Q Light Controller+

First of all: THANKS for this wonderful software. I've finally made the show I was working on and all went well. It would have been impossible to achieve the same result with the software I used before QLC+ (i.e. LumiDmx).

Although the script have been written months ago we had to make everything work in 3 days: build the stage, teach the background actors their role, rehearse and so on… only the 5 main actors had already learned most part of their role, so I had to do a mix of live show and pre programmed events. Here are some photos to show what we achieved using QLC+ (most of them are taken during rehearsals).

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/216 ... photos.zip

And here is a link to a video with very low quality (and a bit out of sync) but lights are visible anyhow (there will be a hd one later on).

Video (with suggested start time):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fht2Z2wr ... e&t=20m57s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fht2Z2wr ... e&t=30m56s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fht2Z2wr ... hare&t=40m
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSi7-PfEnEk

Issues & ideas
While developing my project I came across these:

1 - It would be faster to switch between tabs (Simple desk, Virtual Console, Fixtures…) if they were linked to f1, …, fn keys

2 - Add a bit of padding inside buttons in virtual console to avoid text sticking to margins.

3 - When dealing with huge projects suppose you have the following folder structure:

Scene -> Moving heads folder -> Orange scene
Scene -> RGB Pars folder -> Orange scene

If you add “Orange scene” from Moving Heads folder to a collection and you inspect that collection you are not able to find out which “Orange scene” you added (if the one involving Moving heads or RGB pars). To do so I would suggest to add a path column when showing items inside collections to show the place where they are saved. The same applies to the text box that shows which functions is linked to a certain button in virtual console.

4 - Suppose you have a scene which set the shutter channel of a fixture to “strobe”. I’d like the button bound to that scene to remain highlighted when I select it and to restore the previous value when I select it again. I’m not sure this could be the best behaviour in all situations so the best would be to allow the user to choose.

5 - When linking speed dials to collection they should propagate the speed dial timer to their items. I’ve suggested an easy workaround in this topic https://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discu ... /4b270fe8/ but with this workaround it is hard to keep everything in order when dealing with many items or collections.

6 - When using a button for blackout it could be useful to allow to specify a value for fade out instead of doing it immediately.

7 - When clicking on a point of master slider in Virtual console it doesn’t jump to that point but moves a little towards it. Is it normal/wanted?

8 - I agree with Mike Scholman here: https://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discu ... /61d09551/

9 - XY Pad can be convenient if you have to point a moving head during set up but are quite useless if you have to follow an actor during live shows. It would be great to introduce a new kind of XY Pad with the same graphic aspect but representing the horizontal plane of the stage, so that when clicking or dragging on it the moving heads follow the same track on the real stage. To do so it is necessary to provide also the dimensions of the stage and the positions of each moving heads referred to a certain point (for example a corner or the center of the stage).

Looks really cool - congratulations.

To discuss some of your ideas:

1 - I'm a big fan of keyboard short-cuts and alt-tab works for me, though specific short-cuts would be good. Only issue is that some keys (like F1, F2) may be mapped to functions so it may be a mess when in operate mode.

3 - I name my functions with a code like OD (for odds), EV (for evsn), SPL1 (left spot one) and similar to how me what creates the function and where it may be from (also use col for collection)

4 - I think this has been discussed before and if I recall the issue is that there maybe other things happening and so it is not that simple for the software to know what value to return to.

5 - I am in agreement with you here.

6 - Ditto - I suggested this recently and got a workaround response form anther user but it is not satisfactorily as I did not always get my moving heads to play along.

7 - Previously I have suggested a setting that allows you to create click points on the slider so one can have the best of both worlds.

I am glad to see people getting results with QLC+, especially if they come from LumiDMX like me
Well done !

There's a lot of stuff in your post and I'll try to process it a bit.

1- I agree with Chris. Assigning function keys might be useful but some other users might want they to be free for the virtual console

5- Should be possible like what we did for the Intensity property, although it's a lot of work/tests to do. I can add it to my TODO list

6- Can this be achieved with the "stop all function" button ? I guess if you want to blackout, then you might reconstruct your scenes one by one after it ?

9- Tracking has been discussed in this forum a few times but the problem is always the same. There is no spatial cognition in QLC+. Only a 3D environment would fulfill this requirement and at the moment we're light years away from it. It will come in the future though.

Re number 6: A common call by directors is black out (or fade to black), meaning they want all lights dead on stage in a specific fade (fast or slow). The simplest way to do this is to map a button to "stop all function", like you said. The problem is the "stop all function", when assigned to a button, is instantaneous, there is no fade option.

What would work is if there is a fade out timing setting connected to the stop all functions on the button.

The "Stop ALL functions" button at the right hand top, has some built in fade out values but it requires pressing the button and waiting for the pop-up and then picking the correct one. It is difficult to get the timing perfect and one could easily select the wrong one. If it is programmed to a button then there is no room for error.

Number 6 implemented
https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/c ... 6013e12e6e

First of all, I'm also very thankful for this program. We started to test it in Philharmony in Poland and some small theaters. I still don't know how to build virtual console good for me, but I am working on it What I would appreciate is litte more functional simple desk. Usually we don't have a time to program the lights so, we made a performances and some concerts "by hand". Maybe some of this ideas would be easy to establish:

1. On Simple Desk should be possible to select few bars to take them down/up at the same time. I thought it's like that with Alt key - then the bars become yellow - but I don't know what is for

2. I would appreciate additional bars like Fade and Speed. If I manually change a bar's levels of individual light or programmed playback it should be changed with speed (only for cues changes) and fade setted on Fade and Speed bars. It is normal function in controllers like Eurolite Scene Setter

3. When I light the theater's performance, I usually set some light scene, then program it on cue stack (playback) as different playback bars. If I have 25 light scenes, I need 25 bars in playback area. Would be nice if:
a/ I could choose how many bars appear, and if too much, I should scroll it
b/ Could write few words under each bar (ie. King Lear entrance)
c/ Have additional Change bar and button for changing the scene with Speed and Fade setted before - ie. on playback bar no 1 is blue light, on next scene I need red one and I need fast, but fluent change between this two. So i set Fade and Speed bars to small number and click Change button and it changes automatically or I scroll Change bar manually, then I decide manually about the speed. Now I think it's not possible - I have to program few cues as a light Scenes, individually program fade and speed (usually not have a time for that details).

What a reason not to set a scenes, fade, and speed before, and just automatically click for change between them? If something goes wrong (ie actors made mistake) and I need to go back 2-3 scenes after or before, thats a problem.

Also, usually we have so little time to set the lights that i'm programming the lights as follows in exaple:
Playback button 1 - Contra light
Playback button 2 - Front light
Playback button 3 - Effect light (ie. for part of scenography)
Playback button 4 - Red Color Light
...and during performance I manually choose what amount and when exact light comes in - sometimes I need select ie. contra and front light and change in the same time.

Thanks again for your work, I already tested a lot of programs, and for me, yours is the best now!


btw: 360 Internet Security has found Malware.QVM20.Gen in QLC+.exe apllication file

Maybe I'm wrong but adding fade out to "Stop all function" button does not achieve the same result as adding it to "Blackout" button.

If you have a slider that control an intensity channel it is not affected by "Stop all function". From my point of view a more consistent workflow (if you have to go black) would be:

1) Press "Blackout" and fade to black with the wanted timeout.
2) Make adjustment while in blackout mode (maybe click "Stop all function buttons" if you need it)
3) Release Blackout and give light to the stage (it would be cool if "blackout" would have a fade in timeout too)

Lorenzo, can't you just use the Grand Master fader for that ?
It's on the leftmost side of the Virtual Console.
If you don't need a timed fade, I guess a manual one won't bother you that much huh ?

Yes, I could (and that's what I've done in my last show) but with large screens you have to drag your mouse for quite a long path (but I agree this is a really minor issue).

The point is: what if I need to do this with timeout? Moreover I can't imagine any concrete situation where you want to stop all functions with fade out and leave active all channels controlled by sliders.