Simply fade-in and fade-out with scenes

[ralbrightii]

I was put in charge of lighting for my church's theater productions, they used to have very old 500W halogens (about 40 of them), they have since been replaced (at my direction) with a lot of DMX LED spots. Gives me a lot of control, and I am really loving QLC+, but the learning curve can be intense. I am needing some help performing certain functions...

One of the requirements for use of this lighting system is that it can be programmed and anyone can run the programmed scenes. So to that end, I am trying to create easy push button scenes to control various functions. I have attached my qxw file. In it I have the lights that we are using, and the start of a few scenes. My understanding (and please someone correct me if I am doing this wrong), is that I create a new scene for each step in a chase (in this case a sunrise and bringing main stage up). That part I seemed to figured out, but it appears to be clunky. The goal is to fade in the first scene of a chase (usually it will be from black) through a chase and let it run, and then terminate leaving the lights as they were in the last step of the chase. Now to go to another scene (such as a fade out) I want all lights to take their levels as is, and fade to the values of the next scene smoothly.

For example in the attached files you will find my QXW and a PDF that shows the lighting layout: This is for the song Tradition from Fiddler on the Roof (the play we are putting on this summer). In the virtual console, on page 1 (the only page I have programmed now) there is a frame with a few buttons:

Pre-Sunrise - meant to bring up the initial lighting scene (midnight black everywhere)
Sunrise - Chase sequence for sunrise on scrim and fiddler
Main Stage Sky Chase - Chase sequence lighting the rest of the stage (these 2 chases do not activate the same lights)
Fade to Fiddler - HOPE to fade all lights except for pinSpots on Fiddler (over 2 second period)
Fade to Black - HOPE to fade all lights over 2 second period.

Now for some reason it doesn't appear to be working as I am intending. Please help.

[siegmund]

First share your custom fixtures here.

At a very first glance:

Why do you use Sequences for Fade to Black and Fade to Fiddler?
You should set the fade in time to 2s, not the fade out time.

[ralbrightii]

First share your custom fixtures here.

Doh!! Knew I was forgetting something.

[ralbrightii]

Why do you use Sequences for Fade to Black and Fade to Fiddler?
You should set the fade in time to 2s, not the fade out time.

So the action I want it to run is to fade out to Fiddler, I should assign that to a scene and use the fade-in time to accomplish this? The problem (for my under-studies) would be that the scene is still "active" afterwards. How do I get QLC+ to trigger the scene and then tell the button that the scene is no longer active. Does that make sense?

[ralbrightii]

Why do you use Sequences for Fade to Black and Fade to Fiddler?
You should set the fade in time to 2s, not the fade out time.

So the action I want it to run is to fade out to Fiddler, I should assign that to a scene and use the fade-in time to accomplish this? The problem (for my under-studies) would be that the scene is still "active" afterwards. How do I get QLC+ to trigger the scene and then tell the button that the scene is no longer active. Does that make sense?

The reason for sequences vs chases.... I haven't got a clue what the hell I am doing. That may be a failed attempt to accomplish what it is I am trying to do.

[ralbrightii]

And the other two fixtures

[bleurose]

A couple of quick comments.

Sequences are ONLY used for cycling through different channel levels for a single set of fixtures. I.e., if you have two lights and you want them both to do something like:

1. Go to FULL in 5 seconds, wait 2 seconds
2. Go to HALF in 2 seconds, wait 2 seconds
3. Go to ZERO in 5 seconds

You can do this in EITHER a sequence or a chase. The sequence is easiest. You set up a scene with the two fixtures in it, don't worry about the levels. Then add a sequence to that scene (you can ONLY add sequences to scenes) and you will see a screen that looks like a combination of the scene and the chase. You then add three steps to the sequence and for the first step you set the levels at 255 (full) for the second step you set them to 128 (half) and for the third step you set them to zero.

Then you set the UP/HOLD/DOWN times as follows:
1. UP = 5 sec, HOLD = 2 second DOWN = 2 seconds (down time should be same as NEXT step UP time)
2. UP = 2 sec, HOLD = 2 secon, DOWN = 5 seconds
3. UP = 5 sec, HOLD = INFINITY

Set this up as a one-shot sequence.

What is nice about the sequence is you can do all the things (setting levels AND times) in the same "scene" but only for a given set of channels. I guess you can include ALL your channels, but then it will get VERY VERY complicated.

If you do this in a chaser, you need three scenes, one for each level, and you include the three scenes in the chaser and then set the times for the three scenes. Similar but different. The big difference of course is that in a chaser you can mix all sorts of scene types in with different fixtures as well. The chaser sorts it all out for you.

Hope that helps explain the difference between the two ideas.

[ralbrightii]

Hope that helps explain the difference between the two ideas.

YES that really did explain a lot. I have already adapted a few of my chases to sequences (easier to work with that way).

Thant you!!!