This is a key point. Fadeout is overlapped on the FadeIn for the next step (or steps) and so it isn't part of the overall duration of the step (or the chase). The duration of each step is its fadein time plus its hold time. Since the next step starts as soon as the hold time of the previous step is reached, the duration of the previous step is "over" at that point, even though it will actually continue to run its "fade out" overlapped with the next step (or even possibly several steps if the duration of the NEXT step is less than the fade out time of the previous step. This enables some pretty cool sequences although if subsequent steps use the same fixtures that are in previous steps, then there will combining of the levels (and possibly other channels) based on the still running previous steps.
Simple example:
Step 1 - FADE IN 2 sec, HOLD 5 sec, FADE OUT 10 sec (DURATION 7 sec)
Step 2 - FADE IN 3 sec, HOLD 3 sec, FADE OUT 3 sec (DURATION 6 sec)
Step 3 - FADE IN 2 sec, HOLD 1 sec, FADE OUT 1 sec (DURATION 3 sec)
Note that the duration of the steps is the total of FADE IN + HOLD time, and the overal duration is 17 seconds (the total of the durations of all the steps PLUS the Fade out time of the last step).
Step 1 will start fading out as soon as step 2 starts fading in, but it will contine to fade out over the full remainder of both steps 2 and 3:
Using u for fade up, h for hold and d for fade down, here is what happens for the three steps:
Code: Select all
Step 1: uuhhhhhdddddddddd
Step 2: uuuhhhddd
Step 3: uuhd