Q Light Controller+

Hi once again folks. I am getting ready to try to create my first moving head FX. I have 4 ADJ Inno Pocket Wash fixtures and 2 Chauvet Intimidator LED 150's. I have a few questions since unfortunately other than the manual I can't find tutorials on this particular topic (unless you can point me to one):

1. Can you create movement patterns other than the ones listed in the wizard without starting from scratch?
2. My lights have pan and tilt ranges that would have the lights shining in my face if allowed to use thhe full range of the fixtures. How do I create FX that only use part of the allowable range to avoid the in-your-face glare while DJ'ing?


Rob

1. All available pattern are listed in the GUI and/or docs To add more patterns one needs to modify C++ code and recompile.

2. One (hacky) way to achieve this is described here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8450

2. The simplest way to avoid the glare-in-your-face is to position the EFX accordingly. Use EFX editor to set proper offset and sizes so the EFX path avoids problematic angles.

If you describe the situation more precisely, I'll help you with the numbers. What I need is a schema how are the fixtures placed, and where is the place you stand.
Do you combine all movers in one EFX or do you divide them by type?

I stand in the middle of my lighting rig almost completely underneath it (slightly back from directly underneath). I am down to just two Chauvet Intimidator Spot 355Z moving heads. I sent the Inno Pocket Wash lights back because American DJ said they could not be mounted horizontally. Then ADJ changed their mind and told everyone that they could be mounted horizontally. Go figure.

The two moving heads are towards the ends of my truss. That means they are overhead, slightly in front and each is roughly three feet to the side, one on each side.

I haven't really programmed any moving heads yet so I don't know the best way to program the two of them, together or individually. Perhaps you could make a suggestion on that?

Thanks much ............ Rob

Rob,

I've created a drawing for you. In this picture, the horizontal axis is PAN and vertical axis is TILT. Both are divided by 90 degrees intervals. The small numbers are degrees (-270..270 resp. -135..135), the large numbers are DMX values (0..255).
I assume that the heads are mounted overhead (i.e. hanging from the truss). Maybe you should revert one or both axis - I'm not sure in which direction the head moves - clockwise or counterclockwise.

The blue areas is my guess as what parts will shine in your face. You have to avoid them when you define the EFX patterns. Use width/height and offset to avoid the problematic areas.

Since each of your two heads has problematic areas in different angles, the patters should be different for each head. There are several possibilities:
- use angles/values that are OK for both heads
- enable REVERSE PAN on one of the heads
- create two EFX patterns and join them in a collection

Thanks for the great information. I will look it all over and experiment as soon as I can find some more hours in a day

Rob

So I finally gotten all of my moving head lights set up and operating. I absolutely love playing with them. I have started experimenting a little with creating FX. The biggest questions I have right now is how do I control the speed that the FX runs at? I know it must be simple but I can't find the right place to adjust that.

Also previously I was told that to create more FX patterns I would have to code the C++ and recompile. Can anyone give me some more details on that? I code in C++ and might want to play around but I would need a little help in knowing what to do.

Rob

EFX speed: http://qlcplus.org/docs/efxeditor.html

building QLC+: https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/wiki

Speed: at design time as david has written - in the EFX editor; in runtime: create speed dial in VC and bind it to EFX http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/vcspeeddial.html. You can set multiplier so that you can have one speed dial to control e.g. chaser and efx and chaser will update every beat, while efx every 4th beat (set 1/4). It's handy to have one speed dial to control all EFXs.

Add new pattern: First you must be able to compile the sources, see wiki. It is MUCH MUCH easier to do it in linux that in windows, so if at all possible, start in linux

Then check these commits/changes:
- https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/c ... a051c5df71 - add Line2 patter by myself
- https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/c ... 90c8aaff35 -add lots of new patterns by David (plugz)
You'll learn from these commits where and what needs to be added/changed. Note that either commit is not complete, you'll do some stuff from one (docs) and some from the other (tests).

Unit tests: add new unit test to test our pattern - the easiest way is to copy any present one, run the test and adjust the values (while manually checking they are correct). Next time the tests
will verify the pattern for you.

I suggest you register at github and create own fork, and work from there. You can save code changes to your own git repository, so you can revert recent changes etc. It also allows other
people to check your code easily, should any problem appear.

Finally when you are done, create pull request at github. It's a way to ask developer to pull your changes to the main QLC+ repository (sometimes called "upstream").

If you need help, just ask.