Hi there and a happy new year. This is my first post here.
I'm reading quite a lot on the forum here and so far I got pretty good results with QLC+, but there is one thing I can't figure out.
I'm using QLC+ for a mobile DJ application. I have some RGB Spots and up to 4 Indigo 150 Moving heads.
I want all my fixtures to switch color to white and enter strobe/ random strobe mode as long as I hit the flash button and turn back to the previous effect that they were running, as soon as I release the flash button.
I already read these threads, but I think it doesn't exactly do what I need or I did not understand it correctly.
http://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discus ... 1539/#a39b
http://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discus ... /a127f787/
Best Regards
Malte
Temporary override function flash button
-
Malte Schroeder
Does nobody have any easy solution for this? I'm about to establish QLC+ in germanys longest existing discothek. And again a temporary ovverride would be a killer feature.
-
dmxWolf
Hi, and welcome to the forum.
Many people have complained about this bug and it still hasn't been fixed yet. There is a workaround for it, but it really needs to be fixed in the program. You have to open Fixture Definition Editor and edit the strobe channels on your fixtures. Read here for details:
https://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discu ... da47/#8785
Many people have complained about this bug and it still hasn't been fixed yet. There is a workaround for it, but it really needs to be fixed in the program. You have to open Fixture Definition Editor and edit the strobe channels on your fixtures. Read here for details:
https://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discu ... da47/#8785
-
david garyga
There's a solutions that lets you do this without touching the code:
The loopback plugin.
See the attached workspace.
Explanation:
. Input-Ouput
- Universe 1 contains your usual fixtures.
- Universe 3 is the loopback universe: loopback 1 is both input and output.
- Universe 3 contains 1 dimmer fixture.
. Functions
- a "LOOPBACK ch1 100%" function sets the universe3 dimmer at 100%
- a "red" function is an example of you usual functions
. Virtual Console
- A frame containing all you function widgets (here, the "red" function button) AND a submaster fader. The submaster fader is set to "Inverted", its input is universe 3: ch1
- A slider set to level mode, connected to the strobe channel and the blue channel of the fixture. It will make the fixture go all "blue strobe". Its input is universe3: ch1.
- The magic "blue strobe" button. It activates the function "LOOPBACK ch1 100%".
This will: Disable the output off all the functions affected by the Submaster fader (the red function), AND activate the channels "blue" and "strobe" on the real fixture.
you can test the workspace, and see what happens on the fixture monitor.
The loopback plugin.
See the attached workspace.
Explanation:
. Input-Ouput
- Universe 1 contains your usual fixtures.
- Universe 3 is the loopback universe: loopback 1 is both input and output.
- Universe 3 contains 1 dimmer fixture.
. Functions
- a "LOOPBACK ch1 100%" function sets the universe3 dimmer at 100%
- a "red" function is an example of you usual functions
. Virtual Console
- A frame containing all you function widgets (here, the "red" function button) AND a submaster fader. The submaster fader is set to "Inverted", its input is universe 3: ch1
- A slider set to level mode, connected to the strobe channel and the blue channel of the fixture. It will make the fixture go all "blue strobe". Its input is universe3: ch1.
- The magic "blue strobe" button. It activates the function "LOOPBACK ch1 100%".
This will: Disable the output off all the functions affected by the Submaster fader (the red function), AND activate the channels "blue" and "strobe" on the real fixture.
you can test the workspace, and see what happens on the fixture monitor.
- Attachments
-
- 2015-02-25-103244_4480x1440_scrot.png (6.83 KiB) Viewed 2459 times
-
- 2015-02-25-103237_4480x1440_scrot.png (23.94 KiB) Viewed 2459 times
-
- 2015-02-25-102859_958x1059_scrot.png (144.79 KiB) Viewed 2459 times
-
loopback.qxw- (5.16 KiB) Downloaded 229 times
-
dmxWolf
So this isn't going to be fixed in the code??? You would rather QLC+ users go through all this to work around a problem that should be basic and expected behavior? This is considered basic and expected functionality. You don't have to go through all this in any professional commercial software, or even other freeware QLC+ is competing with, just to get a flash scene to work correctly. Most weekend lightjockeys won't have the knowledge to come up with such elaborate workarounds for things that should be simple and "just work", which is obvious by the number of people coming in here and asking how to make it work right. And the pro's don't have time to figure out why things don't work right. They have complicated shows with maybe hundreds of fixtures to program, and need their software to do what is expected.
According to the QLC+ main page..
Quote:
"The primary goal is to bring QLC+ at the level of other lighting control commercial softwares."
QLC+ will never reach this level if the basic, required functionalities, such as flash buttons, chases ending properly, etc aren't fixed in the code.
I do appreciate all the hard work and time that has gone into QLC+ for free, but c'mon guys... I don't think you intend for it to mainly be used by kids who want to run a few cheap dmx lights to impress their friends at their birthday party or highschool dance. Focus on getting this basic stuff fixed first and BAM... you have pro quality lighting software that's going to blow away even the big guys. And I, for one, am planning on making a big donations once it's fixed!!
According to the QLC+ main page..
Quote:
"The primary goal is to bring QLC+ at the level of other lighting control commercial softwares."
QLC+ will never reach this level if the basic, required functionalities, such as flash buttons, chases ending properly, etc aren't fixed in the code.
I do appreciate all the hard work and time that has gone into QLC+ for free, but c'mon guys... I don't think you intend for it to mainly be used by kids who want to run a few cheap dmx lights to impress their friends at their birthday party or highschool dance. Focus on getting this basic stuff fixed first and BAM... you have pro quality lighting software that's going to blow away even the big guys. And I, for one, am planning on making a big donations once it's fixed!!
-
Massimo Callegari
Enough dmxWolf.
I will not ban you from this forum, but please go use another DMX software for adults.
Your post is unrespectful and clearly states you didn't get the spirit of this project. Personally I don't think there is a place for people like you in this forum.
Goodbye.
I will not ban you from this forum, but please go use another DMX software for adults.
Your post is unrespectful and clearly states you didn't get the spirit of this project. Personally I don't think there is a place for people like you in this forum.
Goodbye.
-
david garyga
The issue you're referring to has nothing to do with the issue presented in the OP.
The solution I proposed here is the one I use, and I'm fine with it. It's not really complicated. Again, nothing to do with the LTP/dimmer issues and whatnot.
Nobody is IGNORING the issues you mention (chasers not ending correctly, etc..), but it takes a lot of time to fix. Nobody works full-time on QLC+.
The solution I proposed here is the one I use, and I'm fine with it. It's not really complicated. Again, nothing to do with the LTP/dimmer issues and whatnot.
Nobody is IGNORING the issues you mention (chasers not ending correctly, etc..), but it takes a lot of time to fix. Nobody works full-time on QLC+.
-
panaremix
Massimo,
we all appreciate your contribution and understand that it is a non-commercial project,
but by this problem (flash button for strobe lights) often appear in the forum.
Is it possible to create a solution?
Or at least give the approximate date of the creation of a solution?
In the case of non-profit organizations:
Why not create an "association" with paid membership for regular users,
to obtain financing for the development of the project?
Best regards and wish you every success in the further development of QLC +.
we all appreciate your contribution and understand that it is a non-commercial project,
but by this problem (flash button for strobe lights) often appear in the forum.
Is it possible to create a solution?
Or at least give the approximate date of the creation of a solution?
In the case of non-profit organizations:
Why not create an "association" with paid membership for regular users,
to obtain financing for the development of the project?
Best regards and wish you every success in the further development of QLC +.
-
Massimo Callegari
I'll try to explain this once and for all.
QLC+ is a non profit project. If we wanted a salary out of it we would have died of starvation a long time ago.
We work on this project in our spare time. We've got a job, a life and other interests. So we dedicate the time **we can or want** to QLC+.
QLC+ is released under the Apache 2.0 license terms, that say:
> Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
> distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
> WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
So, when you find an issue you have 4 options:
**1)** ask nicely in this forum and see if there is an immediate solution (either a workaround) that you can accept. David wrote a solution.
**2)** If you can't accept #1, you just need to be patient and wait for it to be solved by the developers (for free). It can take one day, one week or one year.
We are not stupid or evil. We read this forum and add the issues you guys find in our TODO lists. Some issues have been solved in less than 1 hour. Some other takes a lot more due to the complexity of the software. Some others are not even real issues or cannot be implemented at all cause they would require to rewrite half of the QLC+ code.
**3)** if you are desperate and can't accept #1 and #2, you can consider a paid service. I've never said no to it, but as a matter of facts, in more than 2 years nobody asked for it.
We are professional developers and the average cost of a consultancy is around 150€-200€ per day. This means that the resolution of an issue like this, that can take 20-30 hours, could cost from 375€ to 750€.
Are you really willing to do it ?
**4)** if you can accept none of the above, there is plenty of other DMX softwares out there, either free or commercial.
Most likely you will end up paying for them and when you find a bug getting no support or no resolution estimation as well.
When I started QLC+ I came from an experience with LumiDMX. It was as buggy as hell and when I wrote in their support forum "If I open this window and click here, the program crashes" they replied "Don't open that window".
Got it ?
QLC+ is a non profit project. If we wanted a salary out of it we would have died of starvation a long time ago.
We work on this project in our spare time. We've got a job, a life and other interests. So we dedicate the time **we can or want** to QLC+.
QLC+ is released under the Apache 2.0 license terms, that say:
> Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
> distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
> WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
So, when you find an issue you have 4 options:
**1)** ask nicely in this forum and see if there is an immediate solution (either a workaround) that you can accept. David wrote a solution.
**2)** If you can't accept #1, you just need to be patient and wait for it to be solved by the developers (for free). It can take one day, one week or one year.
We are not stupid or evil. We read this forum and add the issues you guys find in our TODO lists. Some issues have been solved in less than 1 hour. Some other takes a lot more due to the complexity of the software. Some others are not even real issues or cannot be implemented at all cause they would require to rewrite half of the QLC+ code.
**3)** if you are desperate and can't accept #1 and #2, you can consider a paid service. I've never said no to it, but as a matter of facts, in more than 2 years nobody asked for it.
We are professional developers and the average cost of a consultancy is around 150€-200€ per day. This means that the resolution of an issue like this, that can take 20-30 hours, could cost from 375€ to 750€.
Are you really willing to do it ?
**4)** if you can accept none of the above, there is plenty of other DMX softwares out there, either free or commercial.
Most likely you will end up paying for them and when you find a bug getting no support or no resolution estimation as well.
When I started QLC+ I came from an experience with LumiDMX. It was as buggy as hell and when I wrote in their support forum "If I open this window and click here, the program crashes" they replied "Don't open that window".
Got it ?
-
panaremix
Massimo,
I admit you're right - if you can listen to 2 things:
1.. I can not afford this amount, but you can always add and sell it as a "fee plugin" such as 10-20Euro
2.. I am well aware that a solution may require time,
but if you are able to fix the problem, I ask only that information such as "It is a remedy, the approximate time - two months," or "we do not have an idea for repair - do not implement".
then there will be pressure senseless.
Regards!
I admit you're right - if you can listen to 2 things:
1.. I can not afford this amount, but you can always add and sell it as a "fee plugin" such as 10-20Euro
2.. I am well aware that a solution may require time,
but if you are able to fix the problem, I ask only that information such as "It is a remedy, the approximate time - two months," or "we do not have an idea for repair - do not implement".
then there will be pressure senseless.
Regards!
-
Massimo Callegari
panaremix, I listen, but not necessarily agree
1. As I said, we're not selling anything here or make profit. What you suggest would make a difference between users, and this is something I want to avoid, either if you are a professional and make big money with QLC+ or if you are an amateur and use QLC+ for your hobbies
2. One thing I learned from open source projects is that you should never ask for estimation dates. Even huge projects like Qt make plans and don't respect them with months of delay and change of directions.
Also, estimation is almost impossible for us for the simple fact that we don't sit at a desk in the morning and work 8 hours a day on QLC+. That's how a company works. Here we're talking about our spare time, so something very unreliable.
One could be tired at night, have to trim the garden, go shopping with his wife, take care of the children, and so on.
In any case, the QLC+ code is open, so anyone can modify it and contribute to improve it. (always if you understand how the code works and make changes that don't break the work of other users)
So, if you like, you can pay some developer that does it for a living and ask him an estimation date for a specific change or fix of the code.
I'm sorry for the OP submitter if we derailed off topic with all this discussion. I'll probably try to summarize this whole thing somewhere in the QLC+ website
1. As I said, we're not selling anything here or make profit. What you suggest would make a difference between users, and this is something I want to avoid, either if you are a professional and make big money with QLC+ or if you are an amateur and use QLC+ for your hobbies
2. One thing I learned from open source projects is that you should never ask for estimation dates. Even huge projects like Qt make plans and don't respect them with months of delay and change of directions.
Also, estimation is almost impossible for us for the simple fact that we don't sit at a desk in the morning and work 8 hours a day on QLC+. That's how a company works. Here we're talking about our spare time, so something very unreliable.
One could be tired at night, have to trim the garden, go shopping with his wife, take care of the children, and so on.
In any case, the QLC+ code is open, so anyone can modify it and contribute to improve it. (always if you understand how the code works and make changes that don't break the work of other users)
So, if you like, you can pay some developer that does it for a living and ask him an estimation date for a specific change or fix of the code.
I'm sorry for the OP submitter if we derailed off topic with all this discussion. I'll probably try to summarize this whole thing somewhere in the QLC+ website
-
Malte Schroeder
Thanks David,
I only visit the forum from time to time, so I did not notice your solution earlier.
Just by reading through the procedure, I don't get yet, if it really can solve my problem, but I'll give it a try.
Worst thing that can happen, that I find a new difficulty.
Cheers
Malte
I only visit the forum from time to time, so I did not notice your solution earlier.
Just by reading through the procedure, I don't get yet, if it really can solve my problem, but I'll give it a try.
Worst thing that can happen, that I find a new difficulty.
Cheers
Malte
-
Malte Schroeder
Hi evereybody, and especially hello Massimo.
As I'm quite new to this forum and also to QLC+, first I want to thank Massimo to keep such a fantastic peace of software alive.
I just want to let everybody know that I'm just replacing a commercial software (early versoin of DASLight) with QLC+. As the old DMX interface is starting with some drop outs in function, we were thinking about how to replace it.
Our choice was: Buy new DASlight that cost a lot of money and the small versions are limited to very few channels, that is absolutley no choice for modern lighting devices. So we would have to invest even more money.
PLUS, we would have to re-program everything, because the import of the old project file does not work properly.
So, if we have to re-program everything anyway, why shouldn't we not change the software. There are many free or open source Software available. I have worked with Freestyler and DMX-Control, but both are not easy to use and especially Freestyler works just on channel base under the hood, so exchanging and re-patching fixtures is almost impossible.
So finally we choose QLC+, because we can design our virtual consol in a way that even untrained people can handle it in operation.
Also I really like the new LED Matrix features. As we have an LED Pixel string in our truss, I think we will include that later with a DMX to SPI converter or something. Or we add Jinx in between, but this will not be a short term project.
To cut that short: QLC+ can actually replace commercial software.
I am aware of the terms of use and every other user should be aware as well. Also I really much appreciative for Massiomos work and the work of the community to give a really good support.
On a productive environment you should probably be a bit conservative with updates, but this makes no difference to any other software. First test than upgrade/ update.
Cheers
Malte
As I'm quite new to this forum and also to QLC+, first I want to thank Massimo to keep such a fantastic peace of software alive.
I just want to let everybody know that I'm just replacing a commercial software (early versoin of DASLight) with QLC+. As the old DMX interface is starting with some drop outs in function, we were thinking about how to replace it.
Our choice was: Buy new DASlight that cost a lot of money and the small versions are limited to very few channels, that is absolutley no choice for modern lighting devices. So we would have to invest even more money.
PLUS, we would have to re-program everything, because the import of the old project file does not work properly.
So, if we have to re-program everything anyway, why shouldn't we not change the software. There are many free or open source Software available. I have worked with Freestyler and DMX-Control, but both are not easy to use and especially Freestyler works just on channel base under the hood, so exchanging and re-patching fixtures is almost impossible.
So finally we choose QLC+, because we can design our virtual consol in a way that even untrained people can handle it in operation.
Also I really like the new LED Matrix features. As we have an LED Pixel string in our truss, I think we will include that later with a DMX to SPI converter or something. Or we add Jinx in between, but this will not be a short term project.
To cut that short: QLC+ can actually replace commercial software.
I am aware of the terms of use and every other user should be aware as well. Also I really much appreciative for Massiomos work and the work of the community to give a really good support.
On a productive environment you should probably be a bit conservative with updates, but this makes no difference to any other software. First test than upgrade/ update.
Cheers
Malte