compu show software user manual v1

8/10/2019 Compu Show Software User Manual v1

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Compu Show Software User Manual


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Congratulations! Youre about to learn how to use one of the most advanced lighting control

software on the market today! The contents of this user manual are laid out in a manner in

which it should be easy and quick to install the software, set up your fixtures, and start

programming your shows. If at any time you should need to contact us for Tech support

please call:

Elation Professional Tech Support

6122 Eastern Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90040

Office Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-430pm Pacific Time

1.323.213.4593

[email protected]

www.elationlighting.com

NOTICE:The functionality and settings of this software are subject to change at

any time without prior notification by Elation Professional via software update.

The end user is encouraged to periodically check for software and library

updates from the Elation website. Likewise Elation Professional is notresponsible for loss of data or corruption while updating the software or

firmware of this interface. Always backup your important data.
http://www.elationlighting.com/http://www.elationlighting.com/


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Table of Contents:

Installation.................................................................................................................................Page 6.

Launching the program..............................................................................................................Page 12.

Overview of Software Layout and UI.........................................................................................Page 14.

Locking the Software.................................................................................................................Page 25.

External windows......................................................................................................................Page 30.

Creating your First Show............................................................................................................Page 40.

Patching Fixtures.......................................................................................................................Page 41.

Fixture Grouping.......................................................................................................................Page 53.

Creating a Scene (Static)............................................................................................................Page 74.

Creating a Scene using Easy Time Effects................................................................................Page 100.

Creating a Scene using Easy Step............................................................................................Page 146.

Palettes..................................................................................................................................Page 156.

Creating a Switch....................................................................................................................Page 187.

Page/Button Settings..............................................................................................................Page 190.

Import/Export Fixture pages...................................................................................................Page 217.

Page Layers.............................................................................................................................Page 221.

Button Compression...............................................................................................................Page 231.

Using Rects to Create a Matrix.............................................................................................Page 238.

Create a Cycle..........................................................................................................................Page 261.

External Control & Triggering...................................................................................................Page 268.

Easy ShowPage 278


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Terminology

DMX: Digital Multiplex, the universal language in which all intelligent fixturescommunicate through standard 3 pin or 5 pin serial data cable known as DMX

cable.

Patch: A list of all the DMX starting addresses for the intelligent fixtures to be

addressed too.

Show file: A Show file (.shw) is the single file that stores all of the DMX patching

and scene, switch, and cycle, MIDI data that have been recorded by the

programmer. It is an entire back up of the programming.

Scene: A Scene is more commonly referred to as a cue. A cue is a static set of

DMX values. However in Compu Show a Scene can have a static level of values

or a Scene can have multiple steps (cues) in one Scene. A Scene can also have

dynamic DMX values recorded into it via a built in effects engine. A Scene can

only be played back one Scene at a time. Clicking one Scene will deselect the

last selected Scene.

Switch: A Switch is a sub level or add too level of DMX values that can be used

for a quick over ride effect on any scene currently being played back. A Switch

can also have dynamic values recorded into it using the effect engine. It is

possible to playback or select more than one Switch at a time. However the

channel types must not be overlapped.

Cycle: A cycle is a list of Scenes and Switches put into a desired order for an

intended effect or sequence of playback. A cycle is also commonly referred to as

a Cue List.

Fixture Page: A Fixture Page is the single window in the program that allows

access to all of the fixtures DMX attributes. Several fixtures of the same model

for example Design spot 250 PRO can be patched as one fixture page.


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Fixture Groups: Fixture groups can be created and organized however the

programmer wishes to set up and plot their fixtures in order as a replicate of the

actual fixture layout for the show. Fixture groups can be organized to allowquick access to fixtures and their attributes for programming and live/on the fly

control.

HTP: Lets say we set a channel to HTP, all that means is its going to take

whatever value is highest. So lets say you have scene 1 with channel 4 at 100%

and switch 1 with channel 4 at 50%. Even if you trigger scene 2 after scene 1

channel 4 will stay at 100% because it only takes the highest value of the two.

HTP stand for Highest Take Priority.

LTP: lets say we have LTP on, same scenario as HTP, now when you bring up

switch 1 it will over ride scene 1 because its the Latest value getting sent. LTP

stands for Latest Takes Priority.

Installing the Compu Show Software:


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To begin installing your software, you may use the disc that came with your

interface package and follow the onscreen instructions. If you are downloading

the Compu Show software from our website please follow the instructions

below.

The installation procedure is the same across all Windows Operating systems

including Vista and Windows 7, 32 and 64 bit system types.

NOTE: Do not plug in your USB interface until after you have installed

the software and drivers. In doing so before hand may cause

complications when first using the interface with the software. If you

have plugged it in before installing the software please delete the

driver in computer management for the interface and Re-install the

program.

Once you have downloaded the Compu Show.exe from our website it should

appear on the desktop or the chosen file location.

Double click the installer icon to launch the installation program.

Select your language then click next.


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Click next and accept our licensing Agreement.

Now confirm your file path.

Install the selected drivers.


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Confirm the folder for the install.

Select if you wish to have a Desktop icon.

(Shown on next page)


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Now verify everything is where you would like it in the review section and click

Install.

The program will begin to extract the driver files and you will be asked to install

the driver package.

(Picture shown on next page)


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Once you see the pop up as shown in the above picture select next and the

drivers will begin to install. If youre on a 64 bit system type you may be asked

to Stop installing the driver or install Driver package anyways. Please select

install Driver package anyways. Once the drivers are done installing you will

see a window like the picture shown below with two green check marks. This

means your USB drivers for the interface are installed and ready. Click finish.


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Now the rest of the program files will install.

Once the installation is complete you will see a window like this.

If your USB interface was not plugged in please deselect the check box for

Launch Compu Show and click finish. Now you may plug in your USB interfaceand Windows will now find the correct driver and a small pop up balloon will

appear in the lower bottom right of your screen and will say your device is ready

to use.


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Launching the Compu Show Software.

First locate and double click on the Compu Show icon to launch the program.

Now the software will launch and the program will begin to load the Demo

Show by default.

If your interface is not detected or not plugged in, the program window will say

Demo mode as shown in the picture above. Shown on the next page is a

picture of a basic layout of the default Demo Show file.


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And shown below is a picture of everything organized in tab windows.


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Overview of Software layout and UI:

For this section we will use the Demo show file as an example of the new layout

of the Compu Show program and User Interface. The main functions of the

Compu show program are in a simple ribbon bar at the top of the programwindow with three tabs, each for a different parameter of functions and

control. The first tab is called Controller which contains two sections called

show and External windows.

Each section has a specific function well go over them briefly one by one in this

section.

Lock: Will lock down the program in a way that new scenes or switches or

anything cannot be added or edited or even deleted. The only thing that can be

done is clicking on existing buttons. To turn on the lock simply click the lock

icon.


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To turn off the Lock hold down Ctrl on your keyboard and click the lock button

again.

We can edit Lock settings in the Software Preferences button in the Pages

section.

We will go over in-depth lock settings on page 25 of this manual.

Open/Save Show:Clicking on the open/save Show icon opens the Open Show

window as shown below.



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This window will tell you the currently saved show (.shw) files on your hard

drive. You may also create a new show, Rename, Delete, Save, Import a Compu

Live show file (.ssh) or a previous Compu Show file (.shw) by clicking on the

relevant icons as shown in the picture below.

Additionally you may also display the infos for a specific show file for example

you can display the fixture profiles used in the show file.

(Pictured on next page)


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Software Preferences:By clicking on the Software Preferences button you

can adjust multiple software settings as well as hardware settings.

General: In the general section you can select to show a dialog box at start up

of the program. And you may also choose to show the general Beam control

function in the software. The Open dialog box will appear when you click the

Compu Show icon on your desktop and looks like this:

(Pictured on next page)


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The show general beam controls will appear on the software as so:

The Beam control will control every single fixture that has a shutter function,

dimmer function, Iris function, and a zoom function. These are universal

controls for these parameters if your fixture supports it. By default both dialog

at start up and beam control functions are turned off in the software. To turn

them on simply click either or both check boxes just below of the example

picture in the General section as shown in this picture below.


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Output Hardware:In the Output Hardware section you will first notice a

checkmark next to the Auto Detection text. This means that the program will

auto detect the settings of your interface and load them.

To adjust certain settings, like DMX input. (Only if your interface supports Input)

Or adjust which port the third universe is outputting too. (Only if your interface

supports three DMX universe output) Youll need to uncheck the Auto detection

check mark and you will now be able to adjust different parameters by clicking

on the dropdown menus. Additionally you may also use more than one

interface at the same time by setting them up in this section.


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MIDI Setup: The MIDI setup section allows you to assign MIDI input, MIDI

OUT, MIDI Time code IN, and MIDI time code OUT. You will need to select your

MIDI devices in these windows to ensure proper MIDI communication between

the software and your MIDI equipment. For example if youre using Elations

MIDIcon Controller. You will need to set it up in the MIDI Set up section for MIDI

input and MIDI Output.

Video:The Video section is used to set up a video preview window for

triggering video files on your computer and projecting them through a projector

hooked up to a secondary output on the computers graphic card.



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As you can see from the above picture, you can select which monitor to output

the video preview window too as well as select if it displays full screen and to

display or not the mouse in the preview window. Here is an example of a videobeing triggered by the program while displaying the video preview in a small

window.

You can use scenes or switches in the Software to trigger video files. More on

Multimedia triggering later in this manual.


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Button Designs:The button Designs sections allows you to change the look of

the buttons in the software. There are quite a few choices for types and colors

of knobs and button colors.

For example we can change how the scene buttons will look by default, the

color of the button, and when the button is pressed. Here is a default view.

And an example of different colors and settings you can adjust.



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And you can select different styles of buttons from the dropdown menu.

Likewise you can adjust the same settings for switches cycles and different

button styles all from this Button Designs section. You may also adjust the style

and color of the knobs as shown in the picture below. Play around and see what

suits you the best.


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Shortcuts:The Shortcut sections, displays a list of all the default keyboard

shortcuts for the Compu Show software. You can also modify these shortcuts.

You can see to the right of the window there is a preview of what the key looks

like and you can also change the shortcut key by clicking on the right side of the

window in the Shortcut column.

Lastly clicking displays a complete list of all the shortcut keys by

default and all the possible shortcut keys a user can assign in this section.


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Locking the Software:The software Locking properties or Access

Privileges as some may call it, allow you to lock down certain features or

functions of the program requiring the user to enter a password to unlock the

locked features. This is most useful if the software is being installed in a

situation where the operator is not fully knowledgeable of the program and

may accidently mess something up. To set up the software lock, go to the Lock

section of the starting Preferences section.

First you may set up a password. To do so click here:

The software will prompt you to create a password. It will also ask for an

existing password. If none exist then leave that box blank.

Once you enter in your password click OK.


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To adjust which functions or features are locked when the software is locked,

please look through the Lock window and either check or uncheck a certain

parameter. The different sections that can be locked are shown in the picture

below.


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For example if you leave all of the functions checked as shown in the picture in

the previous page the only things you will be able to do in the software are

playback currently existing scenes and switches, start the Audio function, open

t

he Scan library editor program and Console Editor program, select different

fixture groups and modify them on the fly but not save the modification.

You will NOT be able to create new scenes or switches. You will not be able to

add or delete any MIDI triggers. You will not be able to open a new show orsave the current show. You also will not be able to modify any parameter of the

fixtures from the switches located on the fixture pages. You will not be able to

move the fixture page from its current location. The default settings are almost

a complete lockdown.

Once youre done adjusting the Lock settings to your liking please click OK and

the software will save your settings. Now click on the Lock button at the top of

the program window and you will see that most of the functions you can modify

are locked down, they either cannot be selected or they are locked down in

their last modified or default state.



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You will notice if you try to click on a function that is locked you will be

prompted to enter your password.

Once you enter in your password that function will become unlocked. To unlock

the entire program please click on the Lock button at the top of the program

window in the controller tab and enter in your password and that will unlock

the entire program.


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If you should ever forget your password it is stored in a _globalShow.xml file in

the Compu Show folder on your computer. Here is how you would locate it

should you ever forget.

In this example the password was set up on the Demo show file. Please look for

the folder of the name of your personal show. For example if we had a show

named E spot we would want to open the E spot folder located a folder back

from the picture above called _DataLight and find the _globalShow.xml file

and double click it to launch Internet Explorer to display the XML info. Here is

what to look for once the xml file is loaded on Internet Explorer. In this example

I have used elation as a password as you will see below.



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External Windows:

The External windows are individual windows that can be open and closed at

any time. As you can see from the picture above, each section is open by the

orange glow around the button. To close or turn off a page from displaying

simply click it and the window will go away. You may also click the small x in

the far right hand corner of each one of these windows to close it. In doing so

will also take away the orange glow of the co-responding window.

(Continued on next page)


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For example say we wanted only the Fixtures, Fade, and DMX Level windows

displayed. We simply click the buttons for the other windows we wish to close

and our page will look like so:

Lets go through a brief overview of what all the external windows are and what

they do.

Pages: Pages is a list of all the fixture pages in your show file. In pages you can

select to display the page, lock the page, and freeze the output of the page,

DMX output on/off, Link the page to the master page.

(Picture shown on next page)


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Fixtures:

The fixtures window shows you all of your individual fixtures in your set up. You

can also create fixture groups in this window. Also the fixture window is where


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you will also be able to select any fixture(s) for override/on the fly control of the

selected fixture(s). There is a dedicated section on the fixture grouping window

further in this manual.

Cycle:

The Cycle window will appear when you go to program a Cycle in the program.

This is where all the buttons you select or any data for the cycle will appear inthis window in the timeline. Again there is a dedicated section on creating and

editing a Cycle further into this manual.



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DMX Level:

The DMX level window allows you to monitor all of the DMX channels in your

set up. You can also switch tabs to view all the channels in just a fixture page as

well as all of the DMX Input channels if your interface supports DMX input. To

view the channels for example on the MOVING HEAD fixture page, simply click

on the MOVING HEAD tab and those channels will appear.


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To switch between a channel view and Icon view click on the square icon with a

Level indicator.

To zoom in and out to better see the fixtures click on the small magnifying glass

with the + and in the lower left hand corner of the button.

The icons for the fixtures can display the gobo icon that is being used currently

as well as the iris and dimmer and color of the current DMX data being used.

Here is an example of Icon output from the Master Page.



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Console Window:The Console window allows you to view the loaded MIDI

Map file for a MIDI controller or you may also build your own console for DMX

input using the Console Editor program. The Default console is the Behringer

BCF 2000.

There will be a more in depth overview on the Console window using a MIDI

controller later in this manual.


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Fade: The Fade scene window allows you to monitor your fade times as your

scenes playback. You can also select manual fade when assigning a fade time to

a scene and use the slider in the middle of the fade window to manually play

your fade.

More on the Scene fade window in the Creating a Scene section of this

manual.

Favorites: Favorites allows you to store your favorite scenes and switchesand even windows positions in the Favorites window.

(Picture on next page)


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There is a quick tutorial on favorites after the Creating a scene and creating a

switch sections of this manual.

External windows (Drop down menu button):The External windows

dropdown menu button contains several different functions. For example if you

accidently close or just simply your windows get all out of order or turned off.

You can click on the external windows button and select Organize windows in

tabs to reset the positions of all the windows in a tab position.

Additionally you may also use the external windows button to launch the 3D

visualizer. If you select Auto start underneath both Easy View (3D) and


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Audio that will tell the software to automatically start those programs every

time when the Compu Show program is first launched.

You can tell if auto start is selected by the Check mark box to the left of the

Auto Start text with the orange glow.

You may also use the external windows button to launch the Palette Editor,

Easy Show, Scan Library Editor and the Stand Alone Editor (Not all Compu

interfaces support Stand alone function). All these functions will be covered in

this manual except for the Console Editor; the Console Editor will have its own

manual as it is a very advanced external program that lets you make a virtual

replica of your MIDI controller should it not be in our library of midi maps as

well as design a replica of the DMX console your using as a DMX input device.


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Creating Your First Show:Creating your own show is simple, click on the

Open/Save Show button and select New.

Now enter a name for your show. In this example we will call our Show Elation

Demo. Click OK after you have entered in the name.

Now click OK. Your empty show will load on the software.


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Patching Fixtures:You must first patch in your fixtures. To patch your

fixtures go to the Page tab and select New Page.

Now the Scan Library Wizard will open and you can scroll through the folder to

select your fixture profiles.

In this example we will patch in four Elation Impression 120 rz Fixtures. So

navigate to the elation pro folder.

And locate and expand the Impression folder.


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Now select the Impression 120rz 15ch profile. Once you select it you will see the

fixtures information appear to the right of the menu.

You can scroll through the channels on the right to see which channels are what.

Also displayed at the top are the pan and tilt information and the beam angle.

Click Next.



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In this window is where you assign the starting address of the first fixture. To dothis you can simply click and drag the fixture icon into the DMX universe 1 grid.

Or you may simply select which universe and the starting address and number

of fixtures from the small drop down menus circled in the picture above. For this

example show lets patch in four of the Impression 120rzs.



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Additionally you may also open the Scan Library Editor to verify the profile is

properly made by clicking the small moving head wash icon at the bottom left of

the patch window shown below in the picture.

Now that we have our four fixtures selected, we select next. The next step is

where we can chose to modify the amplitude of the pan and tilt channels for

each one of our fixtures if we chose to do so.

To modify the amplitude of the pan and tilt channels click the Enable check box

and select one of your fixtures.



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Once you select an individual fixture you can then in the grid to the right move

the position of the pan and tilt.

In the picture show above we have centered the 1 st impression fixture. Now we

can adjust the size of the area the fixture is allowed to move in by clicking the

dotted line border around the grid. You will notice when you can move the sides

by the mouse changing from a pointer to a left-right adjust arrow.


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Now for example we will make a smaller box around the Crosshairs icon in the

center of the grid.

Now that we have adjusted the area of our first Impression fixture we must

repeat the steps for the other three. Once we are done adjusting the size we

may also select to invert pan, invert tilt, and Swap X and Y.

Please note the warning at the bottom of the window.

Once we have our settings the way we want, click next.

Now we may chose which switches the software will automatically generate on

the fixture page for us.



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In this part of the fixture patch you can select or deselect which switches the

software will create for you. For example if we didnt want any pre-generated

pan and tilt movements we can expand the Movements section and uncheck

the boxes for any or all of the movements in that section.

Now that those are unchecked if we were to generate the page like this we

would not have any generated movement switches. But we will leave the

default settings on and enable all switches to be generated to get a full

experience on this software for the purposes of this tutorial. Click next once youare done checking or unchecking switches to generate.


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This next step will allow you to edit the generated shape movements for your

fixtures.

To edit a shape simply click the Edit button to the right of the check box.

We will skip the rest of this editing process for now as it is covered in the scene

and switch creation sections of this manual. You may edit these switchesanytime after you generate the page as well. Please click cancel on the shape

editor window and then select next on the Scan Library Wizard window.



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Now you may edit the name of the page and also change the page icon to a

relevant image of your fixture.

To change the icon click on the small red circle in the picture above and a

window with a list will appear.

Select the Elation folder and find the Impression 120rz icon.

(Show on next page)


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Double click the icon to assign it as the icon for the fixture page.

You may also check the box and add the page to the master page. However you

can add or UN-add a fixture page to the master page at any time. So you do not

need to do this now.

You may also at any time add more fixtures to this fixture page in the page

settings window at any time after you generate the fixture page.

Now click and your page will generate on the software.



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You will see the page generates with a Layer active. Lets change it to the

default view by clicking the icon circled in red on the picture below and selecting

Default

(Full default view on next page)


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What exactly is a fixture page and how do you use it?

A Fixture page is the central location for the fixtures you have patched into the

software. Since normally we use more than one of the exact same product we

can have a fixture page with any number of the same fixtures but there is only

one page generated. As you can see from some of the screen shots in thismanual the fixture page contains buttons or switches for each set of DMX

values for each channel. For example you can see that there is a switch for the

colors from a color wheel or a gobo wheel and the shutter and dimmer

channels. Clicking on one of these switches will affect all of the fixtures assigned

to that one fixture page. In theory you can use a single fixture page for each one

of your fixtures however this is cumbersome and can get confusing very easily

which is why the fixture pages are grouped together in one single page per same

type of fixture. For example, say we had 8 Design Spot 250s and 10 DLED Par

Zooms. This set up will generate two pages, one for each fixture type and

product. Now lets add some other fixtures to our show file.


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For this show I will add some more movers and some RGB LED fixtures and

some traditional Par cans. Use the same method as mentioned above for

patching in fixtures.

Fixture Grouping:The first thing you should do once you have patched inall of your fixtures is create fixture groups and organize your fixtures in the

fixtures window. You will notice in the fixtures window that you have some

small square icons.

Each one of these small black squares is one of your fixtures on your fixture

page. You will notice from the picture above I have patched in more fixtures for

a total of four fixture pages. I have patched in Six Design Spot 1200Cs and Six of

the American DJ Flash Panel 16s and six Generic Par 64s from the _Generic

folder in the scan library. To make these squares bigger simply Click and drag to

highlight all the squares and right click on the squares and you will see a small

dropdown menu appear.



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Select Size and then select your size.

For this example we will select a size of 6 units for the Impression page.

Now you will notice that the squares occupy exactly six units of the background

grid in the fixtures window.


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Now you can see that the squares overlap each other. To spread them out we

can click on the icon with the four arrow heads on it. And then we can simply

click and drag each fixture square and arrange them in a line or however we

want too.

Now we will go over what each of the buttons and their functions are in the

Fixtures window.


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1) Is the Move button. Once you click on it you will be able to select any

fixture and move it around the fixture window grid.

2) Select fixture with Left click

3) Select multiple fixtures by holding down the CTRL key and left clicking over

fixtures squares.

4) Zoom In and Out of the fixture grid.

5) From left to right. Clicking on the far left icon in this section will

automatically invert the number of fixtures selected in the grid. For example

if I had fixtures 1, 3, and 5 selected in the Design spot 1200C page. Clicking

this button will automatically deselect fixtures 1, 3, and 5 and select 2, 4, and

6. The middle icon will select all of the fixtures in the grid. And the third iconwill unselect all the fixtures in the grid.

6) Will change the square to show either the icon of the fixture or to show the

state of the beam of the fixture.

7) Will display the text of the fixtures name on each fixture square.


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8) Will allow you to show the state of the Iris and gobo on the fixture square

should your fixture support those features.

9) Positions wizard. Click on this icon to bring up an external window to

manually adjust the position of every fixture square in the grid.

10) Will allow you to display only the fixtures assigned to the master page.

This will display only those fixtures at all times no matter what fixture page

youre currently working on.

Now we will go ahead and make the fixture squares for the Design Spot 1200C

page six units as well as the Par 64 page.

Now lets Link these fixture pages to the master page and crate some groups on

the master page.

You will notice your fixtures are not in the same position once you link them to

the master page and click on the master page. The reason this happens is that

you can set two different positions for your fixtures on the grid. One for the

fixture page positions and one for the Master page positions. To have your

fixture in the master page grid appear where they are on the fixture page, click

the select all button and right click and select Same Pos as Page


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Once you do that you will see your fixtures move to the same position as they

are on their fixture pages.

Now we can fine tune their positions to match how they could be set up on a

truss set up. To change the position of any fixture square, simply select the cross

with four arrowheads and adjust the position to your desired position. Or you

may now use the Positions Wizard button to open a new window and make it

full screen to adjust the positions.



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In the upper right hand corner of the positions wizard window, you will notice

you have the same magnifying glass buttons to zoom in and out of the fixture

grid. And you will also see the select all, deselect all, and invert selections

buttons. For starters lets adjust the positions of the Flash Panels to a 3x2

Matrix. First select all six of the flash panel fixture squares. Once you do this you

will notice that four new buttons have appeared in the upper right hand corner

of the screen.


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Those four buttons are:

Line will allow you to move the fixtures in a line and adjust the space

between each fixture square and allow you to adjust the line horizontally or

vertically.

Circle will move the selected fixture squares into a circle shape and also

allow you to adjust the size of the circle.

Square will allow you to move the fixture squares into a square or rectangle

shape and adjust the size.

Matrix will allow you to set a matrix layout.

For our Flash Panels we will want to select Matrix. Once we click on Matrix, aMatrix window will appear asking us the size of the matrix we would like to

use.

Now click on Advanced Positioning and you will see how the matrix will be

made in the fixture group window.


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As you can see from the picture above this would not be the ideal set up for

the Flash Panels. So lets click cancel and change the rows and columns to

2x3.

And now click Advanced positioning again and you will see the matrix that

we want to do, which is three panels across, and two panels down.

Now click settings and you will see another small window open up.


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The window above allows you to set the direction in which the matrix is

patched. For example if we selected the button with the 1 in the bottom

right corner with the arrow going up we would change how the matrix is

patched and this is what it would look like.

But lets change it back to the default patching order by going back into

Settings and clicking the first upper left button.


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And click OK. Now our patch is back to where we want it by default. You may

also click on the squares in the matrix patch and drag them to your desired

position. For example we can swap the position of numbers 2 and 5.

You can see the matrix positions will allow you to precisely position your LED

matrix to the exact positioning of how they are set up. Lets switch 2 and 5

back to their proper place and select ok.


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Now the matrix has adjusted the position of the six Flash Panels and we can

now move them to the desired position in the grid.

Now lets move the matrix underneath the four impression fixture squares.


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You can see the small black squares circled in red in the picture above.

Clicking on those will allow you to adjust the size of the matrix positions.

Clicking in the center allows you to move the whole matrix around the grid.

Now that we have our matrix position, lets go ahead and move theimpressions into a line but in between the Design spot 1200Cs. The line that

we will make now will reflect a single back truss line with an Impression in

between every two Design Spot 1200s. We will need to space out the Design

spot fixtures squares in groups of two. To do this we will need to click and

drag and select two DS1200s at a time and either drag them left or right.

Now we will place the Impression fixtures in between each set of two

DS1200s starting at the outside left and ending at the far outside right. But

first lets make the Impression squares slightly smaller than the DS1200s to

be able to easily recognize which fixtures are which in the line. Lets make

the Impressions a size of 4 units. Now we can put them in the line.

Now lets adjust the Par 64 fixtures and space them out to reflect a front

truss line.

You can see we have done this easily using the Line button at the upper

right of the positions wizard window. Now lets bring all of these squares a

bit closer together to maximize space in the Fixture window.


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Now we simply click the small X in the very top right hand of the window

to close the Positions wizard window and you will see our current Fixture

positions have been saved and applied to the fixture window.

Now we can start to make some fixture groups. Creating fixture buttons is

very easy. Simply click on the fixtures you wish to create a group for and

then click on the dark grey circle with the white plus (+) button on it.


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To name your group button, right click the button and a small menu ofoptions will appear.

Select Rename and you will see a small window appear that allows you to

type in the name.

Delete the New Group text and type in the name of your group. For this

example we will name this group Washes as the selected fixtures are the

Impression 120RZs.


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Click OK, and you will see the name of the group button change.

Now we can select any fixtures to create a fixture button for. You can create

as many fixture groups as you want.

You can see from the picture above we have created a fair amount of general

fixture groups. You can also, when selecting fixture groups, select more than

one group at a time. For example, we want just to select the Mid. S/W and

Pars Mid groups. We can do this by clicking on both groups or if we want


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more than two groups selected I can click on as many group buttons as we

like.

Now say we wanted to add some fixture to a group that is already created.

Lets add the Impressions to the LED Matrix group button since they both use

RGB color mixing. The first step is too select the LED Matrix group button.

Now with this group selected click on the impression fixture squares by

holding down CTRL while you click on the individual squares.


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Now we right click the LED Matrix button and select update.

Now you will notice that whenever you select the LED Matrix button the

Impression washes are selected as well. To remove fixtures from a group,

select the group and hold down CTRL on your keyboard and de select the

fixtures you want to remove from the fixture group and right click and select

update.


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As you can see I have removed the impressions from the LED Matrix group

button. Likewise right clicking on any of the fixture group buttons and

clicking delete will delete the selected group. The link to midi controller

option allows you to link the group button to a midi controller. Likewise the

Link to keyboard allows you to assign a hotkey keyboard trigger.

Now we have set up our master group. The grouping buttons we have just

created have saved for the master page. These buttons will only appear if the

master page is selected. For example lets click on the Impression fixture

page tab and you will notice the fixture group window will change to display

only the four impression fixture squares and their default fixture group

buttons.

If you wish to set up additional fixture group buttons for your individualfixture pages you may do so now using the same instructions as above.

However if you do not wish to set up additional groups, you may click on the

button in the fixture window next to the Positions wizard button to

display only the fixtures linked to the master page. Doing so will make each


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of the fixture group buttons as well as positions of all the fixtures re-appear

in the fixture group window and they will be locked there. They will not

disappear if you were to click on an individual fixture page.

Now that you have created your fixture groups you are ready to startprogramming your fixtures.


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Creating A Scene (Static):

Before we explain how to create a scene, you may ask, What is a scene? A

Scene is what Compu Show uses as its main source of playback. A scene can

have anything in it from a static look to a series of steps (Cues) in it.

In Compu Show there are two ways we can create a scene. The first way is

too use the buttons and switches on the fixture page to set up your position,

color, gobo, etc. And then once you have set up all your parameters from the

buttons and switches on the fixture page you can save the data to a scene or

a switch. For example lets set up a position on our Design Spot 1200C page.

First open the shutter and dimmer by clicking on the shutter open button

switch and then click on the Dimmer Intensity switch and move the dial to

the right until it is on


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100%.

Now if your fixture has a zoom or iris or focus functions also adjust their

levels.


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Now to adjust the position of the pan and tilt for your fixtures, find the X-Y

switch as circled inREDin the picture above. If you cannot find the switch as

shown in the picture above make sure youre in the Default layout option.

The layout button is located at the top of the fixture page as shown in the

picture below.



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Now that you are sure you have the correct layout and have clicked on the X-

Y Switch, the Positions window will appear.

You can see that you have a square blue box button for each of the fixtures

on the fixture page as well as a Take All button that will allow you to adjust

all the fixtures positions individually without having to click on the

corresponding fixture number box ( ). These small

blue boxes are called Take Buttons

You can also lock the window to its current position by clicking the Pin

button in the upper right of the window.

Once the window is locked the pin will change to


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Additionally you can also have the positions window minimize if the mouse

is moved to an area outside of the positions window. To have the window

minimize click on the small window button located to the right of the pin

button.

The button will change to a small blue bar when the minimize button is

active.

Now lets adjust the positions of the fixtures. Click on any of the Take

Buttons that you wish to move. Notice the crosshair in the middle has turned

red.

Now click on the red crosshair and drag it to any position on the grid and

youll notice that your fixture has been moving with the crosshair.


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Now select any other Take Buttons and adjust their positions to any desired

position. Once you have done this you will see that a border will appear

around the Take Buttons to let you know that this fixture has been selected

and positioned. Additionally you will also see the Take buttons icons appear

in the X-Y switch.

Another tip that is useful, Right click on any of the crosshairs and another

small window will appear.

This is the Take Settings window. In this window you can lock the Pan (X) or

the Tilt (Y) channel during your positioning of the fixtures to help ensure

accurate and precise positioning of your fixtures.


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You can also increase or decrease the resolution of the positions grid to

ensure more fine control while adjust the positions of your fixtures using the

Positions window and Take buttons. To lock either the Pan or Tilt of the

fixture simply click on the circle for Lock X Or Lock Y.

To adjust the resolution click on the dial and move the mouse up or down to

adjust the number of the resolution.

The higher the resolution the more quickly the mouse will move across thegrid. The lower the resolution the more slowly the mouse will move across

the grid. This function is similar to adjusting the speed of a mouse speed on a

computer. Once we are done adjusting the resolution and choosing wither to

lock the Pan or Tilt click OK on the take settings window.

Now that we have our fixtures on this page to their desired positions we can

either drag the window out of the way on the screen and lock it and

minimize it. In the picture below is an example of the Take window above

the pages tab and minimized or we can click the small x in the upper right

corner of the window to close the Take window. Clicking the x will not

change the position of your fixtures in the Take window.


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Now we can add a color from the color wheel or if our fixtures have CMY we

can make a color from the Color mixing switch. To use the color mixing

switch simply click on the switch and a small window will open.

Just like the Take window you can also lock and minimize the color mixing

window. To start mixing a color you must first click on the Color mixing all


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switches. Now drag the small rectangle at the bottom of the vertical shade

selector.

You will notice a square of color appear to the left of the color mixing all

text. This square will always show the current color that is being mixed. You

may also make the color mixing window larger or smaller by clicking the

small triangle in the bottom right corner of the window. (Circled in Red in the

picture below) If we make the window bigger we will see that we now have 3

boxes with numbers in them with the letters R G B to the left of each box.


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The numbers in the box are the DMX values of the color mixing channels on

the fixtures. The R G B stands for Red, Green, and Blue. However in this case

since the Design Spot 1200C has CMY color mixing and not RGB color mixing

systems. The values refer to the RGB DMX values of the color currently being

mixed regardless if the fixture uses CMY or not. CMY Stands for Cyan,

Magenta, and Yellow. Refer to the Glossary on page 4 of this manual for a

more in depth explanation of CMY and RGB.

Now lets adjust the color of the fixtures to blue. You can either drag the

picker to the shade of blue you want or simply for values in Red(R) and

Green (G) make those values 0 and make the value for Blue(B) 255. This is

how it will look if you have done either or of the methods mentioned above.


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Now that we have made our color click the small x in the upper right

corner of the color mixing window. Closing the window does not change the

color of the fixture. The color selected will hold until a new color is made or if

we double click on the INIT scene to blackout everything or Home our

fixtures (All DMX values at 0).

If you wish to add a gobo to the fixtures simply click on the desired gobo icon

on the fixture page.

(Shown below)


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You will notice all the buttons we have pressed on the fixture page have a

darker background than the main background color. This is to signify that

there is a button active on that switch type. Also the button selected will

have a white square border around it to let us know exactly which button is

active on that section of switches.

Now that we have all of our fixtures parameters exactly how we would like

we can now save this as a scene. First go to the button tab at the top of the

Compu show window and select New Scene.


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You will notice that as soon as you click the New Scene button a window

will appear with several options.

First thing you may notice is that we can enter a different name for the scene

other than the default name of Scene. For now we will leave the name as

its default name. Now notice that there is an option to make the scene

empty. Clicking this will generate a blank scene with no DMX data in it. So

leave that unchecked. What we want to do to ensure our DMX data is

recorded from all the buttons and switches we just modified, is too make

sure the small circle is filled next to the As you see now circle. Additionally

you can unselect include the current scene: INIT as we dont need to

include the INIT DMX values as we have made modifications to the fixtures

parameters. We will want to make sure the Include the activated switches

check box is checked and below that you will see a list of all the activated

switches. We can uncheck individual switches by unchecking the check box

to the right of each switch. By default all the switches are checked to record

into the scene. Lets leave it at its default setting and click ok.


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As you can see above we have a new scene button generated below the INIT

scene. If successful this scene should have all the parameters we have justadjusted using the buttons and switches and color mix and X-Y windows. This

is called creating a scene from the fixture page. Now we will go over how to

create a scene from an empty or blank scene button.


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Creating a Scene Part Two:

To create a blank or empty Scene that you wish to create using the Button

Editor, click the INIT Scene on the fixture page you wish to program to

ensure no switches or other buttons are active. Now go to the Button tab atthe top of the window and select New Scene.

Now you will notice the same window appeared as when we saved our

previous scene, but this time we are creating the scene on the Impression

120RZ page and we are creating a blank or empty scene.

Make sure that you have selected Empty and then choose a name for your

Scene. In this example we will use the default name of Scene and once you

have done those steps click the OK+Edit button. Now our Button Editor will

open.


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Youll notice that the button editor is in Basic view click the basic view

button and the rest of the button editor options will appear and the layout

will change.


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You will notice eight buttons appear to the right of the Control section. These

buttons and their functions are briefly described below.

Fixtures window:

The fixtures window is the exact same window as the one from the main

Compu Show page. It will display your fixtures on the grid allowing you to

quickly access the fixtures channels. Note that you cannot create new fixture

groups inside the button editor. This is only allowed in the main program

window.

Channels window:


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The channels window will give you access to the individual channel faders of

the fixtures youre programming. There are two tabs in the channel window.

All or (Name of the fixture page) In this example since we are using the

impression 120 RZ the name is displayed in this second tab. The all Tab will

allow you to scroll through all the channels of the fixture page.

In the picture above youll notice that the channels window all tab will tell

you which fixture number youre editing. You will also notice that it displays

the channel number of the fixture your programming. This makes it easy to

remember which fixture your programming. Also you can scroll Left or rightto access more fixtures.



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Preset Window:

The Preset window contains several tabs that summarize all the various

effect types from any given fixture.

Position gives you a grid similar to that of the X-Y grid found on the

fixture page. More so the same Take settings window is also available here

as well.

Intensity will give you faders and buttons for the shutter channel of a

fixture.


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Color tab allows you to select a color from the color wheel or mix colors

using the color picker for RGB and CMY. If the fixture does not have a color

nothing will appear in this tab.

Gobo tab will display all of the gobo buttons as well as buttons for gobo

rotation and index with faders to fine adjust the DMX level of the Index or

rotation of the gobos. As the Impression 120RZ is a wash fixture it has no

gobos so this tab will be empty when programming these types of fixtures.

Beam tab will allow you to adjust the effects of the beam if the fixture

supports. Common types of DMX channels that appear here will be Zoom,

Iris, focus, Frost, Etc.



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Effect tab will give you access to all the rest of your channels like Pan and

Tilt Speed, CMY Speed, Color Temperature filters, Reset Commands, etc.

The Palette, Easy Step, Easy time, and DMX input will be explained later on

as we have use for them.

Undo: The Undo window records every fader or preset change as a step in

the Undo window and incase a mistake is made, allows you to go back to a

reference point and allows you to continue to do more forward from before

the mistake was made rather than going and changing all the DMX values.

For example take a look at the picture below.


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You can see that the pan and tilt channels have been modified as well as the

intensity and color channels. If we wanted to start over from nothing instead

of going through all the channels and bringing them down to zero value, we

can simply click on the Reference and instantly go back to where we

began. You can start making additional changes at any reference (modif

channel(s) Level) point. You will see in the picture below we have clicked on

the Reference top line and all the channels have gone back to 0 value.

Now that we have gone through all the windows in the button editor that we

are about to or could use lets start programming our scene.

Say we wanted to adjust our Impression fixtures to center which is pan andtilt at value 127 and make fixtures 1 and 2 yellow and fixtures 3 and 4 purple.

To do this we need to first go to the fixtures window and select fixtures 1 and

2 by clicking outside of the fixtures icons on the grid and selecting both of

them.


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Now go over to the preset window and turn on the shutter and dimmer

channels to get light output.

Now go to the color tab and use the color picker to select the shade of

Yellow we want to use.

Now go back to the fixtures window and select the other 2 impression

fixtures.


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Now go back to the intensity tab and open the shutter and turn the dimmer

channel to DMX value 255 as we did previously for the 1st two impression

fixtures.

Now go to the color tab and make a shade of purple.

Youll notice if you move the shade intensity you can adjust the precise

shade of the color youre mixing.


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Now lets go back to the fixtures window and select all of our 4 impressions.

Now go back to the Position Tab and drag the red crosshair to the center of

the grid. Youll notice all of the impression fixtures are moving to the same

pan and tilt commands.

Feel free to use the take settings to finely adjust the exact position of the

fixtures. Also you will notice on the channels window your pan and tilt faders

color have gone from inactive (white) to active (dark grey). This means you

can click on the fader and adjust it manually if you wish to do so.

Notice circled in Red on the Position grid in the upper left is the values for

pan and tilt. The 0 above represents the value of the fine channel should

your fixture have a fine (16bit) pan and tilt function.

Lastly we will go to the beam tab and adjust the level of zoom for our

fixtures.



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We have adjusted the zoom level to value 127.

Now we can save our scene by going to the top of the editor window and

clicking on the Save button.

Too exit the editor click on the x in the upper far right hand corner of the

editor window. Once you do this a window will appear asking you, Do you

wish to save changes? click the Yes button.

Now you have created a Scene using the button editor.


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Above is a picture of how it should look on the fixture window and on thefixture page.


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Creating a Scene using Easy Time Effects:

Creating a scene using the Easy time effects timeline will allow you to

generate complex effects such as pan and tilt movements/sweeps as well as

dimmer waves and color chase effects. To start off lets go to our Design Spot1200C page and create a blank scene.

Select Empty then click OK+Edit. Now your Scene editor will open. Select

all Six of the DS1200cs.


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If you look at the Design spot 1200C tab in the channels window you will

notice above each fader is a square with a Red off icon in it.

These tell you that the channel is currently set to off. This section above the

faders allows you to link individual channels to different functions in the


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editor. Since we want to create Easy Time effects we want to link channels

to easy time. For example lets link the pan and tilt channels to easy time.

The easy time button is the fifth button down from the red off button in the

left hand side of the channels window.

To link channels to Easy Time simply click the button and hold down the CTRL

key and drag it over to the channel square where currently the red off icon is.

Another option for linking channels to Easy time is too right click where the

red off icon is and a small menu will appear.


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Once the menu appears in this example select Easy Time. Now notice

below in the Easy time window your fixtures are listed on a timeline.

You may notice that each one of your fixtures is listed individually. This is

because we can create an effect for just one or a combination or all of our

fixtures that are linked to Easy time. Lets go ahead and compress the

fixtures into one block as we will want to create a shape movement with all

of our fixtures. To compress our fixture click here (shown below)


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And you will notice all of our fixtures have been neatly compressed into one

timeline.

Now to the left of the timeline we have a small window with effects listed.

Each one of these effects can be dragged over to the timeline and then

edited to create the effect type. Since we have linked our pan and tilt


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channels to Easy time lets grab the Pan Tilt effect and link it to our pan

and tilt channels.

As the picture above says click on the Pan Tilt effect and drag and drop it

onto the timeline as shown in the picture above.

Once you let go of the mouse button a pop up window will appear and ask

you do you want to create a block on the associated channel Select yes. A

window will appear and that is your Pan/Tilt effect generator.



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You will notice five different effects you can generate, Circle, Polygon,

Random Points, Lines, and Curves. In this example lets create a circle. Click

on the small circle next to Automatic Circle. A small window will appear

and ask you how many points do you wish to have in the circle.

The default number is four points. Lets change that to eight. The reason we

change it too eight points is that, the more points you have the smoother the

circle movement will be. This is also useful if your fixtures do not have 16bit


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Pan and Tilt motors (no fine Pan and tilt channels). Click in the box where the

number 4 is and delete it and type in the number 8.

Now click OK.

Now you notice that a large circle has appeared in the grid in the effects

generator window. The circle also has a red square around it.

If you move your mouse to any of the red corners or lines you will notice that

you can drag your mouse to adjust the size of the circle. As well as move theentire shape around the grid.



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Lets make the circle fit into the size of the lower right square of the grid.


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Now we can change the starting point of the circle by simply right clicking in

the grid and dragging the Red dot to the point in the circle we want the

sequence to start at.

If we should choose to do so we can also move individual points in the circle

by clicking the select button at the top left of the window.

Clicking on a point in the shape with Select active and either drag the point

to a new position with the mouse or use the pan and tilt faders to the right.

We may also add or remove a point to the shape if we wish. Too add a point

click on the blue cross button.


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And then drag the mouse to a point on the grid that you would like to add a

point too.

Then left click and your new point will be added.

Now you may go back and click on the Select and move this point to the

desired position or again, use the pan and tilt faders to the right.

To delete a point click the Red X button

And then go over to the point in the grid you wish to delete and click on it.



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Once you delete the point the shape will go back to its shape as it was before

the point was added.

You can also adjust which direction the shape plays back by clicking either of

the white arrows to the right of the delete button.

To preview the movement at any time simply click on the play button to

preview the shape.

The line with the small grey dot moving across it is to display where in the

sequence the shape is playing.

We can even open the shutters and dimmers to preview the movement with

light output from the fixtures by clicking the shutter open white circle.


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We can arrange the fixtures order of the playback by clicking the icon to the

right of the shutter open icon.

The Rearrange tool is useful for rearranging the order in which the sequence

plays back. For example say these 6 spots were patched left to right but on

the truss the fixtures are reversed. So the sequence we are generating would

be backwards. With this rearrange function we can invert the positioning

of the DMX output of the shape. To do this you can simply click on the text of

the fixture, for example, Design spot1200 C 26CH 1. We can click on this

and drag it to where fixture number 6 is.


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Then drag fixture number 2 to where fixture 5 is, and fixture 3 to where

fixture 4 is, etc. And now our list should look like this.

Now if you hit the play button the fixtures will now play reversed rather than

in numerical order. For example before the fixtures order was 1-6. But now

the order will be from 6-1. Now that we have adjusted the order to our liking

(it is not required to adjust the order to generate an Easy Time shape) we can

click ok and our arrangement of fixtures will be saved.

Phasing can be adjusted by clicking on the dial as shown in the picture and

then dragging the mouse up or down. The higher the number of phasing the

more offset each fixture will be to the next one in the movement of the pan

and tilt channels.


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Shown in the picture above, interval time can be modified by clicking on the

small up or down arrows for each section of time. The times that can be

adjusted are, Minutes, Seconds, and 4/100s of a second. Adjusting the time

will reflect on the total time it takes for one cycle through the shape

movement. The total time is shown just above the interval time.

Now that we have our shape set just the way we would like we can click OK

and our shape will now generate on the timeline.

Notice that by default the software sets the time of the sequence to 4seconds. We can adjust this by clicking on the ends of the block and dragging

them.

Making the blocks shorter will increase the speed of the sequence and

making it longer will decrease the speed of the sequence. To view more time

in the time line simply click on the button as shown in the picture below and

drag it left or right.



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Now you can drag the blocks to any length of time up to almost any desiredtime amount.

It is also possible to have the sequence be triggered by music tempo

synchronization as well as selecting 1, 2, or 4 parts tempo. More audio

functions will be covered in this manual later.

To preview the playback of the sequence click the play button as shown in

the upper left of the picture above. Click the play button and you will notice

the faders will begin to move in the channels tab for pan and tilt and the

shape will be drawn on the grid in the position grid in the preset window.


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Now we can program other functions that we would like the lights to be

doing. So lets link the CMY channels also to Easy Time and create a color

effect. So once again click and drag the Easy Time button and hold CTRL and

drag it across the CMY channels of the fixtures. Be sure to select either all the

fixtures or only the ones you wish to create a color effect on.

Also instead of dragging the easy time button you can simply Right click thesmall square where the red off icon is and select which function to link the

channel too.


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Once again compress the fixtures into one section for CMY as shown below.

Open the shutter and dimmer if not already open in the preset window.

Now in the effects window click the color effect icon and drag it to the CMY

timeline.

Once again the software will ask if you wish to create a block on the

associated channel. Select Yes.


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This is the color effect window. Notice an Effect section with a drop down

menu.

This list contains the name of all the different effects you can generate and

modify.

Rainbow, allows you to create a scrolling rainbow effect with up to 10 colors

of your choice by mixing colors using the color picker to the right and theshade selector.

(Rainbow example shown on next page)


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We can see the effect playback on the fixture in the fixtures window by

clicking the play button. Adjusting the size knob will allow you to adjust the

size of the rainbow. For example if the size was set to one the entire

spectrum of the rainbow will play entirely in each individual fixture and then

move to the next whereas if the size was set to six in this case the effect

would be spread out across all six fixtures. Speed, adjusts how fast the

sequence plays back. Clicking on the arrows will change the direction of the

sequence.

(Continued on the next page)


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Knight Rider (Shown Above), allows you to choose between only two colors

and does a Scroll forwards and backwards type of effect across the selected

fixtures in the sequence. The first color selected is the base color and the

second is the color that will bounce forwards and backwards. To change the

colors click the small colored square and then select your new color from the

color picker on the right. Likewise the size and the speed knobs adjust the

relevant parameter of the effect.

Square Wave, Also only allows for only two colors to be effected. The square

wave is similar to a sine wave but instead of a fade it merely snaps between

the two colors in either left to right or right to left depending on which white

arrow at the top left of the color window is selected. Adjusting the size for

this effect will set the number for how many fixtures display the second

color. For example in the picture below the size was set to the number two.

(Shown on the next page)


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The Speed knob, adjusts the speed of the sequence.

Sinus Wave, will allow you to do almost the same effect as the Square wave

but it applies a cross fade between the colors rather than a snap. The

attributes for size, speed, and number of colors as well as direction from the

Square wave apply to this Sinus wave effect too.


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Random, Will randomly apply any number of colors between one and ten.

The best way to discover the random effect is too experiment with the size

and speed as well as the number of colors.

Effect 1 is best used with only one or two colors but up to 10 can be selected.

In this example we will only use one color. Effect 1 starts at the center of the

fixtures and chases outward and then back in to the center going from the

selected color to black.


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Effect 2, will allow you to set up static colors and then apply a chase to

blackout effect. In this example since we have six fixtures we have selected

number of colors six and we have made every other fixture white and every

other fixture after that blue. Effect 2 will hold the colors to the fixtures but

after one cycle of the colors it will do a blackout chase.

Effect 3, will apply the same effect as effect 1 but instead of the chase to

black the center fixtures will always hold the color and not go to black.


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Now lets go back to the rainbow effect and move the number knob to seven

and the speed to three and the size to one and generate that rainbow by

clicking on OK.

Now notice you have a timeline sequence generated for the CMY channels.

You can also stretch out the block to any desired time or adjust it to the

same time as the pan and tilt effect sequence that way both will loop at the

same point in time of the timeline.


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Notice the picture above the pan and tilt sequence and the CMY Rainbow

sequence are both stretched to the six second mark on the time line. This will

allow both sequences to be in synch with each other however you can

shorten or lengthen either sequence. Lets save this as a scene by clicking

Save in the top left corner of the editor window. Now click the X in the

top right and a window will appear asking you if you wish to save changes.

Select Yes.



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Now lets create another blank scene.

Now select all your fixtures. And link the dimmer channel to the Easy Time

function.

Now compress your fixtures into one timeline.



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Click the compression button until your timeline appears like the picture

below.

Now select the Curve effect and drag it to the timeline.

Now a window will appear and will ask you if you wish to use the channel or

a specific preset. Since the dimmer channel is one entire preset we will leave

it as channel. (Shown below)


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Click ok and now the curve effect editor window will appear.

You will notice there are seven different types of curves we can use. For

example lets use the Sinus effect. Click the circle next to it and you will

notice the sinus wave will appear in the settings graph window.


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There are five different parameters you can modify for any one of these

curve effects, Amplitude, Phase, Ratio, Offset, and Phasing.

Amplitude will allow you to set in DMX values 0-255 the maximum DMX

value for the wave. For example if we take the Sinus wave and adjust theAmplitude to 127 this will make the dimmer intensity have a maximum DMX

value of 127.

Phase will allow you to set a point in the wave for the sequence to start and

end. For example lets adjust the Phase of the sinus wave to 9 and you will

notice the wave will now start at the maximum value and then go to the

lowest value and then back to the maximum and repeat.

Now if you put the Phase back to 0 you will see the difference between the

two.



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Ratio will allow you to increase the frequency of the selected curve. For

example we will set the ration to 14 and you will notice it increases the

frequency of the effect.

Offset will allow you to keep the size of the curve effect but move it up ordown in intensity. For example saw we wanted to have this curve effect be in

the upper value range of the dimmer channel, we would have to adjust the

offset to 190.



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You will see the red line in the picture above is at the maximum height of the

wave. Any effect over this line will result in DMX value 255 or in this case

dimmer intensity to max.

Phasing will offset the effect to create a scrolling type effect across the

fixtures. Phasing numbers 0-49 are from left to right. Number 50 is every

other. 51-99 is from right to left. For example here are pictures of the

phasing set to numbers 10, 20, 50, 75, 95,


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You can see from the pictures above how the different phasing numbers

affects the playback sequence across the fixtures. Lets Leave Phasing at 95,

Amplitude at 127, Phase at 0, Ratio at 15, Offset at 195 and click OK to

generate the sequence to the timeline. We will leave the curve effect as it is

generated by default on the timeline for a length of 4 seconds. Lets not

forget to adjust the pan and tilt position of the fixtures before saving the

scene.



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Now click on and then close the editor window and select Yes for do

you wish to save changes.

Now for this ne

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