Automated lighting for quiz

[daedeloth]

Hi,

We are organising "digital quizzes" (where all players use a tablet to answer). We have a few stage lights available which I would like to link to the game to make the whole thing a bit more impressive.

Since I'm mostly working on Linux I started looking into QLC+ and that seems to be able to do the job. My plan is to use the web API to connect the game systems to QLC, set up a bunch of chases and trigger those automatically on certain game events.

I haven't tried it yet, but it all sounds very feasable; simply a matter of linking everything together.

However: I am not very experienced with stage lightning so that's where the whole thing gets a bit tricky. I am planning to buy the Enttec Open DMX USB Interface and use a laptop to control the lights, but I'm a bit afraid of what happens when my system fails. If I understand correctly there are DMX mergers that can combine the input from my USB dongle with the input from the available DMX mixer thingy of the location, so that if my laptop fails I can still turn on the main lights from the mixer. Would that work or is that very overkill? Or is it better to buy a mixer that can be controller with USB or midi?

I essentially just need to trigger chases from a pc, so I'm not sure what the best / most budget friendly solution is here

Thanks for your help,
Thijs

[siegmund]

Hey and welcome to the forum!

I guess in your case the DMX merge is the best solution, since you already have a DMX console available. You won't need to change anything in the existing infrastructure except putting in the merger and for the quiz show your DMX interface.
Anyway, although there were sometimes a few glitches during programming shows in the venue, QLC+ never skipped out on me during live performances, so most probably you won't need that extra hardware..

Lukas

[GGGss]

[edit] @all ... this has become a lengthy answer with my thoughts - if you are not interested don't waste your time - it's only meant for @deadeloth [/edit]

I can second Siegmunds stability confirmation...

IMHO I'd be more worried about latency-issues with the contestants pressing a key on a tablet.
I'm not having any knowledge about 'how multi-user friendly the API's are and how multiple triggers are dealt with in your environment' - therefore I personally switch to 'safe mode'

Before trying the whole API shabang why not have 1 raspberry and up to 8 buttons hardwired ... and use the raspi as an artnet input to QLC? Trigger latency solved -> confirmed solution !! Used this a lot with 1 failure ... (raspi IS not optical isolated SO NO LONG WIRE LENGTHS allowed) I did fry 2 of them running signal wire next to other live wires and since raspi is only working with 3,3V ... guess what happened

(intriguing project if you ask me) next issue IMHO ... showmaster has to have control
*showmaster controls
He / she will have to be able to give the vetting round free (after asking the question) -> I'd enable all the contestants 'frames' (with the external input inside)
This also could start a fast chase with the lights over the contestants f.i. (drama)
If one presses the button, this would disable the other frames and stops the chase and light's the light above contestant.

I've start proggin' now .... see the edited post later on

[daedeloth]

Hi, thanks for your answers.

The quiz software itself is stable and has been tested with up to 60 teams already. What I've done is completely separated the lighing controller from the game, so they only communicate over our websocket server. This way the lighting can run on a separate laptop, so the game will never be influenced by the DMX control. Trigger latency etc is kindof alright; there is some delay but in our game mode it's not a very big problem. The quizmasters have their own tablet that controls the game, so they decide when the questions start etc.

So what I have now is:

1. A webpage that:
- connects to the game server and receives events over websocket
- connects to qlcplus
- translates a set of specified commands to widgets and activates those on qlcplus

2. An qlcplus project that contains widgets for each state of the game that I want to control.

The end result is this:
https://qlcplus.catlab.eu/

(Don't mind the layout It has to be functional, not pretty)

I did notice that QLCPlus doesn't like it when you send API commands in quick succesion, so I'm trying to limit the amount of requests to QLCplus. But overall it seems to run fine. I've made the chase-widgets "exclusive" so that only chase can be active at any time, except for the "corect" and "incorrect" chases which should just give a quick flash of green / red.

I've dropped the whole idea of a backup controller; if it goes completely haywire I'll just swich the cables.

Biggest problem I have left is that I don't know which fixtures will be available and I'll only have access to the venue about 2 hours before the event starts. I'm planning to set up a few scenes of what I'd like to have and then spend my time filling those up, but 2 hours seems like a short time to set that up with zero experience.

I've uploaded my template here:
https://qlcplus.catlab.eu/quizwitz.qxw

Tips on how to improve it or how to prepare a show if you don't know what will be available: very much welcome

The event is February 20th; I'll write a little review/post mortem to let you know how it went.

[daedeloth]

Ps.: As for the raspberry pi idea: I've been playing around with the idea to put little RGB lamps on the table of each team (battery powered with a wifi module on board that connects to a separate light server; maybe this could be replaced by ArtNet, but 3 channels per lamp and 30+ lamps could be a problem there). I have all the hardware, but I've now realised that the battery and enclosure of the lamps are too expensive to make... so that idea has been shelved for now

The little prototype I put together used a simple ESP8266 board directly hooked up to one of those led circles from adafruit (clone). It worked great, but you can't really put a bunch of electronics on a pub table

[daedeloth]

Hi there, one last minute question,

Quiz is tonight and I still don't know which fixtures are available, so it will be a busy evening of learning things
I have the Enttec DMX USB Pro, which has DMX input. The venue also has an avolite pearl 2014 which I suppose will be configured already.

From what I understand I can just plug the controller to my DMX IN and all the fixtures to my DMX OUT and use QLCPlus and Avolite at the same time in HTP fashion (so if I open a slider on the Avolite, light goes on, if I open a slider on QLCPlus, light also goes on?)

Do I just check the DMX Input checkmark in the same universe as the output to achieve that?

Thanks!

[GGGss]

DMX in -> out = passthrough http://qlcplus.org/docs/howto-input-output-mapping.html

That way you can sniff around and get an overview what is installed.

Good luck

[daedeloth]

Post mortem: I didn't get the passthrough working; connecting the dmx in to the panel and dmx out to the fixtures did make the panel work fine, qlcplus didn't receive any input and none of the channels in simpledesk did anything. I suspect I did something wrong there, although it all seemed pretty straight-forward.

Quiz itself went great though. I did some manual light effect but not the automation I had in mind.