Q Light Controller+

Hello fellow users,

So, I have seen several people ask this question, but I can't find an answer in the forums:

When switching between edits and "stopping" the live show cue stacks, QLC+ sends a "zero" signal to the dimmer packs, causing every house light to go down, ... HARD. I need to be able to keep some lights on in the room while making minor edits to the show since people are still in the room (and putting them in the dark has severe adverse effects .

Question: Is it possible to "hold" the last DMX signal, somehow, while editing the cue stacks?

Also, when punching those "Stop" buttons and going in and out of edit mode, the lights "switch" instead of fade. This is constantly doing damage to our bulbs and fuses, given the massive numbers of edits we do for each week. Is it possible to make the on/off function at least a 500ms fade or even a customizable feature of QLC+? Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way - perhaps there is supposed to be a dimmer pack setting to protect from this kind of abuse?

looking forward to hearing from someone,
Jeff

Jeff,

that's the way how QLC+ is currently designed/written, and it's not going to change unless someone volunteers to design & implement the changes.

I'm thinking how to implement the preheat function, but it's still long time to go (little time, other things to do).

For now, the only way I can think of is to use SimpleDesk to set e.g. work lights on
before pushing stop (blackout will override Simple desk).

If you know C++:

- Fade after stop can be added [here](https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/b ... r.cpp#L140) (e.g. wait 500ms more and after that remove the faders).

- Keep some channels on during blackout: [here](https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/b ... ap.cpp#L99) you can provide your own data for blackout. I.e. now the zeros QByteArray is initialized to all zeros. What you initialize it to will be sent to DMX output. You can even have different data per universe. m_universeArray most probably contains current DMX values.

These are just hints to guide you in QLC+ code, I obviously haven't tested the proposals.
For your specific case (e.g. you want to keep the last values forever, or you want to exclude channels #1, #13 and #44 from blackout), most probably you can hack the changes in few lines of code. For the change to be universally usable (with GUI, save/load to workspace, different options, etc.) is much more work.

- for the fade after stop: try to add these lines at the place I mentioned before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#ifdef WIN32
Sleep(500);
#else
usleep(500000);
#endif
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff,

I would second that request as I have the same issue.

This procedure works reasonably well for adjusting scenes during theatre rehearsals. It isn't practical to edit chasers and effects (except for tweaking static pan and tilt values) with serious acting going on. Try to avoid this procedure in the dress rehearsal!

Firstly, explain about the lost crossfade timings (see below) to the actors, the director etc.

In operate mode, with a scene running, select the functions editor.

Select the scene which is running from the list.

Now switch to design mode. The running scene continues uninterrupted.

Edit scene.

If the next lighting change is supposed happen without a blackout, select the next scene for editing on the next cue. You'll only lose the crossfade timing. This may cause trouble if your dimmers don't have built in preheat and scrollers will change at full speed which may be noisy.

Edit if necessary.

If the next lighting change is a blackout, wait until the blackout is supposed to happen, then switch back to operate mode. Again, there's no crossfade.

Select next scene on the VC.

If you need some light left on for safety reasons during the blackouts, set up the intensity of some extra generic lights on LTP channels such as pan or tilt which don't change when you go between design and operate modes (or control them with a separate desk).

Despite the excellent work done on the cue stack, I still like running productions from a series of buttons in a solo frame. It's much faster to select the required scene (which will fade in as normal) after switching back to operate mode if you use buttons rather than a cue stack.

Now if there was a way for qlc+ to remember what it was last doing in operate mode when you switch back . . . . .