STRAND News - Strand Lighting

Console Programming Tips, Autumn 2005 (continued)
Storing Information From Live
The traditional way of storing cues
- RECORD - still works as you’d
expect: set up a look on stage,
then either press the RECORD key
or type [RECORD] {CUE] [1] [*] if
working in command line mode.
The complete state on stage will be
stored as the specified cue number.
A variant on this is to use the [REC-
SUB] key instead of the [RECORD]
key - this will store the look on
stage excluding any channels that
are up on submasters (so avoiding
recording the houselights into
cues!), or any channels that are
running in effects.
More useful in many cases is the
multi-faceted UPDATE command.
This works like a ‘selective store’
command, taking either any
channels that you have changed
(shown in red on the channel
display on a main console, or green
on the channel display on a remote
console in a multi-console system)
or any channels that you specify and
storing them into any location - cue,
group, sub or effect step - that you
specify. So, you could be in cue 10,
adjust channels 1 and 2 then type:
[UPDATE] [CUE] [10] [*] - to store
the changes to channels 1 and 2
into cue 10 and tracking on if in
tracking mode; this is in most cases
identical to re-recording cue 10
or
[1] [UPDATE] [CUE] [10] [QONLY] [*]
to just store the changes to channel
1 into cue 10, not tracking onwards
or
[1] [+] [3] [UPDATE] [CUE] [1] [*] to
store the levels of channels 1 and 3
(even though you hadn’t changed 3)
into cue 1 and tracking onwards if in
tracking mode.
or, if 1 was a moving light and you
only wanted to store its position
into the cue:
[1] [UPDATE] [CUE] [10] {@ATT}
{position} [*]
or, if you only wanted to store 1 into
a known range of cues:
[1] [UPDATE] [CUE] [200] [THRU]
[220] [QONLY] [*]
(QONLY required in tracking mode
so that the change didn’t just track
on beyond cue 220).
And you can combine update with
the commands described above:
[2] [UPDATE] [CUE] [1] [THRU] [50]
[@] {COPYFROM} [1] [*]
and other commands described
in more detail in the March 2003
Newsletter.
UPDATE is also used to store
information into groups when
making reference groups - so to
store light 1’s position into a new
reference group called ‘Staircase’:
[1] [UPDATE] [GROUP] [1] [TEXT]
[Staircase] [@ATT] {position} [*].
Pulling Information From Live Into
Blind
So far we’ve found ways of ‘pulling’
information from preview into live
(1@CUE 1), ‘pushing’ information
from live into preview (UPDATE
CUE) and copying information from
one light to another. One last trick is
that you can also ‘pull’ information
from live while working in preview.
In cue preview:
[1] [@] [LIVE]
will set channel 1 to its current ‘live’
value in the currently previewed cue
(with this new level then tracking
on if in tracking mode unless the
QONLY key was used: [1] [@]
[QONLY] [LIVE]).
All of the usual tricks work, so:
[1] {@ATT} {position} [LIVE] [*]
would just set light 1 to its current
‘live’ position. This is a really useful
way of presetting moving lights
or colour changers: set the look
you want on stage then go into
preview, scroll up until you find the
cue where you want the lights to
set then:
[1] [THRU] [10] [@] {ATTS ONLY}
[LIVE]
to set all of their attributes, which
would then track onwards if in
tracking mode.
Try It For Yourself!
As always, the best way to
get comfortable with these
commands is to try them for
yourself. All work in similar
ways and all can be ‘modified’
in the same ways - by specifying
particular channels, or specific
attributes (1.3, 1.4) or particular
groups of attributes (@ATT pos,
colour, beam), or ‘INTS ONLY’ or
‘ATTS ONLY’, so once you learn a
few it’s easy to start using them
in different ways as required.