other data before saving it all as a new memory.

Still confused?

Reading about a subject is never substitute for fiddling with buttons and trying stuff out. If you are keen on learning the programming of moving lights, understanding the Programmer concept is a vital step. All professional operators, whatever console they use, would agree that you just can’t handle large amounts of moving light data without it.

Hopefully, you have a better understanding of programmer based lighting control and if you have any specific questions, put them in the box below as usual.

Note to Zero88 users:
Many OSL readers have access to small moving light desks such as the Zero88 Frog range and the Jester ML. Zero88 have a system referred to as “tagging”. Attributes that are adjusted are “tagged” (similar to the programmer concept) and either whole fixtures (whole memories) or only changed values (partial memories) can be recorded. Although not exactly the same as the Programmer concept in this article, they two share many of the same characteristics. It you already familiar with “tagging”, you should find it easy to move onto programmer based consoles, which include the new Zero88 generation Leap Frog and Frog II.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Lighting Cue Timing – Better Scene Transitions

Rob Sayer — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:19:33 +0000

This article looks at the importance of time in lighting design and console programming for moving lights plus some practical uses for cue timing controls.

Once the lighting designer has chosen fixtures and hanging positions (and the the lighting system works ), the real design fun begins with the lighting plot. Setting lighting levels to create scenes is only part of the lighting designer’s toolkit. Use of fade times and creating well structured transitions is just as important and it can make the lighting of the smallest show much more professional. Today we are going to focus on lighting cue timing (rather than chase times )and learn some of the options to improve a scene transition.

The new Timeline window, seen at PLASA, soon to be available on the MagicQ software courtesy of Cham Sys

Why is time important in modern lighting?

Cue fade times have long been a part of conventional lighting design. Multi scene shows rely on changes in the lighting and getting from A to B can be done in different ways. Dramatic crashes between contrasting environments or subtle shifts of focus on the stage.

While cue timings are important when working with conventional fixtures, the extended dynamics of moving lights make effective transitions a top priority.

Let’s have a look at the simplest cue timing parameters before we go on to using time with intelligent lighting.

Fade In or Fade Up Times

Fade In is the time between the start of a incoming transition, such as Dimmer back to 0%, and it’s completion. This might be dimmer @ 75% (as set in the next scene) or any other moving light parameters – Tilt @ Center Stage, for example.

Fade Out or Fade Down Times

The Fade Out time is the measure of an outgoing cue. This could be our Dimmer @ 0 again or different level such as 50%, set in the next cue. The Fade Out time doesn’t just apply to fixtures that are actually faded out. Moving light attributes that are in the outgoing scene are also subject to fade out times.

Wait In / Delay Times

When you fire a lighting cue, press a button or push a fader up, you expect things to happen straight away. The default Wait In time is usually 0 seconds – Hit GO and the Fade In and Fade Out times start NOW. Wait In allows you to set a delay between the cue action (GO) and the start of the Fade In transition.

Wait Out / Delay Times

Wait Out allows you to set a delay, similar to the Wait In time, between the Go action and the outgoing transition.

Ok, so you might be wondering why you would want a cue that doesn’t Go when you tell it to.

Wait In and Out delays are useful for fine tuning the actions of a transition. Perhaps you want some moving heads to fade up, into view, before moving to their positions (Wait In). Or maybe dimmer intensities from the previous scene should not start fading out until your new scene has completely arrived (Wait Out). These are simple illustrative examples that could be achieved using follow-on cues, but more complex combinations of Fade In/Out and Wait In/Out create nice changes in a single cue.

Wait/Delay times are also important in the creation of chases, which we will cover another time.

Controlling time for each fixture

Understanding the simple use of Wait In/Out times helps us when it comes to controlling lighting cue transitions for each fixture. Professional moving light consoles have the ability to set fade times for individual fixtures and – wait for it – individual attributes. Colour, Gobo, Pan, Tilt, Everything.
All of a sudden, things have got complicated. You could set individual Fade In/Out and Wait/Delay times for each moving light and each attribute. Aaargh – now I have to deal with all this?

Fortunately, the default setting on lighting consoles is to set Global times for every fixture and attribute, with the possiblity of zooming in and fiddling with individual times, leaving the other times set globally. Phew.

Spreads, Fans or Offsets

These programming tools have the power to create spectacular lighting effects and are different names for a complex timing control that is quick to use. Another simple example: If you wanted 4 fixtures to fade up in sequence, you might create a 4 step chase. You could also create a single cue with all your fixtures going from 0% to 100%. 2 setting a 1 second Wait Time for Fixture 2, 2 second Wait for Fixture 3 and the final head Wait time to 3 seconds would give you finished sequence. However, there is no time saved setting individual fixture times by hand with only four units.

If you were able to automatically “fan” the Wait times over 40 moving lights, you could create a big effect quickly. This is what spreads, fans or offsets do. They allow you to “dial in” a large spread of timings across multiple fixtures in one action. Imagine you had 10 Pixeline 1044 LED battens that needed to fade from Blue to Red. You could create 2 cues – Blue and Red. The clever part is offsetting the a Wait Time across the battens from left to right, creating a “wipe” colour change.

Or you could program that with a 100 step chase!

There are hundreds of uses for the ability to set offset timings across a range of fixtures including moves, colour fades or funky “in view” gobo changes.

Moving light consoles can have a graphical layout of cue and fixture timing called the “timeline”. This electronic cue sheet not only show the operator the current cue timing but also allows adjustment within the timeline. The first image shows an example of an invaluable tool in the increasingly complex world of automated lighting.

DMX fading and Moving Lights

So far, we have looked at using the cue timing control on a lighting controller to alter the speed at which transitions happen. The fades are created by the controlled alteration of DMX values out put from the desk. There is another consideration with many moving lights that you should know about.

Often called Speed or M Speed, this a controllable moving light attribute similar to colour, gobo etc It’s a function provided by the manufacturers that is controllable from the console. The purpose of M Speed is to set the attribute fade times at fixture level and can provides some timing control for less complex desks including cheap disco controllers. Sometimes M Speed applies to individual attributes such as Cyan, Tilt or Prism. You set the M Speed attribute to Slow, the console sends the next cue and the fixture goes to the next cue setting slowly.

You might be interested in the M Speed functions of your fixtures if you have a simple controller but it’s important to know about even with a professional console. M Speed usually has a default setting of 0 seconds, 100% or some other way of disabling it and using the console timing alone. There are uses for a fixtures onboard M Speed, but as we are talking about console timing we’ ll leave it for the moment.

If you don’t want your cues timings to be confused by M Speed, make you know how to turn in off.

Try out your timing.

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

Next time you are sat at your controller, set yourself some cue timing challenges. Create 4 or 5 looks that are wildy different to each other. Colours, positions, gobos – big changes. Don’t worry too much about creating the best scenes ever, just give yourself some changes to manage. Fire through the cues with simple or no timing – watch how each cue crashes into the next one. Perhaps one of your fixtures “flips” during a move (a sign that you have accidentally set it upside down from the previous cue). Having got your rough changes sorted, decide how to get from one cue to the next. Perhaps you need to set some Wait In times, fade out a fixture before changing gobos or create an interim extra cue.

If you haven’t got access to any fancy moving lights yet, you can still endeavour to improve your conventional dimmer lighting cues. Instead of settling for a bog standard dipless crossfade, see if you can think of ways that a particular cue can be tightened up. Just make sure it improves the show and doesn’t look like a chimp has found the light switches.

The point is, it doesn’t really matter what timing features your controller has or hasn’t got. Thinking about cue transitions and managing them effectively is a great step forward in lighting design and programming. In a future article, we will look at chase times and using cue automation to create effects. If you have any questions or comments, put them in the box as usual.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Using Submasters for Busking Band Lighting

Rob Sayer — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:25:09 +0000

Following Concert Lighting Programming in 30 mins, Dimitris asked for more information on organising submasters/playbacks when lighting a concert. So here it is – ideas on how to layout your lighting console playbacks for simplicity and flexibility.

In Concert Lighting… we looked at using bits of programmed data, palettes and memories, as building blocks to create lighting looks “on the fly”. Each lighting op has their own pet way of laying out their desk (the guest LD who changed all my groups last week – me fumbling around trying to select fixtures for the support act!). This article is relevant to anyone who uses a console with some moving light control and submaster playbacks.

Busking Your Show

Playing back your show, you might only have access to 10 submaster faders at one time plus the ability to change pages. Memories can be only replayed with adjacent faders, so think about the vertical layout – how the memories on submasters stack on top of each other by sub page. The word “stack” here is going to refer to submaster memories that are on the same fader, different page.

Live and Trigger Memories

The programming on the cheat sheet relies heavily on Palettes, so few actual memories are programmed. If you prefer submasters or your desk doesn’t support many palettes, the layout of your subs is even more important.

A Dimmer or Intensity Submaster is usually only “live” on stage when physically faded up. If you use similar programming to the Concert Programming Cheat Sheet, these are the PAR colour washes and moving spot dimmer memories. Movement chases or shapes also must stay up to be live on stage, as are any LED colour submasters that are HTP. We’ll call these “Live” Memories.

Trigger memories, such as Strobe On, Colour Red or Prism Rotate, only need to be triggered by raising a fader or hitting a submaster flash button. These submasters, once activated, don’t have to remain faded up – in fact, you should get into the habit of clearing them once the moving lights have responded. This ensures you don’t end up with extra faders up, confusing when you are changing pages. Activating Trigger memories has a similar effect to choosing palettes for selected fixtures – it makes them do something else.

Choosing Submaster Layout

Understanding the two memory types, helps us decide on which memories not to stack on top of each other. You don’t want to have to “lose” your blue PAR wash, just to fire a new gobo into your waggly spots. So, stacking up Live memories with Trigger memories is avoided. Don’t forget that PAR colour washes can be instantly pushed up while fiddling with the next moving spot look, so keep them handy.

The image shows a selection of methods for ordering submaster memories over 3 pages. It is not a “real” layout but demonstrates the points below.

The memory types can also help you to choose subs that you can stack on top of each other. Maybe you won’t use a Spot Dimmer 100% sub at the same time as Spot Dimmer Chase, so they can stack up. Perhaps you could stack up a Circle Shape/Chase with a Pan Saw for the same reason – you are unlikely to run them both at once.

Each submaster page might have a few live memories, colour washes etc and a few trigger subs. The next page might have duplicates of some of the live memories, plus different triggers.

Duplicate subs are often used, to provide easy access to common Live memories on several submaster pages. There are two common ways to layout dupes.

Stacked – These memories, particularly colour washes, are stacked on top of each other. They have the benefit of the memory being on the same fader, even on different pages. The disadvantage is this approach can eat up submasters.

Diagonal – Stacking related attribute submasters diagonally has the advantage of being able to cut down the number of slots taken up by Live memories on each page. For example, put Blue Wash on Sub 1/ Page 1, Magenta on Sub 2 / Page 2 , Amber Sub 3 / Page 3 etc. This has the effect of putting similar memories (in this case Colours) “diagonally” across several pages (the yellow block in the image), giving flexiblity in using different memory types together. It’s a concept used by some Avolites Pearl operators but it’s not so easy without the famous Roller.

Confused?

There’s no place like home.

Whatever layout you choose for your subs, you always need to know where you are. You can cut down “page confusion” by doing a number of things.

Create a Home Submaster Page – A lovely little page with all your favourite and most used stuff that you can feel at home in. When you have been off wandering across 6 pages of subs to get to the Freaky Techno Strobe sub, come right back before you end up staying amongst all those whacky effects you don’t remember programming. The home page could contain a “safety” look, Strobe Off or a “Just stop doing that , FFS!” memory as well as the basis of your show, good ol’ PAR washes.

Use only a few pages – A palette heavy programming style means you can fit a few colour washes, chases and shape or two on only 10 playbacks. If you need a bit more room, try using 1 page above and 1 page below your Home subs. 3 pages of good subs does plenty.

Get much further away from safety and you are asking for confusion. Straying across several pages, you end up with a handful of submaster faders running that you can’t quite recall what they do. Or even which page they are on.

Using Preset Faders

Assuming that your lighting desk allows, using Preset faders to push up dimmer levels can free up submasters for better uses. You don’t really need those Vocal spots on a sub or even your audience blinders. The layout of your preset faders is helpful here – different groups of lights in clusters next to each other. Use the whole desk, even the cue stack playback.

Find your own system

Everyone develops their own style when organising playbacks. Despite being a serial Avolites Pearl user, I have tried to keep the information to general ideas that can be used with any desks with submasters and pages. If you have any particular favourites playback tips or don’t understand anything, let us know in the comments section.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Concert Lighting Programming in 30 Minutes

Rob Sayer — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:53:22 +0000

In the middle of summer(?) music festival madness, On Stage Lighting gives you a 30 minute schedule and a cheat sheet to help program up your lighting desk for three days of bands. The mud has been removed from this article for reasons of hygiene.

Ok, so you missed out on running a desk at Glastonbury this year but on your own stage you’ve got some moving spots and a load of PAR64s – the usual festival rig. There are three days of school kid bands, tribute acts and questionable hot dogs stretching ahead of you.

What are we trying to achieve?

Indoors or out, programming lights for multiple music acts is about flexibility. Creating different looks that are suitable for every act – even the German Oompah band.

Your programming must be easy to use, particularly if you will also be host to incoming guest Lighting Designers. They may get time to do their own programming, but it helps if your work is well organised.

Programming a lighting desk for flexibility is not about recording as many memories as you can. Creating lighting “ingredients” is key, so here is our tick list for flexible lighting programming.

The Important Bit

Programming moving lights for best “buskability” is about recording “building blocks”, palettes and memories, that you can instantly recall to create killer looks during the show. Elements such as colours, positions or movement are recorded separately and overlaid on demand – this is called recording “by attribute” (or by channel, partial memories etc.). Check your console manual for the details of this facility.

Programming your moving lights this way leaves you without “whole” looks in your desk. It’s flexible but does mean that operating a show will take some concentration. If you need a fall back, you could always program some full “safety”looks to push up when you run out of ideas (or fingers).

We’ve only got 30 minutes so we’d better get on with the programming.

Lighting Programming Cheat Sheet

The quick festival programming cheat sheet is in PDF format. Let’s look at the details.

Generics / Conventional Lighting

Get your PARs done. Subs for colour washes – Blue, Reds Amber, Whatever. Just 2 chases – Cold Chase (blues, lavenders, steels); Warm Chase (reds, ambers, pinks). You should be able to alter the chase speed and 2 or 3 steps per chase is fine.

Moving Light Programming

(don’t forget – record only relevant attributes!)

Groups – Quick selection of moving lights that are used for the rest of your programming AND during the show.
All Spots
Front/Rear Spots – Whatever makes sense for your rig layout.
Odds and Evens – Or a way of selecting half of your Spots for “two colour” looks.

Once fixture selection is out of the way, next up is…

Dimmer/Intensity

All Spots @ 100% submaster. This will be used in your show and be the basis of the rest of your programming. The fixtures need to be lit up to continue, so leave this sub @ full from now on. Make sure that your desk doesn’t record Dimmer @ 100% in all your other programming, though.

Dimmer/Intensity Chase – While we’re doing Intensity, a variable speed chase of your spots is useful.

Palettes

While playing back your show, palettes allow you to apply colours, gobos and other settings to selected moving lights. If your desk doesn’t support palettes, you can try programming them as “by attribute” submaster memories – bit of a pain.

Get your moving spots pointing at the wall/floor, so you can see what the beam is doing.

Colour Palettes – Instead of using auto generated palettes, pick some colours that compliment your PARs. Don’t waste time filling up your palettes with hundreds of colours you are never going to use. Programming 6 – 8 colour palettes is plenty.

Colour wheel spin – Why not add in a colour changing palette for cheesy disco type looks? Colour spin speed is chosen based on how “bangin’” your gig is likely to be.

Gobo Palettes
Again, choose gobos you are likely to use including a “beam splitter” gobo to use through haze.. Rotating gobos are most useful for moving effects. Set a Gobo focus at the same time.

Gobo Rotate – Fast / Slow / Stop. Speeds down to personal preference. Attributes like this need a “Stop” palette to halt them when required.

Shutter and Iris – Strobe On / Strobe Off / Random Strobe. Iris Wide / Iris Tight (for “pencil thin” beams)

Prism Palettes – Off / On No Spin / Spin. You can record a two spin speeds if you like.

Position Palettes – Spend a little time setting up your positions but don’t forget that you can tidy them up later (when it’s not so sunny).

Positions such as Up, Down, In, Out, Audience, Cross, Down Stage Centre, Drums etc. Set yourself a limit – 10 positions go a long way. If you record positions as partial memories, set a fade time of 3 seconds so they don’t crash into place, it looks better.

Finally, some Movement.

Shapes or Chases – Pan Saw / Tilt Saw / Another that you like ( diamond, square etc). Some consoles allow to adjust the size/speed “on the fly” – very useful. If not, then a bit more work recording Fast, Slow versions.

The moves are most useful if you can change their “centre point” with your position palettes, so only record the movement – not the actual position of your fixtures.

So that’s it. You could spend hours adding split colours or fancy positions but the elements on the cheat sheet list will give a wide range of lighting looks. Ok, if you are new to programming this might take you a bit longer that 30 minutes but with a bit of practice you could do it in 20.

Lighting programming is about a clear set of goals and an efficient use of your programming time – something that is harder if you don’t have a theatre style plotting sheet. A simple tick list can help you get it done.

If you have any questions or comments about programming or busking the lighting for a concert or festival, put them in box below.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Moving Light Control – Palettes – Lighting Desk Basics 4

Rob Sayer — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:54:56 +0000

Programming moving lights on a modern intelligent lighting console involves some new techniques for the novice console operator, not least the use of “Palettes”. Using palettes is an important method for efficiently programming intelligent fixtures and organising their attributes such as colours, gobos, pan, tilt etc into manageable chunks. On Stage Lighting explains the principles behind palettes, why they are used and how to get the best from your moving lighting control.

In Lighting Desk Basics PART 1, we looked at the first principles of lighting control and moved on to the specifics of moving light control such as patching and fixture selection in Part 2 and Part3. Now you have control of your moving lights and can select them quickly, using “Groups”, you are ready to start programming. In the beginning, a novice moving light operator might be content with setting up a “state” or scene on the console, adjusting colour and other fixture attributes before recording the scene to a memory and moving on to the next look. But, there is a better way…

What is a Palette?

A way of storing and organising different moving light setting.

In moving light control, a pallette is a mini-memory of fixture attributes that is the building block of larger scenes. So, it might be all fixtures colour set to red, gobo 2 or postion Up Stage Centre. Palettes are recorded and then can be called up at the touch of a button, saving all that wheeling through colours, gobos or re-adjusting the position back to the one in the previous scene. Select some moving lights, hit USC, Red and Gobo 2 and you have a new look in seconds. It gets better…

What is so great about using Palettes?

Flexibility and Speed.

When you record a pallette such as Position = USC on your moving light console, it is stored with the attribute settings for each fixture that you selected and adjusted to make them all point Up Stage Centre.
When you use that USC pallette to record a memory or scene, the moving light control saves the palette into the scene, rather than the actual attribute values. So it just “thinks” of it as Pallette USC .
If you record another memory using USC, the console still references the same pallette and stores it in this cue too.
Changing the values in the USC palette to adjust the position of your Up Stage Centre focus then effectively changes the position in ALL of the cues that you used the USC palette in. Pretty useful if the director changes their mind a lot or if you are touring a show into different venues.
The benefit of this “updating” strategy is most obvious when using Pan/Tilt attributes (Position) but is equally useful with others particularly colour mixing and focus/zoom.

Where do I find the Red palette on my lighting console?

You need to create it.

The important thing to understand about pallettes is that they are user defined. This means that YOU set you moving lights to red, store the palette and call it “Red”. You could call it Lee106 or Elephant – it doesn’t matter to the desk.
Many professional lighting consoles have system to Auto Create a number of palettes to save time for the operator. This works for colour wheel and gobo settings because they are not dependent on external factors such as the position of your fixtures or the height or your lighting bar/truss (position pallettes are only useful when set up “live”). Having automatically created your colour pallettes for you, they then appear in the palette menus ready for use. Professional operators often don’t use the Auto Palette function of their moving light controller, preferring to set colours/gobos up manually, according to the requirements of the show.

Doesn’t setting up palettes take more programming time?

It actually saves time in the end.

Recording and organising your pallettes is not something you do during the official lighting plot. The director and prodution team don’t need to sit your shoulder and watch you fiddling with wheels and storing palettes. These building blocks can be set up as soon as you have control of some moving lights, while generics are being focussed or even other parts of the show are being rigged. When you do sit down at the “the plot” you will be ready to call up settings in a few seconds.

It is important to make sure there is time to do it, though – don’t just get the rig up and then sit down with the director and start plotting. Try to get others (directors, designers, PM’s etc) to understand that if they want these lovely moving lights, they take a lot more programming than 36k of PARs.

Ok, I’m convinced. How to I set up my Palettes?

Each moving light console is different but it usually goes like this:

Start with a BO or press Clear.
Select your moving lights and open the shutter so you can see them.
Set them all to red.
Record the palette, making sure you’re only storing colour information.
Name the pallette Red.
Do another one.

Anything else?

Palettes have other uses.

As well as being able to organise your moving lights settings for programming a show, palettes can be used to “busk” music shows live. The ability to call up colours, positions etc instantly mean that you can make decisions, tune your lighting to the action and create hundreds of different looks with a minimum of console programming. And if you end up with a look you are really pleased with – store it for later!

This article has only touched the surface of the capabilites of palettes in moving light control. Understanding what you could achieve using these simple steps in light programming can take a bit of time but it is worth the effort. And you are on the road to moving light control like the professionals.

Moving Light Control – Groups – Lighting Desk Basics 3

Rob Sayer — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:40:13 +0000

The third part of the Lighting Desk Basics series, On Stage Lighting looks at the elements of moving light control. Article 2 – Intelligent Lighting Control, looked at the first steps of controlling moving lights, fixture personalities and patching. Using Groups to control your “heads” is the next step in console programming like the professionals.

A Change Of Style

When you first get your hands on some moving lights and a controller, you may have already cut your teeth operating the school/church lighting desk, setting levels for different dimmer channels and using them for cues/scenes or “states”. If you were lucky enough to have a “memory” console, the cues were recorded as they looked on stage and then played back when needed. Pretty simple.

Because moving lights have many more parameters or “attributes” to command (pan, tilt, colour etc), it soon becomes apparent to a beginner operator that just making the stage look good and hitting “record” before moving to the next “state” is not enough. Even a straight forward, cue-cue theatre show would benefit from a slightly more structured approach.

Terminology

There is sometimes a few meanings to “Groups” in moving light control but to clarify, here is the definition for the purposes of this article.

A Group is a shortcut to selecting a number of fixtures at once prior to controlling them, changing colour/position etc. E.g Group 1 = Back Truss Washes, Group 2 = FOH MAC2000 lights.

Moving Light Groups

Before you can adjust moving lights on your control desk, you need to select them. Each moving light control has it’s own method but they usually boil down to pushing a button/touchscreen or typing a number into a keypad. If you only have four Mac250+ then you probably could do that but with tens or even hundreds of fixtures at your finger tips, using groups is quicker and more convenient.

To record a Group of fixtures on a moving light control, you just select the “heads” for that group then store/record them. If the console allows, would also help you to give them a name, such as “Back Truss Washes” or “FOH Spots”, to remind you which moving lights the group will select.

Remember, no cues have been programmed yet. You now have a set of shortcuts to assist your programming.

Group Order

Many moving light controls that support groups also have a useful tool that is not obvious to the first time user. When you start applying effects to your fixtures such as colour and movement “shapes” the effect can look quite different depending on how you recorded your Group.

When recording a Group, if you selected your fixtures consecutively- 1,2,3,4, any effect/shape would be applied to the moving lights in 1234 order. If you had selected the moving heads – 3214, the effect is applied in that order and the final look on stage different. A Shutter Chase that runs from one end of a truss to the other (1243) is not the same as one that fires in a less orderly way (3214).

Knowing that you can control the look of effects by recording groups of fixtures in a different order is really useful!

Moving Light Pre Programming

Something that is often overlooked when getting some moving lights for the first time on your show is – Time.

Although you don’t have to go up a ladder and focus them, change gels or even fit an iris, they take longer to program. Obviously, this is because they have more elements to be controlled quite apart from the learning curve that goes with a more complex lighting controller.

Before you sit down with the Director to plot the lighting for the show, you need to have done some pre programming. Getting your Groups recorded is part of the “building blocks” of moving light control that should be done before everyone else is sitting on your shoulder, telling you about that big effect they want in the middle of Act 2.

Another “building block” that should be pre programmed by any good moving light operator are called Palettes. It could be argued that Palettes are the most useful tool in effective moving light control and they are the subject of the next part of this series – Moving Light Control – Pallettes.

Intelligent Lighting Control – Lighting Desk Basics 2

Rob Sayer — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 17:00:54 +0000

A top end professional intelligent lighting control desk and the moving light section on a cheap lighting control have common features. Understanding these elements, while not teaching you to become a moving light operator, can help a beginner learning any intelligent lighting desk. In the second part of the Lighting Desk …series, On Stage Lighting starts looking at the features of intelligent lighting control.

What makes an intelligent lighting control so special?

Can you use a conventional lighting desk to operate intelligent lighting? Well, if it outputs a
standard control signal such as DMX512 then, in theory, yes. But it won’t be easy unless you are controlling some really simple kit such as RGB colour mixing LED fixtures. The main “extras” that an intelligent lighting control has is a user interface designed to make controlling your fixtures easy and a system of cue playback which ensures that all the different attributes (gobo, colour, pan, tilt etc) are organised and replayed in the best way.

Any decent intelligent lighting console will allow you to also control your conventional dimmers.

Intelligent Lighting Attributes

The point of intelligent lighting fixtures is that they can do lots of things. Colours, gobos, movement, strobes and other effects are part of the armoury of the such lights and these features depend on the manufacturer and model. Previously, the lighting operator only had to worry about intensity control using a dimmer. Now each light has any number of different “attributes” that need to be marshalled with the console and the ability to handle this task efficiently is what makes a good intelligent lighting control. And a “moving light” operator!

So, an intelligent lighting desk will have a way of controlling and recording the different attributes of each fixture. But does the desk know how to control each type of intelligent fixture and where the send the colour or gobo signal? This is where the “Fixture Personality” comes in.

Fixture Personalities

Every make and model of intelligent lighting has it’s control channels allocated in a special order. So, the dimmer may be controlled by channel #1, pan (horizontal) movement by channel #2, colour by channel # 5 etc. This is laid down by the manufacturer of the fixture and is mapped out and presented in a table format, usually in the User Manual. This mapping of control channels is called the “Fixture Personality” and, using a Fixture Personality file, an intelligent lighting console connects the lighting operator to the correct Attribute and displays the appropriate information.

Have a look at the fixture personality for a Robe MSZoom 250 (open in new window). You will notice that Intensity (Dimmer) control is on channel #16 or #14 while Tilt is controlled using channel #1.

Intelligent lighting fixture personalities are usually created by the console manufacturer and are unique to a particular brand of lighting desk, often in the form of a text file. A personality file from an Avolites lighting control means nothing to an ETC desk.
No time for a quick rant on the standardisation of Personality Files. Another day, perhaps.

Some hardcore desk operators like nothing better than to create their own custom fixture personalities. If this isn’t for you, then you just make sure that you have the correct fixture personalities for the intelligent lighting you intend to control.

Patching

Patching an intelligent lighting control is telling it two things:

The types of fixtures that you wish to control.
The control channels to use for each fixture.

Using a DMX512 control system, once you have loaded the fixture personalities and assigned each fixture to a fader or button, you can allocate the DMX start address of each piece of equipment. These are the addresses that you will also need to set on the lighting fixtures themselves in order for them to listen to commands from the lighting control.

If you are new to DMX lighting systems, you might like to take a look at DMX Lighting Systems – Is Anyone Listening?

You Have Control…

Once you have your intelligent lighting control patched correctly and your fixtures set to the correct DMX start addresses, you need to actually get control of those waggly beasts and begin the building blocks of moving light control – Groups and Pallettes. These are the subject of the next part of the Intelligent Lighting Control series, Moving Light Control – Groups.

Lighting Desk Basics – Beginner’s Guide to a Stage Light Control – 1

Rob Sayer — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:40:14 +0000

The lighting control, “board” or “desk” is the a key part of any stage lighting set up and it is using the lighting desk that an operator is able to control the equipment. This can range from adjusting the “levels” on stage lighting dimmers to controlling complex intelligent lighting systems and media servers. Although there are many different types of lighting control, a great deal of the features are common to most and On Stage Lighting explains these features in the first part of beginner’s guide to the lighting desk.

Lighting Desk Output

How a lighting desk controls your rig depends on what kind signal it outputs to the various bits or equipment that it “talks” to. Some basic dimmers use different analogue voltages to interpret their channel “levels” and some top notch professional kit uses an ethernet network like a PC.

The standard in stage lighting control is the DMX512 protocol which means that that many lighting desks, big and small, output one or more DMX signals. There are very few things that you have to understand about DMX512 and using it in lighting control and they are detailed in DMX Lighting Systems – Is Anybody Listening?

Channel Controls

Even the most basic lighting desk has a degree of channel control. This enables the operator to adjust the “level” (sometime expresses as a percentage – 0% – 100%) of a “control channel”. A lighting desk controls this channel which can be used to adjust a range of lighting equipment, traditionally the intensity of a stage light via a stage lighting dimmer. A modern lighting desk controls these “channels” using different input methods such as faders/sliders for intensity, numeric keypad (where you type in a value) and other weird wheels and dials. These wheels give the operator the ability to adjust parameters and levels, particularly in the control of intelligent lighting. Where lighting intensity is controlled by faders, an additional “flash button” is useful for quick flashes of each channel.

Master Controls

The master control faders on a stage lighting desk adjust the output channels levels on a global scale. The SubMasters can control different groups of lighting channels while the Grand Master adjusts the intensity of every channels as it leaves the lighting desk. It is worth remembering that, on a lighting desk with intelligent lighting control, the Master control faders only actually adjusts lighting intensity level channels.

Lighting Desk Playback

“Playback”, relating to a stage lighting desk, is a term used to describe the “playing back” of different scenes, looks or states during the show. At it’s simplest, playback is simply setting the channel faders on the desk to a given level and then fading up the relevant Master Control so that the result appears on stage. Lighting desk’s that have “2-Presets” enable you to set your next scene up on another set of channel controls and then crossfade that scene in when required.

More sophisticated lighting desks have a number of playback features:

Memory Playback – Stack Control and the Go button.

Even simple lighting desks have often a degree of Memory Playback which enable the operator to record “memories” of different scenes and their channel levels and then play them back using a fader or “Go” button. These scenes can be faded in and out using a pre-recording time or timed manually by the op. A lighting desk that has a “go” button plays back scenes using “sequence control”, also known as a “theatre stack”. In a “theatre stack”, each scene is played back in numbered order every time the “go” button is pressed and, as the name suggests, this system is common in theatre shows where the cue sequence should be the same every night.

Memory Playback – Submasters are Go!

An alternative way to playback lighting scenes it use Submasters. Each submaster on the lighting desk can have a memory recorded “onto” where the scene can be faded in and out using the submaster and even added to the output of another submaster memory. This gives the lighting op really hands on control and ability to mix and match the lighting states “on the fly”. The number of acutal physical submaster faders on a lighting desk is often increased by using multiple “pages” of subs that each contain a different lighting state. There are are quite a few lighting desks that have submasters in addition to stack control and a “Go” button and these can be useful for manually operating some cues such as houselights/tab warmers etc.

Timing Controls

All lighting desks with memory playback that use a “Go” button have a degree of timing control. Recording the fade times, both in an out, with a cue mean that when the “Go” button is pressed you get a smooth timed cross fade. Some desks give the ability to have separate “Up Times” (the number of seconds for the new cue to fade in) and “Down Times” (how long the old scene takes to fade out) which can give you more control over the ways the lighting changes. Submaster controls don’t usually need much timing control as their purpose is to provide a manual fader to control the cue by hand. Timing controls on submaster playback are more desirable when controlling moving lights – more on that later. There are some manual “2 Preset” lighting desks that have a simple automated fade time associated with their master faders.

Effects Control

Effects Control is a feature of a lighting desk that has some kind of automated generation of lighting effects. This can simple “chases”, timed flashes of different lights or complex generation of intelligent lighting effects that would be time consuming to produce by traditional programming.

Chase effects can be triggered by a sound signal, as well as altered using different timing and chase patterns. Lighting desks with effects control use one or more seperate master faders for overall control of the effects output.

Intelligent Lighting Desks

Intelligent lights, moving or not, can have a large number of parameters that must be controlled. Although it is possible to control a DMX intelligent lighting fixture using the simplest manual DMX desk, it is not desirable. This is largely due to the fact that the complex features that an intelligent light has to offer cannot be best used running a lighting desk with no intelligent control interface. The user interface makes programming a chore and command of large numbers of fixtures becomes difficult particularly for the beginner.

The other reason that makes controlling intelligent lighting using a traditional “generic” lighting desk is the way that cues are played back. Simple conventional lighting desks use Highest Takes Precedence (HTP) playback that is ideal for controlling dimmers and light intensity. Intelligent lighting parameters such as position, colour, gobo etc. benefit from being played back on an Latest Takes Precedence (LTP) basis which makes for better control of cues and scenes. The actual difference between HTP and LTP is another article, which will appear on this site soon.

So, having established that we need some specialised intelligent lighting desk control in order to effectively program and playback intelligent lighting cues, there are some common features to all lighting desks designed for this purpose.

That is the subject of the next article in this series – Lighting Desk Basics – Beginner’s Guide to a Stage Light Control – Part 2 Intelligent Lighting.