Q Light Controller+

I lit my first theatrical show last night. I used QLC+ to drive six LED fixtures and three channels of a dimmer pack, via my cheapo FTDI interface, using dmx_usb.ko, ArtNet and a dummy network interface to make it work without flickering. It worked flawlessly apart from a slightly lumpy initial fade-up which I might look into if I have time.

The show consisted of about 30 steps which I put in a cue list. Thank you to the recent work which has made QLC+ suitable for this type of scenario. It was quite easy to do as the 30 faders on the function view just fit on the screen (1400 pixels wide). I loved the clone button and the fact I could write a nice descriptive name for each scene to help me get the cues right in the heat of the show.

I have some observations which might be as much to do with my inexperience of lighting as anything to do with QLC+, but here they are anyway:

1) It would be extremely useful if the scene editor tab/all channels view toggle button remembered its state (when changing the scene being viewed).
2) It would be nice if the functions view remembered its state, rather than closing back to a top-level list of function types when another tab is selected.
3) The highlighted cue in the cue list is not very clear - it's "raised" but only slightly darker grey than the surrounding cues.
4) As far as I could tell, editing a scene while live has no effect. One of the scenes was incorrectly set up and I couldn't tweak it during the show.
5) Following on from the above, a virtual console widget which showed the (editable) definition of the currently selected scene in the cue list would be amazing. This would not only allow tweaking but would be a good reminder of the current scene. Even better if it had buttons on it to move forwards and backwards through the cue list (without affecting the scene currently being shown). And perhaps one for the special case of always showing the next scene in the list.
6) The cue list allows you to jump to any step by double-clicking on it, whereas if you double-click anywhere within the chaser editor it starts to edit the field under the mouse pointer, even if that field isn't editable (such as the step number and function name). The only way to get to a particular step in the chaser editor is by repeatedly pressing the forwards and backwards buttons.
7) A button to bring a fader value to zero would save time over dragging the slider down.
8) Would it be possible to have some form of fixture-based optional transform function to make the faders operate in a subjectively more linear fashion? With both tungsten and LED the faders look much more responsive at lower levels. I know some dimmer packs have an S-shaped transform function to compensate for both tungsten lamp and phase angle control characteristics, but I presume my cheap one doesn't.

Following up from point 4 above.

A running scene can be edited live by:

a) Switching from the VC (in operate mode) to the functions editor.

b) Selecting the scene that is currently running from scene list

c) Switching from operate to design mode (you must stop all running functions by selecting yes in the dialogue box at this point)

The selected scene remains live and you can then edit it and see the effect of the edit, enabling a scene to be tweaked unobtrusively during rehearsals when you can see what it looks like with actors in. Hopefully this avoids incorrectly set up scenes making it through to the performances!


There are currently 3 snags with this procedure:

1) You can't switch back to operate mode without causing a blackout.

2) There is no "abandon edit" option if you don't like what you've just done although cloning the scene before you edit it goes some way towards overcoming this.

3) Setting up the editing procedure for the scene is rather time consuming.



It would be brilliant if it were possible to have a shortcut from a VC widget running a scene to that scene set up in the functions editor – say right click on the widget while holding control – and to be able to return to the VC in operate mode without a blackout.

I don't think doing this for chasers and effects would help – you can't edit these without causing significant disturbance to what's happening on stage in rehearsals.

Good stuff, thank you. In the light of that (ha ha), what do you think about point 5 - apart from it being harder to code?

I think the whole question of fully featured theatre style playback is a difficult one in qlc+ if one is not to duplicate some of its capabilities unecessarily or end up with a confusing array of approaches to the same thing.

I have some ideas brewing on this, but am not yet convinced I've put together a solution worth considering!

You may be interested in my strategy for running a drama production from the VC without using the cue list, which you will find here:

http://sourceforge.net/p/qlcplus/discus ... bdd0/#9334

I fully support your points 1 and 2 and a more attention grabbing colour for highlighting items would be desirable.

I need some time to respond to this.
Very quickly
1) agree
2) agree
3) I've seen that (especially on Linux), widgets styles are affected A LOT from the window manager theme. Maybe you can try to play with the color combinations and see if you can find one good for you
4) others asked it. Will think of a solution
5) Sci-Fi stuff
6) as far as I know, steps can be played with just one click
7) sliders can be cliked anywhere for direct jump instead of dragging the cursor
8) kinda nice and hard at the same time. Plus, DMX values range is only 0-256. I can think of logarithmic faders

Belated thanks for those good points. Just a couple of comments:

6) In both the chaser editor in the functions tab, and cue lists in the virtual console (operate mode), you can single-click on any item and it will be highlighted. However, it does nothing else: it does not play the cue, and pressing previous or next buttons will jump to and play the cue before/after the one previously reached by these buttons - NOT any that you have selected with the mouse.

3 - relates to 6) In the chaser editor, the highlighted item is clearly highlighted in orange (in default Ubuntu), whether it's been reached by clicking on it or with the previous/next buttons. It is the same for items clicked in the cue list, but NOT items reached with the previous/next buttons, which are instead highlighted a subtly deeper grey. (Even the high-contrast theme shows this in grey, but more distinctly.) So there is definitely an inconsistency there.

7) you have to click very precisely in order to get a slider to zero, which I find takes longer with a mouse than grabbing the slider and dragging it down. A low-priority feature!