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DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 03:21
by Pink LD
Support,
I know that I asked for this feature many years ago, and you incorporated it. But for awhile now this has been listed as "obsolete", and yet I have many different ways I still you this feature. Soft patching outputs to fixtures is still something I do all the time for all kinds of reasons. Is there any way to keep this feature from going beyond obsolete, and not being available?

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 08:06
by JohnRichards
+1 for this
John

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 09:19
by Luc Henrion
Is it not the same as moving the fixture(s) around in the editor/fixtures window ?

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 09:22
by marco
Just curious, for what do u use this funtion, now with the moveble fixtures it seems obsolete to me.

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 11:53
by Pink LD
marco wrote:Just curious, for what do u use this funtion, now with the moveble fixtures it seems obsolete to me.

The first way I use it still is when I have to cut from 4 trusses downstage to 3, because my fixtures are installed, I already have a patch built that takes 5 seconds to switch to, vs drag and dropping moving my fixtures around.
The other time I use it is when I wish to incorporate house/rental fixtures into my show. Let's say the have some LED pars, I can incorporate them in my advance plot without having to build profiles to them. I just give them an unused range of DMX to assign them and I can output to them.

Sure I use the drag and drop feature as well, but mostly for conventionals that I have built into my show and those conventionals are provided per my theatre lighting plot.

Yes, I can engineer other solutions, but softpatching is part of what we do as touring LDs as well.

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 12:04
by Luc Henrion
I think I understand but it's relatively easy and fast not to create templates from scratch but to use "pseudo"- 4 or 8 channels dimmer packs...
Sure it won't be useable in 2D or 3D view but on the DMX output it works... Just my 2 cents.

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 05 January 2019, 22:29
by support
This function is here exclusively for backward compatibiity with V7 lightshows.
It is not "fixtures based programming" compatible.
Since V8, it is not possible to drive a specific dmx channel ; it is possible to drive only a channel of a declared dmx fixture.

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 12 January 2019, 09:32
by Pink LD
And yet I sent the DMX output of a declared fixture to another declared fixture mid-show tonight. And it solved my problem. Otherwise one of my performers would have spent most of the night in the dark. This was all because of sever space limitations and I could only hang half my DS rig.

But that is because I am an old lighting guy used to soft patching.

I could have just dragged the fixtures I didn't want to somewhere unused, and dragged the fixture out puts I wanted to the addresses I vacated.

I will give this approach a go tomorrow as I have a 3/4 DS hang tomorrow and instead of using my softpatch solution I will drag and drop which fixtures I want where.

I mean I already use the drag and drop feature for my other tour where my conventional lighting programming is per my advance plot and I drag and drop where I want what outputted, per the house plot.

Re: DMX Output Patch

PostPosted: 17 January 2019, 21:35
by Pink LD
For straight moving of like fixtures to different configurations, drag and drop is fine. But I sometimes steal the RGB data from one fixture to use with another unlike fixture. And this last weekend I did just that when I made some pars behave like my footlights. And all I did was use the DMX Output feature to achieve the result. I legitimately still use the soft patch feature. I also use it to send RGBAW +UV data to house fixtures. I can make a 24/7 button to make the basic features of a fixture I don't know well, and then output the RGBAW +UV data from my own fixtures.
I wouldn't call what I am doing as a "proper" clone, but in essence that is what I am doing.
I know you said this is for backwards compatibility to V7, and I was the one that asked for the feature, but I still use it. If it is to become obsolete, my other method of "cloning" features is rather complex.