Lesson 8 Tut3

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Lesson 9 Arrow forw.png
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Overview

Scenes (cues) are the most important elements of your show. Here we will explain the powerful scene concept of DMXControl 3. The terms "cue" and "scene" are used as synonym words.


 Important Hint The button for the "Full On" function is labeled "Lumos". This is a Latin word meaning light. It was used in the Harry Potter series as a spell to make the magic wand light up.


Lecture 8: Scenes (cues) and scene lists

Now the real work begins - we will create our first cue in DMXControl 3! We will make all RGB lights shine green.

  • We go to the Stage View
  • We select the "Generic RGB PAR Group" (or choose all RGB light with one of the other methods)
  • You can control the intensity of the light by dragging the slider or by pressing the "Lumos" button to bring the light to full brightness.
  • In the color panel select "green". The 8 headlights in the Stage View should now respond accordingly (see figure)


Picture 1: Setting the floodlights on the desired settings
Picture 1: Setting the floodlights on the desired settings


  • On the left click on "Add new cue"
  • It opens a new window called "Programmer filter", which we will explain in Chapter 10. For now press OK.


Picture 2: View of the programmer filter
Picture 2: View of the programmer filter


  • Because we do not have any cue list yet, a new one will be created now automatically. This is displayed in a new panel.
  • Here we rename the cue in the Name field to "My First Cue".


Picture 3: View of the programmer window
Picture 3: View of the programmer window


Each scene (cue) needs a "host container" - that's a scenelist (cuelist). New cuelists can be created clicking the small triangle besides the "Add new cue" button and there follow the drop. Then again press "Add new cue!".

You can open this new cue list with a double click on the object in the project explorer, or using the context menu item "open" (or double click). In the tabular list you can adjust the individual parameters of the cue.


Picture 4: Scenelist in the Project Explorer
Picture 4: Scenelist in the Project Explorer


 Important Hint The name of the cue should always be changed so that you can remember later quickly what the cue includes, what the reason is, and which target this cue has (e.g., "First scene", "Start cue", "ML red", etc.). There is even a comment box at the far right side in the scene list.


The life-cycle of a cue is as follows:


Picture 5: Life-cycle of cues in DMXControl 3
Picture 5: Life-cycle of cues in DMXControl 3



A cue waits at first for its trigger point, see Lesson 11. Then the delay-time becomes relevant if it is defined. Finally a fade-in time can be specified where the cue is faded in (increasing particular the dimmer channel).

Alternatively to delay / fade-in you may define delay down / fade down. This is common in the theater control when the value should be reduced compared to the previous cue.

Please note that a cue by itself never "completes" but is always "overwritten" with a different cue.


 Attention You have to clean the programmer! Otherwise nothing will happen, when you press the play button. More details will follow in the next chapter.


Picture 6: Clearing the programmer
Picture 6: Clearing the programmer


In following table we explain the meaning of cue attributes (which you can see in the scene list header):

Attribute Description Example
Progress shows the status of the scene during execution of scene list (wait time and progress) in percent
Trigger relation to predecessor cue, use "follow" as default see Lesson 11
Trigger Value see Lesson 11
Name free name of scene should explain the content of cue
Fade fade-in value in milli seconds [ms]
Delay fanning for fades see Lesson 9
Ac (active) is this cue active or should it be ignored? default: active
Ap (autoprepare) Autoprepare - prepares certain channels for next cue (e.g. prepare correct position of color wheel for next cue) default: active
Re (ReExecute) If ReExecute is active on a cue this cue takes all probably running fades and then it fades all of them with the selected fadetime from the actual value to the destination value. Example:

Cue 39 Fade 0s: 1 + 2 at full
Cue 40 Fade 500s: 1 at 0
Cue 41 Fade 10s: 2 at 0
(Cue 41 should be a blackout)

Normally cue 41 follows if cue 40 is ready. Fading on black within 10 seconds.
Now someone on stage forgets his/her text and cue 41 must start faster than expected. Cue 40 is still running (60s left).

What normally happens when you start cue 41 manually: 2 fades on 0 in 10s, 1 continues the fade to 0 in the residual 60s

If Re is active for cue 41 the 1 immediately goes down from the actual value at this time to 0 in 10s together with device 2.

Comment for free use, insert explaining words

In the same way you can create some more cues and store it in the scene list.


Picture 7: Cuelist with some cues
Picture 7: Cuelist with some cues


Playing back cues

Go, Back, etc.

However you can also play a cue that is not in sequence by holding down CTRL and double clicking the cue you want to play.

Using advanced timing (=> Property Based Timing)

It is possible to set delay and fade times for each property individually. You can use this feature to build a cue that moves your moving lights to a different position, then change the color, and after that change the gobo.

In the property grid, change "Values" to "Fade" or "Delay". You can now set fade or delay for each property. DMXControl expects time in milliseconds. Also you can use fanned values here. See Lesson 9.


The following example will immediately open the shutter and fade the intensity from 0 to 100% within 1 second (dimmer fade) after this 1 second (color delay) the color will be faded within 5 seconds (color fade). The total duration of this cue will be 6 seconds, because the longest action is the color fade: delay 1s + fade 5s.


Picture 8: Value mode
Picture 8: Value mode


Picture 9: Fade mode
Picture 9: Fade mode


Picture 10: Delay mode
Picture 10: Delay mode


Editing Property Based Timing

Once you saved a cue with property based timing you can edit the values.

Exercises

1) Generate your own cues
2) Try the buttons "STOP", "GO" and "Mode" in the cue list
3) Work with different fade times

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Lesson 9 Arrow forw.png
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