Button Outside of Solo Frame Doesn't Fire Scene

[arretx]

So I have a solo frame for House Lights. In that frame are 5 buttons. 0% - 25% - 50% - 75% - 100%, as well as a fade timer dial. Switching between each works well. Toggling each works well. Setting the fade value works.

I have a button outside of the Solo frame that's connected to a scene that is supposed to reduce the house lights to zero, however, it doesn't change the house lights, and I suspect it's because the currently selected house lights button in the solo frame is active...but I haven't figured out how to get the button outside of the solo frame to override the one inside...

Can this be done, or is there a way to accomplish what I need to do?

[siegmund]

Please share your workspace file and any custom fixture definitions.

[janosvitok]

Let me guess: Your problem is HTP (https://www.qlcplus.org/docs/html_en_EN ... t.html#HTP)
Put a submaster slider to the frame with X% buttons, and reduce light with that slider.

Alternatively, you can control the slider with a button, using loopback (https://www.qlcplus.org/docs/html_en_EN ... lugin.html)
Read the example in the documentation, it's exactly for you

Jano

[arretx]

Okay, so the only part of that that I figured out was that adding a slider that's set to submaster mode controls everything inside that same widget.

No idea what X% is, and the example on the loopback plugin page doesn't make sense to me.

I'm reading through the documentation as much as I can but there's a very slight language barrier so some of the docs need a bit of decoding...I've only had this software running for about a week or so and it's all quite new, and mostly intuitive...any help would be appreciated.

[arretx]

According to the Steps on the suggested page regarding loopback plug-in:

>>> Set one universe for Loopback output (U1), and set the slider's input universe to Loopback Input (U2). Let's say the sliders external control is set to channel 14.

Universe 1 has output that goes to DMXIS - DMX Output 1. How do I set Loopback for U1 if it's already reserved for the USB hardware?

If I attempt to set the input on the sub-master slider in VC, it doesn't save the value and reverts to "none."

>>> Add dimmer channel to U1 at address 14. In the channel modifiers dialog, set it to LTP (so that if the button goes off, the slider doesn't go to zero.

I'm assuming this is done in the 'Fixtures' tab. Since 14 is going to be used, I chose 60. I'm not sure what is meant by "add dimmer channel" but I created a new dimmer, assigned it to Universe 1, set the channel count to 1, and the starting address to 60 and set it to TLP.

>>> Create scenes with desired slider values for channel 14 in the U1 universe. You may set fade times as well.

I created a scene with the new dimmer as the device, but there aren't multiple slider "values" other than a single slider range from 0-255.

>>> Create buttons for the scenes

I created a button and attached the scene as the function.

Very confusing, and it's not setup correctly, but I can't make sense of the instructions.

[janosvitok]

X% - I didn't want to repeat all the 0%, 25%,... buttons you have.

Loopback: it is an input/output plugin that allows to use output of a universe as input
to another (or the same one). It allows many cool tricks.

External control: you can control virtual console widgets (move sliders, push buttons)
from e.g. MIDI controllers, DMX input, and you guess it: loopback input.

In other words, in addition to mouse/keyboard, there are these ways to control virtual console.


Universes: it's best to keep each universe dedicated to one thing. Don't mix real lights and
loopback fixtures in one universe. There are plenty of universes in QLC, you can add as many
as you need.

So: Universe 1 for real lights and patch output to DMX output device you have, artnet
or whatever. No loopback here.

Universe 2 for loopback fixtures/dimmers, patch both output and input to loopback 1.

You can delete Universe 3 and 4 for now if you want.

You can also rename the universes to make their purpose clear (Universe 1 - lights,
Universe 2 - loopback)


This part should be already clear: submaster. Put a slider in the frame, and change it's
type to submaster. When you start e.g. 100% scene, and pull down the slider (towards 0),
the light output should be reduced as well. You can see that even without real lights
in the DMX monitor.


Now the button to control the submaster:

• add Generic Dimmer 1 channel to Universe 2
• add Scene called Submaster Control that sets the above Generic Dimmer channel to 255
• add button (outside of everything) that starts the Submaster Control scene.
• open submaster slider properties, in the external control box click Choose...,
  expand universe 2, double click the message that tells you to doubleclick it, and type 1.
  click OK, OK, to close the properties.

Now when you switch to run mode, when you push the button on and off, the slider goes up
and down (or vice versa) and lights go on and off as well. That is almost what you want,
but reversed (when button is pushed, lights are on, when not, lights are off). If you want
the other way (push to reduce), go to fixtures tab, open channel modifiers dialog,
and assign Invert modifier to Generic Dimmer channel in universe 2.


Possible modifications:

• you may change the value in Submaster Control scene so that the lights are not reduced
  to full blackout (e.g. if you set to 127, you get 50% reduction)
• you may assign fade in/fade out time to that scene, so that lights go off/on slowly.
• you may play with the modifier curve to e.g. make the lights go off faster for a while
  and then slow down

[janosvitok]

According to the Steps on the suggested page regarding loopback plug-in:

>>> Set one universe for Loopback output (U1), and set the slider's input universe to Loopback Input (U2). Let's say the sliders external control is set to channel 14.

Universe 1 has output that goes to DMXIS - DMX Output 1. How do I set Loopback for U1 if it's already reserved for the USB hardware?

As I wrote before, it's obviously not good habit to mix real lights with control. It usually doesn't work, but there are special situations where it might be beneficial.
This is not one of them.

The idea was: select one UNUSED universe for loopback input and let's call it U1 (since I don't know the actual number). In reality it may be Universe 7 or 42.
The same for U2.

It seems that in this case U1 and U2 may be the same universe (it worked here).

If I attempt to set the input on the sub-master slider in VC, it doesn't save the value and reverts to "none."

You must do this after the channel in loopback is created. The steps are in the post above.

>>> Add dimmer channel to U1 at address 14. In the channel modifiers dialog, set it to LTP (so that if the button goes off, the slider doesn't go to zero.

I'm assuming this is done in the 'Fixtures' tab. Since 14 is going to be used, I chose 60. I'm not sure what is meant by "add dimmer channel" but I created a new dimmer, assigned it to Universe 1, set the channel count to 1, and the starting address to 60 and set it to LTP.

You are right, it's in the Fixtures tab, and it's Generic Dimmer. You can go with any channel, in the post above I used 1.

LTP: the example in the docs makes a set of buttons that set the submaster to e.g. 10%, 100%, 70%. For the submaster to stay at the level even when the button is off, LTP is needed.
If you want just one button that goes to one value, you don't need LTP, I'd say you even don't want it.

>>> Create scenes with desired slider values for channel 14 in the U1 universe. You may set fade times as well.

I created a scene with the new dimmer as the device, but there aren't multiple slider "values" other than a single slider range from 0-255.

The idea is to create multiple scenes with desired values, e.g. scene 70% has dimmer channel set to 70%, scene 100% has dimmer channel set to 100%.
In your case, create one scene with dimmer at 100%.

>>> Create buttons for the scenes

I created a button and attached the scene as the function.

That's right. Now you need to set submaster slider external control to universe 2:channel 1.

Very confusing, and it's not setup correctly, but I can't make sense of the instructions.

It's hard to write documentation when you have everything in your head, and you need to look at it as though you don't know it.
Your comments are very valuable for doc improvement. Thank you for them.

[arretx]

I found a thread deep in the forum that had a simple example about this process, but I'm running into a point of confusion.

My latest revision is attached.

The submaster in the House Lights overrides the scene setting based upon the solo buttons in the house lights window.

The Video Clip button selects a scene that contains the Dimmer involved in the loopback.

Where I'm confused is this...

If the submaster button is set to submaster mode, there's no scene to attach to it, so nothing happens.

When you press the Set Video Clip button, nothing happens. Am I not thinking this through correctly? I have house lights, and I have stage lights. If at any point I want to bring all of the lights down with the click of a button, it seems that the scene should just take over, but if I have a house lights solo section, and some other solo section, and I want to fade out both solo sections with a single sub-master control, and that sub-master control won't listen to the scene attached to the button that's outside of the solo section, then it won't work.

Is this how I'm supposed to be doing this or is there a better way to get the house lights button(s) to disengage when I click the Video Clip button?

I've spent an entire day on this problem.

[arretx]

Oops..attached.

[janosvitok]

I did attach working version two posts higher.

Your last version:
- Universe patching: OK
- Dimmer channel: OK
- Channel modifiers: LTP - Wrong, should be HTP; Invert curve: Missing.
- Functions: Set Video Clip: WRONG - Dimmer should have value 255
- Virtual console: Slider: OK, button: OK

You need HTP so that when you release the button the dimmer channel goes back to 0.

Invert curve: this is needed, because HTP ("Higher") keeps higher values, so you need your scene to be set at 255,
while you need the slider to be at 0 then. This Invert curve does just that. It is applied to DMX output (in this case loopback output)
as the very last transformation, so just before it reaches submaster slider.

Where I'm confused is this...

If the submaster button is set to submaster mode, there's no scene to attach to it, so nothing happens.

You can't set a button to submaster mode.

When you press the Set Video Clip button, nothing happens. Am I not thinking this through correctly?

After the above changes (see attached file), the house lights should go off with the button press. Don't forget to switch to run mode!

I have house lights, and I have stage lights. If at any point I want to bring all of the lights down with the click of a button, it seems that the scene should just take over, but if I have a house lights solo section, and some other solo section, and I want to fade out both solo sections with a single sub-master control, and that sub-master control won't listen to the scene attached to the button that's outside of the solo section, then it won't work.

This is new topic. If you want to be able to bring BOTH house and stage lights down, put the submaster to frame that contains all of the scenes (except the submaster scenes!)
If you want to switch off either HOUSE or STAGE or BOTH, create two submaster sliders (one for HOUSE and one for STAGE), two dimmer channels, three scenes (HOUSE dimmer@255, STAGE dimmer @255, HOUSE+STAGE @255), three buttons (HOUSE OFF, STAGE OFF, ALL OFF), and link submasters to each own dimmer channel.

ALL OFF is easier done as simple button set to blackout mode.

Is this how I'm supposed to be doing this or is there a better way to get the house lights button(s) to disengage when I click the Video Clip button?

This complicated loopback thing is there to overcome limitations of what QLC+ can do natively.
You can avoid it if pulling the slider is OK for you, or you have an external controller (MIDI/OSC) that has a button.
You can most probably can map the button to the slider, making it jump up and down.

[arretx]

Oh my! I didn't even see that response with the original edit.

The most recent is exactly what I was trying to do, but all of that about the inversion and a clear understanding of what LTP and HTP settings actually do was slipping my mind.

This works! Now I have to preserve this file, write a blog post explaining it so I remember, and start building upon it! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[janosvitok]

Great! Glad that you finally figured out

Jano