Urgent: DMX mapping question.

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Arvol
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Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by Arvol »

Hey guys, working with an artist and we need a single DMX dimmer to be able to cycle through the decks. Right now we have a dimmer for the deck forward and backwards setup. This method is awful and doesn't really work for us. Anyone have an idea on how to get a single parameter to cycle forwards and backwards?
Much appreciated : D

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Oaktown
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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by Oaktown »

What makes it awful?

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Arvol
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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by Arvol »

You have to bring dimmer 1 up to find a deck. Then the next song you have to bring dimmer 2 up if you need to go back. For some LD's. This is too much work. Then I have to hear about it, so I figured I'd ask if there was an easier way, to make my evening less stressful haha

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Oaktown
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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by Oaktown »

Have you considered a DMC to OSC TD script?
Something like: DMXin CHOP > Select CHOP > Rename CHOP (with Execute DAT Python script) > OSCout CHOP

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drazkers
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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by drazkers »

Oaktown wrote:Have you considered a DMC to OSC TD script?
Something like: DMXin CHOP > Select CHOP > Rename CHOP (with Execute DAT Python script) > OSCout CHOP
I suspect if this is for a tour and the work mentioned is too much for an LD. Your going to get a very aggressive frown and dismissal when running touch designer for logic is suggested. We’re all lovers of TD here but it may be the wrong audience.

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Oaktown
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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by Oaktown »

drazkers wrote:I suspect if this is for a tour and the work mentioned is too much for an LD. Your going to get a very aggressive frown and dismissal when running touch designer for logic is suggested. We’re all lovers of TD here but it may be the wrong audience.
You could easily run it on the same server as Arena so the LD wouldn't even have to know ;)

I couldn't resist so, here is a TD script that utilizes one DMX channel to change decks. So dmx value of 1 is deck #1, 2 is deck #2, etc....
DMX to OSC.toe.zip
(7.91 KiB) Downloaded 426 times
Arvol, give it a spin and tell me what you think!

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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by edwin »

I think the 'Select Specific Deck' button that shows up when editing shortcuts is missing in v6. It's there in v5 though.
I've created a ticket for this as indeed a single channel for selecting which deck to open is much more convenient, no idea how that one got lost.

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Re: Urgent: DMX mapping question.

Post by Arvol »

edwin wrote:I think the 'Select Specific Deck' button that shows up when editing shortcuts is missing in v6. It's there in v5 though.
I've created a ticket for this as indeed a single channel for selecting which deck to open is much more convenient, no idea how that one got lost.
Thank you sir :)

I built the same TD patch as Frédéric posted but by the time all of that was done, the LD had programmed like 70% of his show, and going back to edit all his cue stacks wasn't on his agenda.

I was pretty sure the deck select acted like each layer select in v5, and now going back to check, it does.
With all of the excitement in v6, I'm sure DMX testing fell through my cracks as well, as I only have a small amount of my clients that use that.

In this case I just created 30 dimmers for each deck and let the LD go to town. He wasn't super thrilled about it but he was able to get what he needed done.

I'm going to be working with a good friend on building a nice MA fixture profile later next week as I ran into some more DMX trouble towards the end of his programming session:
When he would pull the cue stack master down for that cue, it would dim the video, but it also changed the overall values for EVERYTHING in that cue... such as speed, what clip is selected, and color changes haha. So having dimmers assigned to a channel in v6, all wrapped up in a cue stack works great, until you try to bring the fader down to lower the intelligent lighting intensity, which also changes your v6 values.
Having a profile with all the mapping goodies under something like "gobo, beam, control" would fix this, as we would only map the master intensity to the dimmer portion of that fixture.
Obviously the fixture I make won't work for everyone, but I'm going to try to design one with touring LD's in mind, so I'm going to leave out a lot of the control such as x and y values and scaling. and focus more on playback, speed, clip and deck select and a few basic fx such as saturation and hue rotate.
When it's done, I'll zip it with a composition file, a dmx mapping file, and the ma fixture file.

As Frédéric and I both can make a TD patch, I wouldn't feel good sending a server out using that method, without me there to help set it up every day on tour. The LD who is going out can setup lights, focus lights, and run the show from his console, but he isn't the most handy person at computers, let alone trying to troubleshoot python code and startup items each day, if something goes wrong (and I personally try to keep my self from having to team view into my servers everyday, when I try to have a life outside of work... keyword is try haha)

Thank you Edwin for taking notice to this and working on a solution on the future releases we will be having. I really appreciate that.
For most LD's (and the current tours I have my servers on) the dimmer channel approach works for the more basic side of DMX, but could we also keep in mind the bigger tour's (like mentioned above) that are doing heavy cue stack programming and how adding a channel as a dimmer can really make things go haywire if the wrong thing is turned down or up on the consoles.

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