Q Light Controller+

First and foremost, AWESOME job with the fork! I love QLC and to see that someone is picking up the torch and moving forward with it is awesome. I wish I could be of assistance on the coding end, but I'll definitely continue to add fixture defs (I've added several to QLC) and help in any other way that I can.

On that note, there is one feature that I requested in the QLC forum that I wanted to post here (especially given the fact that MIDI feedback has been implemented) which is the ability to essentially have fixture definition which sends MIDI commands (and probably OSC, but that would be less important to me personally). I think the potential uses are probably pretty obvious, but just to give an example, I'd love to be able to trigger my video software with QLC. I can do this now (in theory at least, and for a couple, but not all of the programs I use) by getting another DMX interface and going that route but that seems a little silly when I could just run MIDI over the network. Furthermore, MIDI is obviously a pretty common denominator when it comes to just about everything so it would really open up the potential for QLC+.

Thanks George.
The best thing to synchronize audio/video softwares would be Jack indeed. I am still making up my mind on how to add this feature.

Beside this, I have an idea. Since feedbacks are working now, you could create a "fake" fixture with a number of channels corresponding to the number of your videos. Then in QLC+ you can trigger a MIDI output signal on a dedicated universe and control the start/stop of videos.
Could it work for you ?

P.S. If you have new fixtures for QLC+ please send them over ! I'm always eager for completeness

@George Qualley: triggering Video, sounds interesting. What software are you using for the video playback.

@offtools: with my band we use XJadeo (http://xjadeo.sourceforge.net/) to sync videos with Ardour. But, as I said, JACK is the best way for low latency and clock sync

I would love to have JACK in QLC+, but in my case, it would mean to create a 2+ hours light show in sync with Ardour...

I've used Modul8 for many years but unfortunately, that's getting long in the tooth and its future seems quite uncertain at this point. I recently installed Resolume Arena and I'll be giving that a shot soon.

Massimo,

Your workaround is just the kind of thing I was wondering about! If I have some time in the near future, I'll give it a shot and see if I can make it work. Just for the record, I'm not necessarily looking to sync my lights and video as much as I am just being able to control everything from a centralized environment. Nevertheless, I certainly welcome any additions in this area as I'm sure it will open up new possibilities!

Oh wait, look at that, I spoke too soon. Modul8 was just updated (beta) to support Art-Net. Hmm... Looks like I may not need this after all! However, I am experiencing an issue (which I initially posted to the Modul8 forum) so maybe someone can shed some light:


This is really my first exposure to Art-Net (though not to DMX) and my lighting software (QLC+) just released a new version today with Art-Net support. When I open Modul8 on one machine and QLC+ on the other machine, I can see Modul8 listed as a node initially, but when I try to control something and then go check QLC+ again, Modul8 has disappeared. Since I'm new to this, I really can't confirm whether Modul8's Art-Net implementation is crashing or if the problem is somewhere else. Any help is greatly appreciated!

The fact Modul8 is listed in QLC+ nodes tree is good. Means QLC+ output is opened and working correctly.
QLC+ ArtNet implementation sends only broadcast packets and moreover all the 512 DMX values continuously.
No idea what Modul8 expects, maybe you can point me to some online doc to find out ?

If there were any documentation, I would be happy to point you to it, however I have a feeling that if that were the case, I wouldn't have the need

Right now the version of Modul8 I'm using is a beta and the documentation isn't updated to reflect the changes in this version. That said, I'm getting the feeling that it's Modul8 that's at fault here since it seems to re-appear in the nodes list every time I restart Modul8 (and subsequently disappear).

Since this is the very first implementation of ArtNet on QLC+, there might be issues on QLC+ side. I wouldn't exclude that.
One thing that I can say is that at the moment QLC+ doesn't respond to ArtPoll, so if Modul8 expects a reply and doesn't get it, it could probably decide not to work.
To confirm this I'd need a network trace between QLC+ and Modul8 (Wireshark is your friend here)

Otherwise I could download the same version of Modul8 and try myself. (but I fear it is not a free software...isn't it ?)

I'm going to email you a link to a dropboxed copy of Modul8. If I recall correctly, it can be run as a demo with all of the features enabled but it quits after 30 minutes and you can't save.

Just FYI, you'll need to use the DMX module (included) to setup fixtures to control functions, although there are several examples setup by default which should be sufficient for testing.

Oh, and I don't think I can mention enough how awesome you and your software are!!!!

Thanks George ! I've downloaded Modul8 and I'll try it as soon as I can. Unfortunately I don't own a real Mac. I have Lion 10.7.4 running on a Virtual Machine. That's the best I could do

Massimo,

I think you should be able to get it to run in a VM. Obviously, it's not going to be fast, but it should be fine just for testing. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Unfortunately, the forum doesn't seem to be emailing me notifications, but I'm trying to check back every day or so for updates..

Massimo,

I just wanted to let you know that I've been working with the Modul8 team on this and I think I've gotten somewhere. As far as Modul8 is concerned, I can confirm that their Art-Net implementation works--but only for Universe 0. And, as it stands, I can't figure out any way to make QLC+ send on Universe 0. Modul8 doesn't work on universe 1 (haven't received any info from them on that yet) so I can't get QLC+ and Modul8 working together.

On your end, I guess the only question/request would be that of configurable Art-Net universes. I would imagine that you have this planned, but I thought I'd bring it up just in case.

Hi George, sorry for the delay !
ArtNet numbering in version 4.2.0 might have been confusing as "Universe 1" was "Universe 0" in ArtNet terms.
On version 4.2.1 I changed it with the same enumeration of ArtNet, so it should be easier to test with other softwares.
Also, I've done some more improvements to the ArtNet plugin. Can you please test it again?

To be honest I didn't have time to run Modul8, also cause I had some issues with my OSX virtual machine
Gonna do it later.

Massimo,

I've tested the new version and so far this is what I'm getting: still no luck on driving Modul8 with QLC+. I'm seeing more or less the same behavior that I was under the previous version however I do have some additional information.

As you have the ability to receive Art-net in QLC+ I thought I would give it a try and see what happens if I send some DMX from Modul8 (over Art-Net of course) to QLC. Much to my surprise, it works! So, in other words, I'm able to send DMX like this:

Modul8 ----> QLC+

but not

QLC+ ----> Modul8

which is quite strange indeed. One other thing, QLC+ does NOT like it when Modul8 is sending data and the Art-Net output line is enabled in QLC+. It causes a crash every time (can't even launch the program, in fact).

So, still no love, but perhaps this will be helpful in tracking down whatever the issue might be!

I moved this into a new topic