Effect sequence question

[Rhinesel]

Hello QLC geniuses!

I'll be programming a show for my community theater group in a few days and it's the first time we're using QLC+ so I'm trying to think of different scenarios and how to do things for when the Lighting Designer is standing there telling me what they want.

My question: If I have moving head lights in a sequence, does the next step stop the previous step from completing it's movement? Like if Step A is a row of moving heads doing a sweep from the floor to the back wall. and Step B is another row going from the floor to the audience but we want Step B to activate a second or two after Step A. Step A would be half way through it's movement. Would the sequence moving onto Step B stop Step A in it's place or would it finish while Step B is activated?

I hope I described that correctly..... I'm imaging a sequence but if there is a better way for theater. Meaning it really has to be in a Master Chaser for a novice operator to simply hit "Go" and not a "busking" solution.

Regards!

[GGGss]

Are those steps inside the same chaser? Then they will respect the set timings and do their thing.
For this timing to be correct, you'll need some experimenting time because the angle a moving head makes does not reflect the speed a beam runs it path. So in essence degrees per second don't relate to meters per second. For this to be correct, tweak fade and hold times. It might even be necessary to tweak the path by using channel modifiers on pan and tilt channels. (be thoughtful the pan and tilt might be MSB and LSB).

[Rhinesel]

I'm not worried about timing right now, it was more of a theoretical question of if the next step stops the previous step if it hasn't completed it's movement.

So should they be in a "chaser inside a chaser" or in a sequence placed in the chaser or does it not really matter? Honestly, still trying to figure when its better to use chaser vs. sequence.

[GGGss]

chaser vs. sequence.

To put it simply, sequence is the tool theatre guys used. In every step, you set the changes you want. These set values stay active unless you decide to do otherwise. You have tracking values. The LD asks for a certain sphere in scene (cue) 3 and in scene (cue) 5 this look has to change to a more dimmed one. In the sequence, we set cue 3 to what the LD wants and in scene 5 we only slightly dim those fixtures in question. The rest stays as it is.

Back to topic, a moving head won't always follow the pace of the programmer. It gets a DMX value and acts accordingly. If say a second later it gets a new value, it changes its position. It might well be that it never physically reached the first value... so it 'overruns'.
Now to your chaser: think about it. If the step is too fast for the mover to reach its physical position, the answer to your question is No. Give it time enough, the answer is Yes.

[Rhinesel]

chaser vs. sequence.

Back to topic, a moving head won't always follow the pace of the programmer. It gets a DMX value and acts accordingly. If say a second later it gets a new value, it changes its position. It might well be that it never physically reached the first value... so it 'overruns'.
Now to your chaser: think about it. If the step is too fast for the mover to reach its physical position, the answer to your question is No. Give it time enough, the answer is Yes.

But step 2 doesn't make any changes to the lights for step 1. They are different lights. And I wouldn't want them to finish before step 2 starts.

Step 1: Moving heads at the Back of the stage sweep up.
----- when the back lights are halfway though the sweep -----
Step 2: Moving heads at the Front of the stage sweep up.

Will the act of Step 2 activating stop the lights from Step 1 from going to their assigned value or once it is assigned the value will they continue even when the sequence moves to another step (assuming no change to their assigned value)?

[GGGss]

Step 1: Moving heads at the Back of the stage sweep up.
----- when the back lights are halfway though the sweep -----
Step 2: Moving heads at the Front of the stage sweep up.

Step 1: x sec. hold, y sec fade out
after x sec the chaser continues with to step 2: fade in or hold time set ...
As long as step 1 is fadeing out, it will change nothing else but itself.

You simply have to try it.