Overlay Submasters

[dzx]

Brand new to QLC+ and this forum.
Actually, I'm not even brand new yet.....at the moment I'm trying out some different software controllers before I decide which way I'm going to go. I'm literally dinking around and seeing how intuitive things are, and if I can accomplish some of the things I want to do. My needs are very basic and simple, and pretty old-school in fact.

So....a couple of pretty simple (I hope) questions I've run into right off the bat....perhaps you all could help and advise with.

The first.....I'm trying to add some fixtures into a basic workspace. In real life I often have multiple fixtures sharing the same DMX address (example: 4 LED spots all using starting address #021 - they are all controlled by a single channel/slider/button/etc.). It seems like QLC+ won't let me do this. When I try assign an already-in-use address to a second or third fixture, I get an error message that says I can't do this. Surely this is simple/easy to do. How do I get around this?

The second.....I run (essentially theatrical) lights in a couple venues that pretty much consist of all single address dimmers running ellipsoidals/Fresnels/cycs/etc. How I set things up there is usually just a few submasters that I fade in and out manually. No multichannel fixtures, no moving heads, no sequences/chases/cues.....just groups of lights that fade in and out. But keep in mind that I overlay these subs on top of each other. I can't seem to find the equivalent of a "submaster" in QLC+. Yes I could program these groups as "scenes" but QLC+ won't let me run more than one scene at a time ( or will it?).
Here's a very simple outline of what I want to do:
* I have three "scenes" or "subs" or whatever you want to call them....each consist of 10 single channel spotlights on their own individual dimmer channels (channels will correspond to DMX addresses).
* Scene ONE is a center weighted stage wash, Scene TWO is a stage left wash, and Scene THREE is a stage right wash.
* Sometimes I want just one of these scenes at full bright, and sometimes I want two or three of them on with different intensities.
* In the old-school way this is dead-simple to accomplish....I just build each of these three scenes, and save them each on their own submaster channel. Then, during the performance I simply fade whichever of these three faders in or out as desired.....singly or in whatever combination I want. They can run on their own, or overlay each other.
It seems like this should be pretty straightforward to do, but I can't see it initially in QLC+ workflow.
Help? Guidance?

thanks, d.

[GGGss]

the first... why would you want to include fixtures who share an address? QLC+ doesn't let you. IF you would need this kind of functionality you will have to tweak things using virtual fixtures in a fictious universe... this will very soon get complex but again why would you? Because of VIS? (why don't you 'copy' these fixtures to an adress way much higher? f.i. #221, #321 and #421?

QLC+ has submasters ... in VC you will have to create a frame. All functions fired inside this frame will be influenced by the submaster inside it.
Ergo: If 2 frames with 2 submasters have a function fired bound to the same fixture then it's the LTP HTP settings which decide what value is sent to...

Multiple scenes: in VC put a button in a frame and bind your function onto it... You can have multiple 'buttons' active at one time

So I'd create 3 frames in VC. left middle right. Inside these frames basic cue's and include a submaster. (If all values would be the same you could use a level controller...)
There you have your desired setup...

(since you are a theater guy - in simple mode you can set intensities quite easy and dump them into a scene... just saying)

[janosvitok]

I guess this is terminology mismatch.

Patching: if the multiple fixtures sharing an address are of the same type, just patch one of them, and maybe mention in the name the others.
They will be shown in the 2D preview as one fixture and you have to imagine the rest. In QLC+5 (in development) it is possible to visualize also the linked fixtures.

QLC+ doesn't allow to patch different fixtures to overlapping addresses. The reason is that in general case it would be hard to decide what type of channel it is.
If you really need shared addresses, you must devise some clever scheme using custom fixtures and generic dimmers.

Submaster:
What you need is a Scene, where you create a look (select fixtures, set channel levels) and then add Slider widget to Virtual Console. Repeat for all needed scenes.
Switch to operate mode. Now I guess slider is what you call a submaster. If you have dimmer channels, they are all set to HTP, so if you rise more faders, the highest value wins
(which most probably is what you want).
If you have a MIDI controller/OSC app on tablet you can assign the sliders to real ones for better control. See external control in the online docs, or ask here (with as many details as possible).

Jano

[edogawa]

i second (third in fact) the other posters' answers. I also work in theater and what you ask for is pretty easy to implement, in several alternative ways.

Regarding the DMX address question, I can't see a need for that (except the representation in the DMX monitor's 2D view which I never use...) In my mind, when two DMX devices share address, they are one and the same.

Regarding the submaster question, any fader can act like what you want to achieve, just assign channels in level mode, or a scene in playback mode. As long as they are not part of a solo frame they will act like what you call submasters. The QLC concept of a submaster is rather described as an additional fader/knob that controls the level of all the other elements in a frame.

[GGGss]

an additional fader/knob that controls the level of all the other elements in a frame.

to be very specific: controls the level of all elements STARTED in that frame...

[dzx]

Cool.....thanks for the help so far.
I've gotten a bit farther in since the original post and figuring more out.
And the info you gave me with different ways to approach is useful.....THANK YOU.

As to the first thing....
The question you asked is "why do I need more than one fixture with the same address?".
There are a few reasons, but here's a couple: 1) one of the venues I work in has a bunch of fixtures all wired to the same address. 2) Another venue is very small, only had about 16 fixtures total and those were really only of four types. They also used to use a very basic hardware controller that had limited addresses available. So it was much easier for them to have each group of fixtures (of the same type) all share the same address as those pretty much all fade in/out together.
It's true I only "need" to have this ability for the sake of using the visualizer.....I can certainly simply program "one" fixture and have however many fixtures on that address respond to those commands in the real world. No biggie for programming or running the show. But it IS nice to be able to use the 2D visualizer having it show all the fixtures. And when it comes time for me to switch to version 5 with the 3D viz, then I will really want that ability. For the record, I will do the majority of my programming isolated from the physical rig itself (at home, on the laptop, etc.), so a good visualizer is nice to have.
All told, this is not a big issue, and there are certainly ways around it. Just thought that if I COULD program more than one fixture per address it would be nice to do so. No worries.

On the second thing.....
This is solved, and quite easily. It turns out that QLC+ can run more than one scene simultaneously (and independently). I didn't know that and had guessed that I couldn't. But I found that if I simply put a slider (or button) on the Virtual Console and assigned a scene to it (in Playback mode), then repeated that for the other two scenes, they each work independently of each other no problem. Exactly what I was looking for. And yes, it's basically in issue of terminology.
Of course this is assuming that no fixture is in more than one scene, which is fine for how I plan to use it. And even if a given fixture was in more than one scene, I guess that's where LTP/HTP comes into play. Not a problem.


OK, now for a "third thing"....
If I program a workspace/show/whatever and save it on one laptop, that happens to be Windows...can I transfer it to another laptop that is Apple? Or will I have to reprogram the whole thing from scratch on the Apple laptop?

thanks, d.

[GGGss]

That's a good one ...
In fact the projectfile is nothing more than a xml-file so I guess you easily can transfer it to Mac OS.
(Altough personally I haven't tried it yet)

[edogawa]

Can't say for Apple, but I have used the same workspace file in Windows and Linux, without issues. I usually copy my files to a pendrive, Dropbox or some other cloud storage to have backups and access them from several computers, home and at work.