Strand Lighting Light Palette Classic, Light Palette Live, Palette OS v10, Light Palette VL User Manual

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Page 1

Page 2

Palette OS v10

Concepts and Overview

Feature Overview

About Palette

System Capacities

Universal Attribute Control Model

Definition

Conclusion

Tracking

A Note on Redundant Data

Timing

Multiple Cue List Concept

Fade Resolution

HTP vs LTP

Priorities

Tips and Tricks

Screen Layout

Toolbars

Channel Grid

Channel's different states

Attribute Grid

File Menu

Display Menu

Help Menu

Softkeys

Status Window

Look Pages

Macro Buttons

View Properties

Remote Video

Screen Layout

Console Buttons

Display Keys

Live Button

Blind Button

Patch Button

Playback Keys

DBO Button

Go Button

Goto Cue Button

Select Button

100

Halt Back Button

101

Step Cue Buttons

102

Release Playback Button

103

Recording Keys

104

Record Button

104

Update Button

105

Cue Button

106

Table of Contents

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Group Button

107

Look Button

108

Action Keys

109

Arrow Buttons

109

Delete Button

110

Edit Button

111

Load Button

112

Move / Copy Button

113

Tools Button

114

View Button

115

Main Keys

116

Additional 10-Key buttons

116

Next Button

117

Number Buttons

118

Release Button

119

Rem-Dim Button

120

Shift Button

121

Soft Keys

122

Up Button

123

Programming and Viewing Fixtures

124

Fixture Colors and Symbols

124

Command Line Syntax

128

Fixture Title

135

Captured Attributes

136

Selecting and Setting Channels

137

Using the Mouse to Select Channels and Set Levels

140

Controlling Moving Lights

142

Controlling Colour

149

Independent Timing

151

Effects

157

Release

164

Select Softkeys

166

Recording and Editing Cues

169

Recording Cues

169

Record Options

174

Updating Cues

179

Load

183

Blind

187

Edits Track Forward

190

Track Sheets

191

Move In Black

193

Cue Lists

196

Cue List Directory

196

Cue List

198

Cue List Properties

201

Cue List Pointer

204

Autoscroll Cue List

205

Blue Box

206

Profiles

211

Releasing & Asserting Cue Lists

217

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Step Forward and Back

218

Cue Numbering Scheme

219

Renumber Cues

220

Blocking and Unblocking of cues

222

Cue Properties

225

Deleting Cues

228

Goto Cue

230

Follow Cues

232

Linking Cues

234

Playback Loops

236

Action on GO within Cue Loop

238

Part Cues

240

SMPTE Timecode on Cue Lists

243

Recording and Using Looks and Groups

247

Looks

247

Sub Master Types

250

Recording Looks

252

Busking

256

Recording and Using Groups

258

Apply Levels/Palettes

259

Patching

261

Patch

261

Patch By Channel/Fixture

263

Patch By Output

267

Patch Routing

269

Capturing Outputs

272

Scrollers

273

Individual Attributes

275

Tools

277

Tools

277

SMPTE Learn Mode

279

Flip

280

Fanning

281

Highlight/Lowlight

284

Rem Dim

285

Colour Picker

286

Channel Check

288

Flash Fixture or Output

290

General Information

291

General Show Options

291

Default Cue List Options

293

Venue Setup/Location

296

Show Save Options

298

Move/Copy

301

ShowNet

307

Pathport

310

One to One Patch

312

Power Patch

313

Printing

315

Hardware Setup

317

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Hardware Setup Dialog Box

317

Priorities

318

A/B C/D

319

Grand Master and Black Out Button

323

Button Array

326

Button Array Described

328

Triggers

332

Trigger Wiring

333

Console

334

MIDI / SMPTE Interface

337

Remote Focus Unit

338

Macros & Show Control

340

Macro Editor & Commands

340

Macro Editor & Scripts

343

User Interface Macros

349

Variables, Button Stations & MIDI Notes

351

Vision Net

354

Time Events

358

Browser Control

363

Media Player Control

367

PowerPoint Automation

368

Serial Out Macros

371

Telnet and Serial Communications

373

MIDI Show Control

374

Palette Control Panel

376

Palette Control Panel

376

Upgrading Palette Software

378

Console Group

379

Launch Palette Button

379

Hardware Test

380

Release Notes

382

System Group

384

Date Time & Input Language

384

Screen Resolution

389

ELO Touch Screens

397

On-Screen Keyboard

399

Mouse

400

Keyboard

403

Accessibility

404

Network

405

MonitorPower

410

Network Printers

412

Shutdown

414

Applications Group

415

Explorer

415

MediaPlayer

417

Internet Explorer

420

Outlook Express

421

Notepad

422

Paint

423

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Additional Applications

424

System Up Time

425

Backup, Support and Contact Information

426

Tracking Backup

426

Recovery & Enable Outputs

428

Recalibrating, Striking and Dousing Fixtures

430

Software Revision History

431

Console Connections

433

Palette

433

Light Palette

436

Rack Palette

439

Appendix

442

License

442

Offices and Service Centres

444

Keyboard Shortcuts

445

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Date:

August 2008

Engine Version:

v10.4.1

User Interface Version:

v10.4.1

Concepts and Overview

Welcome Page

Congratulations on the purchase of your Strand Lighting Palette Lighting Control Console. For general help, use the Contents, Index or Search tab on the left. Check out the Software Revision History Palette is a powerful, yet easy to program and operate theatrical control system that truly does

marry dimming and automated control like no other desk. The key is in the software design, using a Graphical User Interface, together with a control surface that gives you all the direct access that you have come to expect from a professional lighting console. The core fade engine works on the Last-Action philosophy, meaning levels and attributes stay put until another control moves them, freeing you from recording all channels in all cues. This lends itself nicely to the multiple cue list environment that Palette also boasts. Below are links to full-fledged help topics that describe some of the keys features that make Palette a very powerful desk:

Universal Attribute Control Model

thinking about controlling moving lights. It frees the designer from the crazy world of DMX charts and lets you think of the lights in your rig as tools to aid you in your design.

Adding Effects with Palette is as easy and convenient as making a gobo rotate

clockwise. Effects can be added to any attribute or attribute family and from that point onward in the show, the param eters of the effect track, just like any other attribute value.

Busking - With Palette's unique approach to storing entire looks, rather than just

levels, the slider panels become incredibly flexible tools to busk shows live. The setup and operation is far faster than other desks and core fade engine allows you to build up extremely complex looks and then tear them back down to their primitives in any order.

Move In Black - Never again worry about manually marking your m oving lights so you

don't see unwanted live moves on stage as cues come up without being limited to global parameter tim ing. Each cue possess its own MIB timing as well as MIB Suppression.

Timing parameters are extremely flexible, from individual attribute family's wait, fade

- Horizon Control's UAC is a whole new way of

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and profile settings for every cue, to traditional cue part architecture and extending into the very powerful Independent Timing of every attribute in every cue.

Updating Cues - It couldn't be made easier: Just press [UPDT] and Palette presents

you with a list of possible items to update given your most recent changes, including the current cue, palettes used in the current cue, track-back cues or Looks that are being controlled by slider panels.

Track Sheets - Examining what is going on in your show during editing sessions can

sometimes be very tedious. Palette's Track Sheets give you a clear idea of what is moving when (intensities or attributes) and even tells you when it moved last.

Safety Net Features - Tracking Backup, Mirrored Saves, Checkpoint Files and Recovery

allow you to program and operate your show in a worry free environment.

Tip of the Day

By default, the Tip Of The Day is turned on when you start up Palette. You can scroll through tips by pressing the [S2] key on the desk and close the tip by either pressing [ENTER] or [UNDO]. It is tempting to turn it off, but keep in mind that these brief tips were written to point out some of the more subtle features Palette has to offer. You would have to do a lot of reading of the on-line help or printed manual to get these hints.

You can read tips anytime by selecting Tip of the Day from the main Help menu.

On-Line Help

Why read the manual when it is all on-line. Every dialog box has context sensitive help by just pressing the [HELP] button. Press [HELP] then any other button to get a description of its uses. Press [HELP] twice to get the full help contents. The on-line help has advantage over the printed manual as the hyperlinks allow you to jump around very quickly from topic to topic.

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The full and up-to-date m anual is also available on-line at www.strandlighting.com

Palette Control Panel

When you are running the main software and no moving lights are selected, you can press [S4] to reach the processor’s Control Panel. The Control Panel gives you access to general functions like changing the date and time, adjusting how the trackpad works and setting up your network connections. Palette comes loaded with useful software like Notepad, Internet Explorer and MS Media Player. Listen to MP3s or CD while you work. You can also launch a hardware test to make sure all your buttons, LEDs and sliders are working properly from the Control Panel.

Getting Technical Support

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For technical support, please refer to the Strand Lighting Offices and Service Centres

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About Palette

Two basic styles of lighting consoles have evolved since computerized consoles were introduced in the early 1970s. These two styles can best be described as “tracking “preset”.

Preset consoles record cues the way manual preset consoles do. On a manual preset console, the user sets up a look on an active set of faders, then sets up the next look on an inactive set of faders, and then uses cross-faders to fade from one look to the next. In a computerized preset console, these looks are saved as cues, but each channel needs to be told what to do in each cue, and cue execution can only crossfade from one cue to another.

With a tracking console, when a cue brings a channel to a level, that channel stays at that level until it receives a specific instruction to change levels. This level then tracks through all subsequent cues until the level is increased or decreased by another cue. Tracking consoles are capable of much more sophisticated and complicated effects than Preset consoles because of their ability to have more than one fade executing at the same time.

” and

Where does Palette fit in?

Palette is a tracking console.

Palette offers the techniques of tracking consoles in an easy-to-learn environment.

The Timing options in Palette are extremely flexible and easy to use. The interface for

changing simple tim es is as easy to use as a spreadsheet individual attribute family's wait, fade and profile settings has a traditional cue part keystrokes necessary to maintain these typically com plex cues. In very demanding programming environments, Palette extends timing options with the very powerful

Independent Timing

Palette deals with moving lights using Horizon Control's Universal Attribute Control

Model. This means that regardless of who manufactured the moving light and what

protocol it is using, it is presented to the user the same way. Cues are stored using descriptions like "Blue", "3 RPM" and "11 Hz". This means that not only can you copy attributes from one type of fixture in your rig to another with predictable results, you can also swap your entire rig out for another and not have to re-program your cues.

Palette uses a “Graphical User Interface” and replaces the hidden command structure

of the DOS-based tracking consoles with modern computer interfaces like menus and dialog boxes. It can easily be understood and programmed by any computer-literate operator. Since each dialog box control has a softkey tied to the mouse. Pure keystroke syntax is not only possible, but quite often quicker than competing consoles. On the flip side, there is no need to mem orize a strict syntax as the softkeys are always narrowing your choices to less than a dozen option. You can read the dialog box from top to bottom like a book and quickly find the options you are looking for, even resorting to the mouse if that suites you. Palette will never beep at you and expect you to fix the command line.

Because Palette's design leverages on consumer based technology (such as readily

available operating systems, USB interfaces and Pentium® Processors) it allows lower budget theatres with operators who are not full time employees to have the

implem entation that greatly reduces the number of

of every attribute in every cue.

and allows adjustment on

for every cue. Palette also

accelerator, your hands are not

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sophistication that has previously been reserved for only the biggest of professional theatres using specialized and dedicated equipment.

Since a standard operating system is used and the hardware interfaces with USB, you

already have your backup desk. In fact, you probably have over a dozen of them in your facility.

The software is designed, written and owned by Horizon Control Inc.

See Also:

Universal Attribute Control Tracking Edits Track Forward Blocking and Unblocking of cues License

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Output Devices

32,768 (1024 on physical console without external output devices)

Control Channels

No reasonable limit - determined by amount purchased

Cues

Unlimited

Cue Lists

Unlimited

Looks

Unlimited

Looks per page

Unlimited

Look Pages

Unlimited

Simultaneous Fades

Unlimited

Priorities

100 different priorities available for every Cue List and Sub Master

Macro Buttons

12 pageable virtual

Remote Video

Five connections via XP machine on LAN running PalettePC software

Portable Remote Focus Unit

Optional

Tracking Backup

Yes

Crash Recovery

Yes

ILS Architectural Button Stations

Optional with ILS Interface card

Browser Control

On local or networked Internet browsers

Show Control Programming

Full programming language using Macro Scripts and the Lua language

SMPTE/MIDI Interface

Optional

Serial Out

Macros available to output RS232 comm ands

External Trigger Events

2 triggers on Palette hardware or ILS buttons stations or contact closures

Telnet and Serial session

16 Com ports and multiple telnet session available

System Capacities

The Palette system capacities outlined below represent the upper range of capacities the program can support.

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Astronomical & Time Event Clock

Yes

"No reasonable limit" means that the limit is determined the processor and RAM on the system.

See Also:

About Palette

-o-

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The Universal Attribute Control Model by Horizon Control Inc.

"Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art." - Richard Holloway

Communication and the expression of ideas is central to the art of lighting. Creating great lighting is a team effort lead by the designer. The language a designer uses to communicate with the team, and specifically the console programmer, is crucial to the process of creating the art. The programmer, in turn, must then train the console in order to orchestrate the lights to ultimately relay the intent of the designer to the audience. There is ample opportunity in this process for misinterpretations to muddy the waters of communication. More recently, and at a furious pace, moving lights have entered the theatre and the multitude of options they provide has only complicated this process amplifying the opportunity for 'miscue' of intent.

Not surprisingly, there has been an increasing necessity to simplify the process of moving light control. Unlike the hard and fast rules that have existed for decades, a uniform language for designers and programmers to use for describing moving light behaviors has been non-existent. Moreover, the method used to communicate to lights has never been standardized. The pioneering manufacturers of automated lighting equipment each implem ented different philosophies of control. More recently, generic moving light console manufacturers have had issues with just covering the bases. It has been a challenge for some to turn the lights on and make them move about. In all respects, these consoles were merely outputting numbers, sometim es m asqueraded by words to get the job done. Now that automated lighting is no longer in its infancy, it is time for a fresh new approach on intelligent lighting control. Horizon Control has risen to that challenge and this document will explain how we have achieved that goal with our Universal Attribute Control Model.

See Also:

Controlling Moving Lights

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Definition

The heart of this technology is our Universal Attribute Control Model or UAC for short. It is our method of standardizing the language of communication with respect to intelligent lighting control.

Elevating the means of control to an higher layer allows designers to once again think of their lighting fixtures as merely tools available to get the job done. As the theatre embraced moving light fixtures, it reluctantly accepted all of the idiosyncratic methods needed to control them. The designers found themselves constantly adapting to the language imposed on them by the manufacturer. Gone were the days of simply asking for lights and photons would land on the stage.

Lets go back to the advent of computer controlled lighting to examine the issues that plagued communication in the theatre. Before computers entered the theatre, the most popular dimmer controllers were known as road-boards. These large devices had individual handles for each dimmer and designers would ask operators to move a handle to a position to set the light level. These 'move' instructions were written down as cues and with each one executed in succession you had a show. The advantage of this system (which was only realized fully after the obsolescence of road-boards) was that each move could be controlled at different rates and multiple moves could be executed simultaneously by different operators.

Computer control first appeared on Broadway in 1975 when Tharon Musser used the Electronics Diversified LS-8 console on A Chorus Line. This new technology allowed for unprecedented repeatability and a huge number of cues executed in record time. As processing power was very limited, decisions had to be made on how to execute these fades. The technology and code development tools of the day dictated that each channel would be recorded in each cue. This greatly simplified the process of playing back a show, or more specifically, jumping from scene to scene during rehearsals. Remem ber, in the old days of road-boards, getting to any place at random in the show almost always meant starting from the beginning and executing each cue to ensure accuracy. LS-8 and others could do this with ease. Kliegl quickly followed with the Performance and Strand with Multi-Q and Broadway converted to computer control seemingly overnight. People were blown away with the apparent new flexibility that these computers offered.

These early computer control systems did not emulate road-boards, but rather manual preset boards. What designers eventually figured out, given a bit of experience on these consoles, was that they could not achieve the complex cue timing that two or three road-board operators did in the past. As these preset consoles recorded every channel in every cue, they only moved from state to state. This resulted in robotic or non-organic fades. It was only when Strand introduced the Light Palette that the technological problem that plagued these fundamental concepts was realized on a computer (in North America at least).

People everywhere (and since) have praised Light Palette for marrying designer's desires and computer control by using a common language. Almost every controller that has been accepted on Broadway since has used core concepts introduced by Light Palette. With the advent of intelligent lighting, so many more param eters have entered the equation that the language conventions that have evolved are discordant and technologically inadequate. The language must be overhauled. Conventional lighting control just worked in 2-space; Intensity and Time. That is not so with moving light control. There are many many more parameters. Moving light control has long suffered from the lack of this common language that designers and programmers and manufacturers could use. To date, intelligent lighting control has only stumbled along, managing to keep up with an evolving technology and never experienced the

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sort of watershed event that occurred in the industry with the introduction of Light Palette. The problem was compounded by that fact that industry leaders were extremely protective of their intellectual property. There was no sharing of control protocols between lights and controllers. Each manufacturer vigorously protected the methods they used to control their fixtures and automated systems were sole-source. Only recently has the industry evolved to the point where most believe that inter-operability is a good thing.

Horizon Control Inc. (HCI) is at the very leading edge of this new paradigm of lighting control. For years now HCI has had members sitting on ESTA's Control Protocols Working Group and we are actively involved in the development of new protocols such as ACN (ANSI E1.17). Horizon Control pulls from over a decade of experience writing lighting control software and members of the development team were pivotal in the evolution of computer visualization software. People on our staff have worked on some of the largest shows ever mounted with virtually every make and model of popular lighting control systems. Our desire to simplify and revolutionize the fundamental methods that are used to control lighting is deep rooted in our collective years of experience.

The result is one of the most highly effective developments of a technology that we call 'Universal Attribute Control'. The descriptions and examples in this document are taken from the implementation of our ' Universal Attribute Control' as used by the Palette Lighting Console.

Background

The earliest forms of computer control, though digital at their core, output an analog signal between 0 and 10v. This in turn controlled the lights from no output to full intensity. Inside the console, these numbers were generally stored using 8-bit bytes, giving 256 steps of resolution. With the advent of moving light systems, the resolution was doubled to 16-bit, providing 65536 steps of resolution. Computers then calculated fades that produced a one-to-one relationship between the 65,000 steps directly to motors that moved the light from, say, pan-stop to pan-stop. This concept persisted for years and, given a specific controller tied to a specific lighting system, pre-programmed shows were reproduced faithfully night after night.

The downfall of this method of control is that these numbers ([0-10], [0-255] or [0-65535]) mean very little in the real world. They are actually only significant when used with very specific equipment. When applied to other equipment, these numbers mean very little at all, and in fact are often meaningless. UAC's objective is to provide an intuitive programming experience and a versatile control system that when played back can actually provide the operator information about the system it is controlling.

UAC does this by porting the control to an 'abstract' layer. This has a number of benefits:

The 'handles' you use to control moving lights are more inline with what you would do

to manipulate conventional lighting. The numbers and 'words' you use to build cues will actually mean something. You will

have an idea of what you can do with the lights and what is on stage by reading the screen.

If you have mixed equipm ent, the methodology you use to communicate with your

entire rig is identical, regardless of the protocols defined by the equipment manufacturers.

Building a set of looks with one group of lights in your rig can be copied to another

group, regardless of what type of lights they are. The cues you have in your show file can be played back with any equipment. One of the key things in Point #2 above that bears repeating is that UAC uses numbers and

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'words' to control lighting. You may claim that has been done for years with the use of 'named' palettes. For example, m oving lights desks can use labelled position palettes to build cues and the cue displays use these 'words' to make it easier to read. Don't lose sight of the fact that palettes, like "Down Stage Center", are just place holders for a combination of values between 0 and 65535. The words themselves do not mean anything to the desk (nor do the numbers). They are just displayed on the screen for convenience. In contrast, with UAC, the words do mean very specific things within the cue structure.

Some of the words used include:

15 degrees of pan

rotate counter clockwise at 6 RPM

strobe at 9 hertz

thrust the shutter into the aperture of the fixture half way

reset the fixture's motor control system

At show-time, these 'words' need to be converted into 'values' that the specified lighting fixtures can use. The trick with UAC is that this conversion is figured out each and every time GO is pressed (and not before). That means that the protocol, the mode, the model or the manufacturer can be changed at any time. Moreover, each and every light, regardless of who makes it, appears similar to the user, giving a more consistent experience when programming a show.

Apart from the benefits described above, this method of controlling lights is not restricted to traditional linear channels mapped to attributes on the fixture. Looking at a few examples in Palette's implementation of this model will demonstrate the intuitive nature of describing fixtures' attributes as opposed to traditional convoluted methods that sometimes group completely unrelated behaviours on the same channel.

Pan and Tilt Example

The Home position for pan and tilt on most DMX Moving Lights is 50:50 (or 32767:32767). This positions the light such that you will have maximum movement in each direction before encountering a stop (pan-stop or tilt-stop). For a light that has a total pan range of 360 degrees, with the control channel set to half, you are sitting at 180 degrees. Taking the control channel to full will move the light 180 off axis towards a stop. So, to summarize, a value of 50% means Hom e, and a value of 100% means go to the pan-stop 180 degrees from Home. Figuring out that 90 degrees is half way in between those two values is easy. That would be 75%. And a 45 degree pan from Hom e is, again, half way between those two values or 62.5%. That gets a little too complex for the programmer to calculate quickly.

To add to the com plication, imagine you have another light in the rig that has a total pan range of 540 degrees. Now the numbers you just figured out for the first fixture mean nothing to this one. Worse yet, if you grab both of the fixtures and pan them in tandem , you would get completely differing results:

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Using the same values (62.5%), the angles of pan are completely different. The beams of light are not even close to parallel. You can see how this can be very frustrating if you have a mixed rig. With UAC, the Pan attribute is represented in real-world units of degrees. Therefore, when you talk to the light, you tell it to pan so many degrees:

Apart from having parallel beams of light from multiple fixtures, notice that there is no need for the "=" sign. Forty-five degrees is forty-five degrees. This makes controlling a rig that is made up of different types of fixtures easy to communicate with and easy to understand.

If you program the show using one type of fixture, then swap it for another, it is important to remem ber that it is these real-world values (in this case, degrees) that are used when fading cues, not the DMX values. The example below will demonstrate this with two cues. Cue 1 and Cue 2 are programmed with a fixture that is capable of panning 540 degrees (-270 to +270). Cue 1 takes the fixture to its pan-stop at +270 degrees. Cue 2 has it move (in 10 seconds) to a position of pan +90 degrees.

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If we were to substitute this fixture out for a fixture that only has a total pan capability of 360 degrees and run the cue, a surprising, but predictable thing happens. When Cue 1 is active, the fixture can't reach +270 degrees, so it stops at its pan-stop (+180 degrees). Then Cue 2 is executed, which is a 10 second fade to +90 degrees. For the first 5 seconds of Cue 2, the fixture doesn't move. But, when the Live display on the screen reads +180 degrees, which is half way through the cue, the fixture will start to move. When Cue 2 is complete, the fixture will be resting at +90 degrees:

Since the Universal Attribute Control Model doesn't figure out DMX values until the very last second, it can also alter the way in which the conversion is done at run-time, producing new and exciting methods of transition during the fade from cue to cue. Various attributes, such as position and color lend themselves very nicely to working in different ways. Color Space is described in detail below, but let's examine how we can move from one place to another on stage given two stored end places.

In this example, we are going to once again consider a moving head fixture as opposed to a moving mirror. Moving head lamps achieve movement by physically moving the source and lens train with two motors within a yoke. This Pan/Tilt relationship equates to a polar coordinate system using azimuth and elevation. When you move in this coordinate system, if

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you pan more than you tilt, as the beam of light intersects the plane of your stage, it will move in an arc:

We have become used to this characteristic movement of moving heads. Very good m oving lights that move extremely smoothly are sometim es described as moving in an organic manner or looking like they are operated by a follow-spot operator. People are quick to forgive the fact that they are always moving in this arc pattern. UAC gives you the option of how the light will move. It doesn't have to move in an arc. When a follow-spot operator moves a light from point A to point B, the light normally travels in a straight line.

There is a Movement attribute that alters the way fades are calculated when you press GO. If you record a cue using specific Pan and Tilt values and specify the Movement to be Linear, the end points of the cue do not change, but the method the intervening Pan and Tilt values get from Cue 1 to Cue 2 does. It is not a linear crossfade mapped to a polar system, but rather a transition that forces the Pan/Tilt mechanism to travel the beam of light in a straight line. Not only in a straight line, but also at a constant velocity on the stage deck, regardless of how far Cue 2's end point is in relation to the hanging position of the fixture. The result is that moving light cues will look even more organic when programmed this way.

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Zoom Example

The 540 versus 360 degree examples above demonstrated that you can swap one fixture for another and get predictable results. Far more useful is the fact that the same values are used to control different types of lights in a similar fashion. Looking at the zoom attribute demonstrates this again.

It is quite common to have two or more different types of lights in today's lighting rigs. Matching beam sizes is a process of grabbing one type of light, setting its zoom, then selecting the other and tweaking it to match. You cannot grab both and crank the wheel and hope to get matching results. UAC eliminates the need to remember who made what light when you're programming. Everything in the air is considered a tool to get the job done; why should you be expected to address each light in a different language?

Here are two lights; one that has a zoom range of 19° to 70°, the other from 10° to 50°. Cue 1 is written to put both at 30°:

It is just that simple! Cue 1 stores a value of 30° and both lights achieve it. You rig looks consistent and symmetrical with no undesirable surprises and no need for manual re-translation.

If Cue 2 was written such that both lights go to 70°, as you ran it, the fixture on the right would have to give up mid-way:

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It wouldn't stop the cue from running though. The fixture on the left would go all the way to 70°:

To be fair, Cue 2 could not have been written using the fixture on the right. This cue must have been recorded using a fixture that can achieve 70°. Even though in this example it was played back using a 50° fixture, it does not change the cue. If you later swapped it back to a 70° fixture, it would go to 70°. It is only when writing cues that you are limited to the physical constraints of the light currently patched.

Shutter Control Example

One the most time consuming endeavours when programming moving lights is shutter control. To achieve desirable effects, the shutter mechanisms need a lot of motors, and hence, a lot of control channels. Typically, most shutter assemblies have nine motors. There are four shutters, each using two motors to control its position within the aperture of the fixture and a ninth to rotate the entire assembly clockwise or counterclockwise. Many times these channels are labelled like this:

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You can imagine that trying to make some light cuts can be a tim e consuming effort of hunting and pecking for the right channel or more likely, pair of channels. That is why UAC groups related pairs together onto encoders to reduce the search process by half. UAC labels the shutters like this.

To get to the shutter control, the encoder banks group opposite shutters together. So the first encoder bank deals with the Top and Bottom Shutters. Moreover, motors 1a and 1b are grouped together on the first encoder to thrust the encoder into the aperture of the fixture. The next encoder controls the relationship between those two motors, giving you one handle for controlling the angle of that shutter:

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In this example, note the value of Top Thrust. It is set to 50% and the top shutter is cutting the beam in half. If you cranked the first encoder all the way to the right, it is unlikely that it will reach 100%. Most moving lights only allow you to put the shutter in part way into the field of light. That exact amount is represented here in percent.

If you adjusted the second encoder to adjust the angle of the Top Shutter, note how it affects the beam of light. In this example, the shutter is about a quarter the way across the beam and cut to a 15 degree angle.

The following examples show how UAC greatly simplifies the process of getting ideal shutter cuts.

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Banking the Lens family one past the group that controls Left and Right Shutters exposes a group of four encoders that groups Top and Bottom on one wheel and Left and Right on another. That way you can adjust two opposite groups of motors with one encoder. Here the Thrust of the Top and Bottom are grouped together and set to a level of 48% resulting in a thin bar of light passing through the center of the beam. If both attributes were put to 50%, the fixture would not output any light whatsoever as the two shutters would be either touching or just overlapping.

Using this third bank of shutter controls you could create a box of light by just adjusting one encoder. Do this by using your left hand to press and hold both the T/B Thrust and L/R Thrust softkeys and your right hand to roll the black wheel. Then grouping encoder 2 and 4, you could

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adjust the angle of that box in space. In all of these examples, we never used the ninth motor labeled 'Rot'. That attribute is generally available on a fourth Lens bank and is marked Shutter <> and also uses the units degrees. Also check out direct Command Line

entry of values rather than

having to roll the encoders.

Gobo Control

Individual m oving light manufacturers' implementation of gobo control has notoriously been annoyingly inconsistent. There are so many things these modern machines allow us to do with imagining, but there has never been a consistent method of describing what they do. UAC attempts to pull in the reins and consolidate on a common language of control.

The assembly that holds the entire gobo selection is called the Wheel. Wheels can Spin Forward or Reverse and can Select gobos. The individual choices are called Gobos. Gobos can be Indexed in Degrees like hands on a compass or Rotated continuously Clockwise or Counterclockwise.

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The first of the pair of these two linear channels is used to position the wheel and select a specific gobo and do one of two things with it; either Index it or Rotate it. The second channel changes modes based on the position of the first. Here the first channel is set to about 10% and Selects the Glacier gobo for Indexing. The second channel is set to about 10% which indexes the gobo 15 degrees. Palette's blue attribute bubbles show how this would be achieved using UAC.

Different manufacturers use a variety of control handles to achieve all of these possible behaviors. Some use lots of handles which surprisingly makes the control of the gobo wheel easier, and other insist on bunching up behaviours on only a couple of channels. The examples below are generic and are only used to show how it could be done using linear DMX channels and how it is handled using UAC.

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To rotate the glacier gobo continuously in the clockwise direction, the first handle must be placed at 60%. That changes the mode of the second handle and the 10% position is now meaningless. To see a rotation of 4 RPM clockwise, the channel must be set to 42%. (Where that value comes from is undetermined. Truthfully, you would never get a concise answer even if you to visit the factory that built the fixture and asked the firmware engineers!) To achieve the same results in Palette, see the blue bubbles below.

Changing the direction of the rotation on a DMX based system m eans you must travel the second handle through a bunch of values that are not of interest to you. The gobo would slow down, then stop, then change direction and speed up again as you adjust the control channel. This can be very

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disconcerting for a designer who is watching the stage. None of those behaviours were asked for, but were necessary to achieve the desired effect. With UAC, you just nudge the second encoder one tick to change the value from CW to CCW. The fourth encoder, which controls the speed, is not changed. The DMX values would jump from the value needed for clockwise rotation at 4 RPM directly to the counterclockwise 4 RPM value (whatever that is).

Attribute Substitutions

Copying and swapping attributes among fixtures that share scalar properties like Position and Zoom is only the tip of the iceberg when using UAC. The real power of UAC can be seen when you start using similar, but not identical attributes and how UAC can work with them. Color is a great example. There are three primary autom ated color systems in use today;

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Subtractive Color Systems like CMY, Additive Color Systems like RGB and Fixed Color Systems that use gel (like scrollers) or dichroic glass (like color wheels). UAC can work with any combination of these three and make intelligent substitutions between them if required.

One of the most common modes of color control in automated lighting today is CMY color mixing. Various mechanisms are used to place pure colors in the path of white light to subtract different wavelengths out. By introducing varying amounts of interference, a huge variety of colors can be produced. One of the desirable effects these sorts of mechanisms allow is smooth transition from one color to the next. If your rig consists of various color mixing fixtures, the attributes are dealt with in a scalar fashion, similar to Zoom.

Let's look at an example of mixing a color on one type of light and then ask it to be reproduced on another that doesn't possess color mix abilities. You can use varying amounts of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow to produce a hue of Red:

If you copied those attributes to a fixture that did not have color mixing, but did have a color wheel, a suitable substitution needs to be made. Since the UAC Fixture Library stores a lot more data than just the name of a color, mathematical matching can be done. In a case where the destination fixture has a color wheel that looks like the one below, Slot 7 would be chosen. (By the way, it would not be stored as Slot 7, it is stored as "Light Red"):

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Working in the reverse direction (from wheel to mix) is of course trivial when using UAC. The library has a definition of what wavelengths make Light Red and can easily use the color mixing system to recreate it.

Gobos are also problematic when using stock fixtures. Different fixtures use different numbers and types of gobos. Imagine that part of your rig has a Linear Breakup gobo that you use in Cue 1. Cue 2 then switches to a Medium Wavy Breakup. The cues were written using a fixture that has a gobo wheel with nine gobos (plus open) and the image below shows how Cue 1 positions the wheel to Slot 1, and Cue 2 positions it to Slot 5.

If you wanted to copy this effect to a separate part of your rig, you may not be so lucky to

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find the same type of fixtures available for those cues. If you use another model of fixture, sensible substitutions (and compromises) must be made. UAC can find similar gobos in the destination fixtures and use them when running the cues. In this case, Cue 1 would select Slot 4, and Cue 2 Slot 3.

Conditional Abstract Attributes

Automated lights are riddled with control parameters. In earlier days, many fixture manufacturers combined DMX channels to achieve separate effects in an attempt to prevent the fixture from consuming an outrageous num ber of channels. A common practice is to use one channel as a mode channel to modify the behaviour of another. This makes life difficult for the lighting programmer as he never knows what a handle will do when he uses it without first checking the state of the mode channels.

UAC eliminates this level of confusion by not presenting you with controls that are ineffective on one channel because of the state of another. It goes further by labelling each control appropriately as to what it is doing at present.

To get to the plethora of controls on today's moving lights, all attributes are assigned into one of five families:

Position

Color

Gobo

Lens

Special

Dedicated buttons or softkeys then 'bank' those attributes onto four encoders and their present purpose is displayed in the blue bubbles:

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In this case, a moving light with multiple gobo wheels has been selected and the user has used the Gobo button to bank the encoders to Gobo Wheel 1's controls. More blue bubbles below the encoder labels show the present value of those controls. Here the Gobo 1 Wheel Mode is dialed to Select, the current Selection is Glacier, the Gobo Mode is set to Index which has been Indexed to 15°:

It reads somewhat like a book from left to right. The key thing here is that the DMX ordering has nothing to do with how the controls are laid out to the user. In fact, as you will see below in the Gobo examples, the number of DMX channels used to achieve all the effects of the attribute do not enter in the equation either.

If the user were to nudge the first encoder, (the one labelled Wheel Mode) the entire wheel would Spin Forward. If so, showing you the control that allows you to choose the gobo Selection would be pointless. The entire wheel is spinning through the light path, so you will see them all, not one at a time. The controls exposed to the user change to reflect this new altered state:

The Wheel Mode encoder now shows that the entire gobo wheel is Spinning Forward. The second encoder now allows you to set the speed at which the wheel spins, in Revolutions per Minute. The third encoder shows that the indexing motor is held steady, but it is pointless to say at what angle it is holding it as all gobos are rotating in a planetary system through the light path. The four encoder is not used in this case.

If you then adjust the third encoder (G1 Mode) from Index to Rot CW, the fourth encoder becomes available to adjust the speed of the rotation:

If the first encoder is changed back to Select, the second through fourth encoders will return to their previous function:

This is where the Universal Attribute Control Model meets the Tracking benefits of this console as the Index value of 15 degrees was not destroyed as it would have been on a pure DMX desk (because typically they shared the same DMX control channel). The 15 degrees has just not been visible when it was not applicable.

Nudging the second encoder from Index to Rotate Clockwise changes the purpose of the fourth from Index to Speed and the units change from degrees to RPM. Note that the actual gobo (Glacier) does not change.

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While this looks straight forward and concise to the user, behind the scenes UAC is mapping all of these controls to the appropriate DMX channels, regardless of how convoluted the protocol is. An added benefit of this method of masking and unmasking attributes is that controls like Speed that use RPM is not overwritten when the encoder changes to Index and uses Degrees. When you come back to Speed, the RPM value you left it at will persist. UAC essentially gives you more handles than the fixture manufacturer allotted.

Phantom Abstract Attributes

As seen above, exposing additional controls that the fixture manufacturer didn't allot for makes controlling some types of lights more convenient. An ideal example of this is RGB LED fixtures. Traditionally, the only controls the user can adjust are Red, Green and Blue. Distinctly absent is an Intensity attribute. The undesirable side effect of this is that if you pull down the Grand Master, the LEDs intensities remain unchanged. To blackout the fixtures, you have to adjust three parameters rather than one. This becomes inconvenient when you just want to lower LED based fixtures' level or take them out in one cue to only restore them in the next. You must look up the RGB values from the preceding cue to restore them.

Horizon Control's UAC adds a phantom attribute to RGB lights. This intensity attribute does not appear any different from that of any other fixtures', but it does control the overall brightness of the LED without affecting its Hue. Another benefit of having this attribute used in cues is that if you ever do replace an RGB fixture with another, more traditional type of fixture, the Up/Down dynamics of the light are already in the cues. Color Space is a related but unique extension of this methodology and is discussed further below.

Color Spaces

Complim entary Color Spaces are basically different methods used to desc ribe the individual components that make up what the eye perceives as color. None of them are right or wrong. They are individual and each one has its purpose. The selection of one over the other is primarily a matter of choice. Most consoles only allow you to work in the color space native to the fixtures you are controlling. That is, if you have a white-sourced light that has Cyan, Magenta and Yellow dichroics place before it, you would be working in the subtractive CMY space. If you have Red, Green and Blue LED lights, you would be working in the additive RGB space. Some consoles have neat color-pickers that allow you to quickly grab desired colors, but at the end of the day, they will be fading from one triplet of CMY (or RGB) to another when they run cues.

When working with color mixing capable lights, UAC allows you to choose and crossfade in six different color spaces. These are CMY, RGB, HSL (Hue Saturation Luminance), HSL' (Hue Saturation Luminance Prim e) and, depicted in lower case so as not to confuse it with HSL, hsv (Hue Saturation Value) and hsv' (Hue Saturation Value Prime). The difference between the two Hue based color spaces and what the Prime means is explained below.

Lighting designers think of light as having three distinct properties; color, intensity of color, and brightness. (This is not a discussion on shape and movement.) In the additive RGB color space, to change the color, you need to change the ratio between the Red, Green and Blue components. If you wanted to change the intensity of the light, you would have to project the vector of the new RGB value toward the largest valued primary color (red, green or blue). With respect to color, the same could be done with CMY, but to simplify the exam ple, we don't want to get into the effects of a dimmer in the equation. If you want to make a color brighter in RGB color space you need to keep the ratios between the Red, Green and Blue the same but increase them. Changing any of these properties on the fly would take some clever mathematics on behalf of the programmer. Horizon Control's UAC uses functions that manipulate the native color channels for you. This math transforms the data at run-time allowing you to program and fade in any one of the six color spaces mentioned above.

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Regardless of which of the six methods you use to choose your color, you also have the option of how the actual crossfade will execute. In the following three examples, Cue 1 is Blue and Cue 2 is Green, but in each case, we're going to crossfade in a different color space. Apart from the Color Space attribute changing in Cue 2 in each example, all other color attributes remain the same.

RGB Crossfade

The fixture used here could be either a CMY subtractive color light, or it could be an RGB additive color light. If it fades from Blue to Green in either the CMY or RGB color spaces, effectively a linear transition occurs on all three control channels. This is typical of what traditional lighting console do.

Subtractive: Cue 1 CMY (100%, 100%, 0%) fades to Cue 2 CMY (100%, 0%, 100%). The first channel

does not move and the other two move from opposite ends. The result can either be a not-so-subtle off-white or a somewhat dingy color in the middle of the fade when Magenta and Yellow are both at half and Cyan is at full. This is not surprising as there is a lot of colored glass between you and the light.

Additive: Cue 1 RGB (0%, 0%, 100%) fades to Cue 2 RGB (0%, 100%, 0%). Half way through the

fade, we have two LEDs producing equal amounts of energy at half their potential and the third doing nothing. The result can be a color closer to white than desired.

HSL Crossfade

Regardless of whether you're using Additive or Subtractive lights, at the end of the day you need to provide three control channels (see RGB Crossfade above). You don't have a choice because that is what the light needs to operate. What you can do though is move through a different color space, which does not produce the typical linear transition of the channels as described above. Instead, you will visit altogether different colors when fading from one to another, hopefully avoiding the undesirable bit in the middle.

The picture below shows the entire color spectrum as it is laid out in the 'Natural' color space. Hue is the ratio between the three primary colors and is what we think of as color. Saturation is how intense the color is, or mathematically how far apart each primary is from the others or how far away from gray you are (Gray is when all three are equal in value. Note, the image below only shows fully saturated colors.) Luminance is the overall brightness of the selected color, or mathematically defined as the cumulative total of the three primary colors. Too much brightness results in white. Cue 1 shows where Blue is and Cue 2 shows Green. When

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you press GO on Cue 2, the CMY color flags (or LEDs) will change in such a way that you visit Cyan along the way. In some circumstances, this will be a more desirable transition than that shown above.

HSL' Crossfade

The Hue Primed version of the well defined HSL color space just shifts the spectrum such that each end does not include Red. It could be shifted any amount, but Horizon Control shifted it 180 degrees, such that Cyan now appears at each end:

In the [Cue 1/Cue 2] example, going from Blue to Green in the HSL' color space now produces a virtual rainbow of colors along the way. This can be a very powerful effect, but the transition will be different for every combination of colors recorded and it will be up to the designer to choose. If Cue 1 was Purple and Cue 2 was Yellow, going through Red might not seem like such a bad idea. To do that you would have to use this color space. If you use the more common HSL, you go through Blue, Cyan and Green to get there. Again, maybe that is desirable.

hsv

The Hue Saturation Value color space is also known as the 'Deep' color space. HSL works well for emissive fixtures like LEDs, but not so good for fixtures that are hitting your set. As you increase the brightness on you set, you don't want the hue to change. UAC offers the hsv color space to solve this problem where Luminance is substituted by value. As the value attribute increases, hues become more saturated. With hsv, hues never progress through the pastels to white. This is equivalent to you pouring more light on your painted set. As you bathe the set in more blue, it doesn't approach white (unless you're working in TV - then all bets are off).

The choice of how to get from color A to color B is up to you. The method of attack is to write the two cues first, picking the colors using whatever method you choose. Then try running the cue. If you like the transition, you're all done. If you don't, go to Cue 2, change the color space and Update the Cue and run it again. Even though UAC literally fades in all six color spaces, you only have to change between three of them to see all the effects. Choose one of:

CMY or RGB

HSL or hsv

HSL' or hsv'

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Conclusion

For years, designers' hands were tied when they were controlling automated lighting. The language and control structure used had been imposed upon them by the equipment manufacturers. This was not conducive to an enjoyable experience for anyone involved in the process. Horizon Control's Universal Attribute Control Model defines a common language that designers and program mers can share and the complex processes of translating this language into DMX or any other control protocol is taken care of for you.

This new language has not been defined arbitrarily or in a vacuum. We use colloquial terms that have been used in the theatre for years and present them to the programmer with sense and order. Confusing mode channels that change the purpose of other channels have been eliminated and new and uniquely useful control handles have been added, such as an intensity control for LED based fixtures. UAC allows the designer to look at the lighting rig as a unified tool to aid in the design process. The designer will no longer need to conform to the language of the manufacturers and this allows them to diversify the lighting rig without the worry of adding complexity to the programming process. Every fixture now speaks the same language and increased communication and understanding will only lead to better lighting.

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Tracking

Palette is by nature a Tracking console. With Tracking, when a cue brings a channel to a level, the channel stays at that level until it receives a specific instruction to change levels. This level tracks through all subsequent cues in the cue list until the level is increased or decreased in another cue.

Levels which have tracked in a cue are displayed on the channel grid in magenta with a circular

arrow symbol beside the level: If you record a hard level in Cue 2 that is exactly the same level that is in Cue 1, you will get a

magenta level with a white block showing there is a redundant command: A good way to understand tracking is to think of how you use lights every day:

When you enter a room, you turn on a room light.

Then you may turn on your desk light. You do not need to turn on the room light

again.

The room light and the desk light will remain on until you purposefully turn one or

both off.

With Palette, you record channel 1 at 80%. If nothing else sends a command to that channel it will stay at 80%, no matter what other channels might be added or changed. Channel 1 will continue at 80% through all subsequent cues until it is told to change its level by a later cue.

One of the advantages of tracking desks is that you can have multiple cues fading simultaneously because each cue only 'talks' to the channels it has information about. That means that if a long fade is happening on, say, Channel 1, but Cue 2 runs and moves Channel 2 to different level in short time, that will not affect Channel 1's fade.

Example:

Cue 1 is a 45 second fade up on the cyc to show a slow sunrise

Cue 2 is a 2 second fade up on an actor's front light

Cue 3 is a 5 second fade down on the actor's front light

When running the show, you're never sure when the actor is going to decide to enter, so inherently, Cue 2 must be a called cue. Chances are that the actor will enter at some point during the sunrise. Pressing [GO] on Cue 2 should not affect the subtlety of the 45 second fade on Cue

1. To really drive the point home, the actor may exit before the sunrise has even completed.

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There is nothing in Cue 3 that address the cyc channels so pressing [GO] on Cue 3 still does not affect the progression of the sunrise.

It is important to remember that Preset style desks cannot offer you this flexibility. In Preset desks, each and every channel is recorded at its stage level in every cue. That would mean that in Cue 2, the cyc would be at its full sunrise level. So, when you press [GO] on Cue 2 midway through the subtle sunrise because the actor stepped on stage, your sunrise will complete in a not-so-subtle 2 seconds flat!

If you really want to, you can operate Palette as a Preset desk. Just set the Record combo box to All Levels [Block Cue] in the record level in every cue. This is highly undesirable because you loose the functionality as described above, but worse yet, you completely deflate the power of having multiple cue lists. If you have every channel recorded in every cue, each time you press [GO] on any cue list, the entire rig will go to the recorded levels of that cue - stealing everything away from the other cue list. (If this appeals to you, you may want to check out how to Block the Entire Cue List

Note:

If you are updating a cue and don't want the edits to track forward, turn OFF Edits

Track Forward in the Record dialog box. The cue after the cue you are updating will be

automagically updated to reverse the effects of what you just recorded.

You cannot select Edits Track Forward OFF if you are updating or recording the last cue

in a cue list.

You can change the system default state of Edit Track Forward for the Record dialog

box in [S2]Show Options|General

See Also:

A Note on Redundant Data Edits Track Forward Track Sheets Blocking and Un-Blocking of cues Recording a Cue Multiple Cue List Concept

dialog box. That way, every channel will have a recorded

)

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A Note on Redundant Data

Redundant and/or Blocked data in cues is displayed like this:

Sometimes this is properly Blocked data. At other times it is just plain redundant. Having redundant data in a cue is not desirable. Understanding when and why you may want these symbols appearing in your Channel Grid

Before you move on, if you're not fully familiar with the philosophy of tracking, you may want to read the topic called Tracking

first.

or Attribute Grid will make your life a lot easier.

DESIRABLE

When you write a Block cue at the top of Scene 2 so future editing session on cues in

Scene 1 won't track through into Scene 2.

When you record a cue using the State option to collect the cumulative set of data

used to reproduce a cue state. You may do this at the beginning of a scene in a linear

cue list, or when you are Copying or Moving cues

another cue list.

When you have one attribute that doesn't necessarily change, but other attributes in

the cue rely on it to be in a certain state. For example, in a CMY colour mix system, if

you are fading from pure Cyan (100%, 0%, 0%) to pure Green (100%,0%,100%) the

Cyan value does not change in the second cue. When running the second cue, you

would see the Block Symbol. This is definitely not redundant date because having

Cyan at 100% is a necessary condition to making Green. If it were not there with a

Block Symbol, it would still produce Green, but the important thing to consider is what

if we change the first cue such that is does not have Cyan at 100%. Then our second

cue would not be Green. Palette automatically marks co-dependant attributes with

deltas when you are editing so you don't have to worry too much about this. Just don't

get fussed if you do see block symbols in your attribute grid, even if you have just

perform an Un-Blocked

UNDESIRABLE

within a cue list or to the middle of

cue operation.

When you are running a show from top to bottom and attributes are marked with

block symbols, it means that those attributes will get unnecessary and som etimes

harmful fades initiated on them for no good reason. For example, in the Tracking

topic, there is a detailed example of a long Sunrise cue followed by an actor's entrance

cue. If the cyc channels that were involved in the sunrise were blocked in the second

cue, the long sunrise would be quickly collapsed by the actor's entrance cue when it is

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executed.

When you are copying multiple cues from one section of a cue list to another and you

use the Copy State

the entire cumulative state of the cue list is recorded into each and every copied cue.

This means if you copy the sunrise/entrance cues from the example above, you will

destroy the sunrise. If you are copying entire sections of the show within a cue list, it

is best to copy the first cue in the range using the STATE option, then all the

subsequent cues without that option. Alternatively, you can Unblock

you copy it.

Putting redundant data in a cue "Because you want to make sure that if you jump to

the cue it will all be there" is not necessary. Palette always maintains the state of the

cue list during Goto's. (i.e., if you jump around in the cue list, it will make sure that

what is on stage looks just like it would if you went to the first cue and pressed [GO]

repeatedly until you got there). Some other tracking consoles are pure "Move-Fade"

boards, meaning that if you jump cues, only the new fade information for the channels

that are in the cue you are jumping to will be implemented. Palette does not do this.

If you have redundant data in the cues, it makes it difficult to maintain the cues when

you're editing them at a later date. It is much nicer knowing that the data you are

examining is all 'useful' data and is necessary to get the looks on stage. If there is a

lot of extra garbage in there, it makes it a lot tougher.

Note:

At times you may see the Block symbol in your cue list when you didn't expect to. This may happen because you just did a Goto Cue last state. To 'clean up' the display in this case, Assert note that there is a Cue List Option directly after a record operation.

See Also:

Blocking and Unblocking of cues Move/Copy using State Recording Cues About Palette

option. This will result in many block symbols appearing because

the section after

and the values just 'happened not' to change from their

the cue list by pressing [SHIFT] [GO]. Also

to Goto cues after they are recorded, so it may happen

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Timing

One of Palette's very powerful features is its ability to fade every attribute of every Channel in every cue across multiple cue lists and Sub Masters independently, simultaneously and effortlessly. Many consoles using the preset emulation philosophy are just not capable of this flexibility because they record every channel in every cue and can only fade from one cue, singularly, to another cue whereas Palette can handle any number of fades at once. The key to power is unleashed with a simple user interface that even the most novice of programmers can take advantage of immediately.

This topic briefly describes different methods of controlling attribute timing but there are specific topics available that explain them more fully.

See Also:

Cue List Time Cells and the Blue Box Part Cues Independent Timing

Command Line Syntax

Hardware Setup - A/B C/D

Cue List Time Cells and the Blue Box

Most shows will be satisfied with the flexibility offered by editing times in the Cue List. There are multiple timing columns editable here; the main one is labeled Cue Time:

Visible here is also the Down Time column, but not seen are Position Time, Color Time, Gobo Time, Lens Time and Special Time which will only be available if you have moving lights patched in your show. Follow these steps to change the timing of your cue:

Using the [ARROW KEYS] move the Blue Box to the time column you want to change.

Press the [EDIT] button to put the Blue Box into edit mode.

Note: The QWERTY equivalent of [EDIT] is [INSERT]

Either type in a new value to completely replace the text highlighted in blue or use the

Wheel to roll the values up or down. (Note: Each detent on the wheel will change the value, up or down, by one second. Holding down [SHIFT] will change the value by 0.1 of a second.)

If you want the attributes to hold their level for a piece of time after you press the GO

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button, enter the time using the Wait/Fade syntax:

When you are finished, press [ENTER] to close the edit box.

Note:

All attributes of all the Channels recorded in the cue will fade in Cue Time unless a time is entered in the appropriate column. If you want to remove individual attribute timings, edit the cell and press [DEL] [ENTER].

Part cues

Complex shows need more advanced timing options. If you split a cue into different Parts, you can have different timing for different groups of Channels without writing additional cues. When working on a show, you build a cue, which is a singular look on stage and later you decide how you are going to get from one cue to another.

Goto the cue in which you want to alter the timing param eters

Select the Channels that need to be assigned to a different part

Press the [S11]Cue Parts button to open the cue part dialog box

Select the button for the desired part

The Channels will show a superscript letter showing the part:

Continue with Steps 2 through 5 until you have assigned all Channels to their correct part

Press [UPDT] [ENTER]

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Use the Blue Box to alter timing on the main part or any additional parts:

Note:

The main cue part is always Part A (in this case labeled 'Dinner')

Cues need not be made up of parts in specific order. You can have a cue that has just

Part A and Part G

Palette supports 26 parts. Press [S12] and roll the wheel to select parts greater than

Part K then press [ENTER] to close the dialog box.

Independent Timing

The limitations of the above two methods are that all the Channels in each cue part must use the same attribute family timing and further still, individual attributes within a family are forces to use the same time. Independent Timing frees you of these limitations.

Access the Independent Timing display by pressing [SHIFT][EDIT]. Alternately, you can

use the mouse to press the Times button:

The Channel Grid and Attribute Grid look very similar, except that the numbers that appear are in seconds rather than degrees or hertz or RPMs:

To achieve the offset intensity times as shown above, type in the command line [1]

[THRU] [20] [@] [0] [-] [5] [ENTER]. It will appear like this:

To set the Pan timing to 3 seconds, type [1] [THRU] [20] [S2-Pan] [3] [ENTER] which

would appear as:

Note:

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All the moving light softkeys will stuff text onto the com mand line. That is, if you press [S 5-Position], the text Position Time will appear, which will set both the Pan and Tilt times. If the individual attributes are currently not visible on [S1] through [S4], just continue pressing [ S5] through [S9] until you see the attributes you want control over.

When you have finished setting attributes and times, record the new cue or update an

existing cue. Be sure to include the [S11] Time filter in the Attributes masking:

Time on the Command Line

As you directly enter attribute values on the Command Line, you can specify times as well. Not only will these times be placed in the Independent Time grid as described above, but Palette will also use the time to fade the attribute from its current value to its new value. For exam ple, you could type [1] [THRU] [10] [@] [50] [@] [5] [ENTER], and the command line would look like this:

If you want to Release a Channel (and all of its attributes) in time, or sneak it back to cue level, use the syntax [1] [SHIFT+REL] [5] [ENTER]. This appears on the command line like this:

A more complex example of using time on the command line is [1] [THRU] [10] [S2] [-] [90] [-] [90] [@] [0] [-] [5] [/] [1] which would look like this:

This is crazy, but looks very cool. What it does it takes Channels 1 through 10 and fans them out to make a perfect half circle, but it does it over 5 seconds, starting by moving Channel 1 in one second and ends after six seconds with Channel 10.

Using the A/B or C/D faders to specify time

There is an option in the Hardware Setup - A/B C/D that allows either of the split fader pairs to control the live fade time. If you are running a show live, it is handy to have handles to control how long attributes get to their new level and how long they should take to return to their old

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levels once released. This option sets up the left hand fader to control the IN TIME of any attribute you set using the comm and line or button array. The scale is from zero to ten seconds (top to bottom). The right hand fader controls how long releases should take or what is the sneak time.

Attributes set using times specified by the A/B or C/D faders are not transferred to the TIMES display (i.e., you can't use these times to write cues with).

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Multiple Cue List Concept

Multiple Cue Lists allow the console to operate completely separate and asynchronous cue lists simultaneously. This is useful if you want to have an effect running on one cue list to keep it separate from the cues in the main cue list, or if the console was controlling the lighting in a main theater as well as a space in the theater lobby, an individual cue list for each space could be developed and operated at the same time to run completely different cues.

Note:

Palette supports an unlimited number of Cue Lists. Using the Cue List Properties

backgrounds

prevent unauthorized modifications to cues. Cue Lists can be assigned a Priority resolved either using a Highest Takes Precedence method or a Latest Takes Precedence method

The Cue List Directory show.

The Channel Grid controlled by another cue list (i.e., the one that is not selected a dark blue background:

to help visually differentiate one from another. Individual cue lists can be locked to

appears above the Cue List Display and shows all the cue lists in your

display normally has a black background color. When Channels are being

, Cue Lists can be given different names as well as different colored

and can be

), the levels will be displayed with

The Attribute Grid always has light background. Attributes being controlled by other cue lists appear with blue text:

Note how one Channel with multiple attributes can be controlled by more than one cue list at a time. Attributes that are at their default levels are shown in grey text.

See Also:

Cue List Cue List Directory Tracking Record Options HTP vs LTP

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Channel Colors and Symbols

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Fade Resolution

The pecking order that the fade engine uses to resolve output channels, in order of precedence, is as follows:

Parked

Intensities controlled by the Flash

Captured

Inhibitive

Additive Look levels (intensities and attributes) in order of Priority and Cue List levels

(Latest Takes Precedence or Highest Takes Precedence

Note:

The affect of the Grand Master and Black Out Button can occur before or after

Captured intensity attributes based on how it is setup.

Palette's Latest Takes Precedence cue lists do not get automatically released when

other cues take full control of all the attributes used in them. Their values are still

valid and if the domineering 'more recent' cue list gets released, the values from the

original cue list will get a chance to write to the stage again. Som e may refer to this

domineering behaviour as Stomping and the behaviour of re-writing to the stage after

the release as Persist on Override.

It's interesting to note that intensities recorded in Looks (often thought of as

traditional submasters) do not always win over cue lists at the same priority. By

default, the attributes are resolved on an LTP bases unless the Look has specifically

been marked HTP. This ensures that the recorded 'look' will appear on stage when the

look handle reaches the top of its travel, even if it must reduce the level of some

Channels.

See Also:

Channel's different states Channel Colors and Symbols Priorities HTP vs LTP Cue List Properties Sub Master Types Busking

Output levels

, Highlight or Lowlight Tools

Channel attributes (on the keypad, with red levels)

Look levels (intensities only) in order of Priority

) in order of Priority

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HTP (Highest Takes Precedent) vs. LTP (Latest Takes Precedent)

Intensities are resolved either as HTP (Highest Takes Precedent) or LTP (Latest Takes Precedent).

LTP

If multiple controls (Sub Masters or Cue Lists) are attempting to control the same attribute, the last one to move it will win. For example, if one cue sets a level to 75%, then another one is executed and it sets it to a level of 50%, the attribute will go to 50%.

Note:

Channel Masters are always HTP.

Cue Lists and Sub Masters can be either HTP or LTP as determined by their properties.

Palette's Latest Takes Precedence cue lists do not get automatically released when

other cues take full control of all the attributes used in them. Their values are still

valid and if the domineering 'more recent' cue list gets released, the values from the

original cue list will get a chance to write to the stage again. Som e may refer to this

domineering behaviour as Stomping and the behaviour of re-writing to the stage after

the release as Persist on Override.

For a LTP Cue List or Sub Master to gain control , the losing control must also be LTP

(i.e., not marked HTP).

HTP

If multiple controls (Sub Masters or Channel Masters or Cue Lists) are writing to an intensity attribute, the one with the greatest value will win. The exception to this rule is if a control with a higher priority

See Also:

Tracking Releasing & Asserting Cue Lists Priorities Fade Resolution

is wanting it to go to a lower level, it will win.

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Priorities

Palette allows for 100 different priorities for use when you are playing back recorded items to the stage. Priorities apply to Cue Lists number field where you can enter the desired priority. Regardless of the HTP vs LTP Higher Priority items (lower number) will win.

The default priority of new Cue Lists is 10 and new for Looks it is 9. In complex show files, it is good practice to bump higher priority items up to numbers like 7 or 8, rather than straight to number 1. This will give you 'room to grow' as you add more important things, like fire-safety cues, at a later date. In architectural situations, you may want to build a 'base' look that is priority 90 or so, such that if all other playback items get released, this base look will take over.

Note:

Only one item can win. If there are two items writing to the stage and one is 9 and the other is 10, changing the #9 to a #1 will not make it win any better or faster!

See Also:

Cue List Properties Looks Sub Master Pages Fade Resolution HTP vs LTP

and Looks. The Properties box for each of these items has a

settings,

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Tips and Tricks

Reading these tips may be the fastest way to avoid reading the entire manual. These are the Tip

of the Day tips.



In the Patch Routing screen the first four routes are set to send DMX out by default, however only the first route is enabled. If you wish to use more than the first universe, then enable routes 2 through 4 and set them to "Live Data"



Use the HELP button to get help on any specific button or in any dialog box. To get help on buttons, press HELP then the desired button.



If your hardware is such that the A/B faders crossfade you between cues (see S3 HARDWARE SETUP), holding down SHIFT while moving the faders moves you backwards through the cue list.



If you double press the softkeys accelerator for a pull-down list in a dialog box, a large popup will appear, allowing you to use the wheel to select a value.



You can add profiles to any timed fade (intensity, position, color, etc.). As you use the Blue Box to enter times, the softkeys change giving you access to profiles such as slow start, damped and zigzag.



Last Action Editing (or the British Release Option) is available in Hardware Setup. This option does not release attributes to their default level, but rather leaves them static and ready to be re-asserted by advancing cues.



The Universal Attribute Control Model allows you to move your moving lights in straight lines rather than arcs.



Palette can read the SMPTE time off your MP3 files and you can synchronize cue lists to music.



In the Hardware Setup under the Console tab, there is a check box that allows you to mute QWERTY keyboard events for controlling Cue Lists.



Attribute masking can used when Moving, Copying, Recording, Loading or Updating cues and looks. Rather than opening the [S9] Attribute dialog box, hold down SHIFT and use the softkeys. Double pressing any attribute family will solo it.



Palette's Move In Black will automatically set up your moving lights ready for the next cue their used in. MIB features can be customized on a pre-cue basis using the cue Action dialog box.



Palette's ability to 'busk' moving lights is very powerful. You can change the attribute behaviour of your moving lights by VIEWing the properties of a Sub Master.



The Show Options has a field where you can set the level for the FULL button. Double pressing the FULL button will always give you 100%.



Palette supports 100 Priority levels for Looks and Cue Lists. The highest priority is #1 and the default priority for Cue Lists is #10.



Press Edit in the Action column of any cue to add a Macro to a cue. Macros can trigger other cues or even control your Media Player or console work lights.

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

To enter times in the HH:MM:SS format, use two dots (i.e., “ .. ”) to make the colon. This format extends from days (DD) to fractions of a second or frames (FF) in SMPTE time (i.e., DD:HH:MM:SS.FF). Note that frames or the 100th of a second appear after a single decimal point.



Moving Head fixtures can hit the same place on stage using two different sets of pan and tilt. Use the FLIP TOOL to try cues out using either.



[S10] is the Select softkey. Pressing it gives you twelve methods of selecting channels in your rig, including Evens, Odds, Previous, Levels Going Up, Channels Using Palettes etc. You can even store your own selection set similar to Memory Store and Memory Recall on a calculator.



Using the command line, you can alter intensity levels relative to their current position using the [1] [THRU] [10] [@] [+] [15] [ENTER] syntax. The command line will read “Up” when you press [+]. Similarly you can press [-] for “Down”. If you’re controlling moving light attributes, the [+] puts the word “Relative” in the command line.



Opening the Hardware Setup allows you to assign Macros to the back panel triggers. Just short out Pins 1 & 2 or 1 & 3 to fire the macros.



The Universal Attribute Control Model gives you six different Color Spaces to select and fade your color mixing Channels.



The Fan tool allows you to evenly spread out attribute values using one of the following functions: Center, Right, Left, Ends, Random, Random Positive, Sine and Tangent. You can also repeat the fan throughout your selection set.



If you have the Light Palette VL with the Button Array Wing Panel, you can make the buttons first select the channels, then apply their recorded levels with a second press.



When controlling moving lights, double hit the softkey for an attribute to display a large pop-up with fixed attribute values. The softkeys 1 through 12 map to these values for very quick access.



The command line supports relative movement of moving light attributes. For example, you can type [1] [THRU] [10] [PAN] [+] [90] [ENTER].



If you want one group of channels to move at a different rate than others in the same cue, you can either move those channels to a different part or use the Independent Timing where each and every attribute of every channel can have its own wait and fade time. This is handy if you want staggered times and are not concerned about managing parts in the cue list. To access Independent Timing, press [SHIFT] [EDIT].



The four round buttons below the encoders on the Light Palette open large popup lists for the attribute values currently assigned to those encoders. Spinning the encoder will highlight different values and pressing the button again will put those values live to stage.



If you enter a range of cues in the Record Cue dialog box, you have the option to record values in all cues in the range, or to just record in the first cue and track through the rest.



Time Events can trigger on specific days of the week or month and have hourly or daily repeat frequencies.



Cues can steal away from active Sub Masters if both are at the same priority, but by default, Sub Masters are recorded with Priority 9 whereas Cues are Priority 10.



Use SHIFT with the arrow keys to select multiple cells with the blue box in the Cue List. This is handy for changing many cues' times all at once. This is also how you select m ultiple cues to delete, move or copy (before touching the DEL, MOVE or COPY keys). Loops are easily created by highlighting multiple Action cells and pressing EDIT to add follows and links.

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

The A/B and C/D faders can be configured with S3 - HARDWARE SETUP to either manually fade the Up and Down times, crossfade the cues, work as cue list masters or be manual two-scene masters.



You can write a BLOCK cue by selecting the ALL Levels (Block Cue) Record option in the record dialog box, or just by right clicking on a cue and selecting Block Cue. A horizontal line above the cue will show you that no attributes will track into this cue.



You can rearrange the columns in the Cue List by clicking and dragging the column headers.



Use the Tools button to open Virtual 5X5 Button Arrays for Groups and Positions, Color and Gobo palette access.



The command line supports range entry of when setting levels. For example you can type [1] [THRU] [10] [@] [10] [TO] [1] [ENTER]. To get [TO] on the command line press the [-] key.



When you record groups, the selection order is preserved for fanning and staggered independent timing purposes.



Configure the way the DBO (Dead Black Out) button works in S3 - HARDWARE SETUP. It can be a momentary button, a toggled or disabled.



Palette's Track Sheet can show you every parameter of the moving lights in your rig. You can expand and collapse this detail level on a per channel basis. Open the Track Sheets using [S5

- Display].



The release button has multiple functions. It will close any open dialog box or it will release selected channels if no dialog box is open. Press SHIFT + REL to bring back what you just cleared.



DON'T USE THE TRACKPAD or MOUSE - you don't have to. Almost every function can be achieved using dedicated keys, the Softkeys (S1 - S12), the NEXT/PREV button, the wheel or the arrow buttons.



If you put the forward slash character {/} at the beginning of a cue label, the text will appear italicized. If you use an exclamation point {!} it will be bold.



You can drag columns around in the Cue List to suite your needs. Double clicking on column separators will automatically size the column for you.



You can move any selected channels in a cue to a separate part by pressing the PART softkey and then update the cue. Move the Blue Box in the cue list to change cue part timing. Palette supports 26 different parts plus individual independent timing for every attribute if you need that flexibility.



The Grand Master can either include or exclude captured channels. Choose your option in S3 HARDWARE SETUP.



The NEXT/PREV button moves you through dialog boxes. Use it with SHIFT to move backwards through a dialog box.



You can delete cue parts by highlighting any cell part's line with the blue box and press the DEL key. The channels in that part can either be moved to the main cue or rem oved from the cue altogether.



While you are in a dialog box, the SOFTKEYS will take you to the individual controls. The control that currently has the focus of the WHEEL, ARROWS or NUMBER KEYS will flash the amber LED on that SOFTKEY.



Releasing channels works in three stages: First time you press REL, it release the last attribute you touched. The second Release releases any currently selected (red background) channels. The third press clears all captured channels. Use it with SHIFT to make it an Oops

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key (also a three-stage process).



The first time you press the TOOL key, you must hold it down and use the SOFTKEYS to select the desired tool. Next time, you can just touch the tools key quickly to toggle the tool on and off.



Did you know that any cue with zero time will appear bold in the Next Cue column in the cue list directory?



To quickly copy a Sub Master, touch COPY then the Sub Master's BUMP button, then touch the desired new BUMP button.



While in BLIND, m oving the Blue Box loads cues.



To alter the selected channels by 1% instead of 10%, press and hold SHIFT while using the UP and DOWN buttons.



Time Events can trigger based on astronomical events such as sunrise and sunset. Palette has longitude and latitude values for nearly two thousand cities around the world.



Palette uses Horizon Control's Universal Attribute Control Model. This very powerful technology allows you to do things like control color mixing lights in six different color spaces.



Flash Fixture (a TOOL) works whether or not you have channels selected before you initialize the tool. If you type channel # TOOLS|FLASH, that channel will start flashing. You can then type another channel number and press enter to jump to it. Use the wheel to scroll through channel quickly. Once you close the tool, the last channel will be selected and ready for you to set its level.



To make the channels wait a specific am ount of time after the GO button has been pressed enter a WAIT time. Do this by editing the Cue Time box using the WAIT / FADE syntax.



You can remove any redundant data in your cue list by right clicking in the cue list and select Unblock Entire Cue List. Alternately, you can do it on a single cue or range of cues by selecting them with the Blue Box first before right clicking and selecting Unblock Cues.



When editing wait/fade times using the blue box, use [FULL] to highlight the Wait time (start of line) and [OUT] to edit the Fade time (end of line).



To enter time in HH:MM:SS format, press the decimal key twice to make the colon. This is used for VERY long fade times or when entering SMTPE times.



Holding down SHIFT while rolling the WHEEL on any numeric field will change the value by

0.1.



If you build a look that you like on one moving light, you can use the COPY button to copy its attributes to any other light, regardless of make and model. This is on of the very powerful features of the Universal Attribute Control Model.



The GOTO CUE button has two functions. Un-shifted, it is the CUE button, used when in the Record dialog box or in the command line. Shifted it opens the GOTO CUE dialog box where you can select any cue and Goto it in either recorded time or a time you enter in the dialog box.



If another cue lists steals away attributes from your cue list, press SHIFT + GO to 'Assert' your cue list. The current cue will not advance.



If you hold down [SHIFT] while you press [HALT/BACK] the cue list will go back to the previous cue in cue time, rather than the Halt/Back time.



Busking Looks is a very powerful feature of Palette. Sub Master can be configured to give true Last Action control to moving light attributes.

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

If you want to remove information in a cue, LOAD the cue, select the channels, release them, then press the UPDT key to update the cue.



To quickly record a Sub Master, set the desired levels then press [REC] then a [BUMP] button. You can later edit the name of the Look by pressing VIEW then BUMP to get the Look's properties. If you press [REC] [SHIFT]+[BUMP] the record dialog box will remain open to allow you to label the look.



If you are editing a numeric column (like time), after pressing EDIT you can use the WHEEL to change the values. If multiple cells are selected, the values will change relative to each other.



Use Load to load cues or looks. You can load multiple items on top of each other to combine ideas.



To quickly move a Sub Master, press MOVE then the Sub Master's BUMP button, then touch the desired location's BUMP button.



Press S4 - CONTROL PANEL to change the way your track pad works. You can turn on or off features such as the tap-clicks.



To release all the Playbacks, press SHIFT+REL PB.



Use the File Open File Types combo to open Checkpoint files if you've made a mistake. Scroll up the Uber Status to see when the last Checkpoint file was recorded.



To go to the top of a Cue List, press and hold SHIFT while pressing the STEP UP button. To get to the last cue in a Cue List, press SHIFT+STEP DOWN.



To scroll the channel grid, hold down the SHIFT key while rolling the wheel. This only works when there are no channels currently selected. To deselect all channels without affecting their set level, press the BACKSPACE key until the command line is clear.



To go to a cue without using the GOTO CUE dialog box, use the AR ROW KEYS to move the blue box to the first column in the cue list on the desired cue and press EDIT. This is equivalent to double clicking on that cell with the mouse.



Using S2 - SHOW OPTONS, you can give each Cue List their own default Step times, Back times and Release times.



Light Palette's console worklights can have separate levels. Choose the desired levels in S3 HARDWARE SETUP.



You can right click to Clear or Copy the contents of the Uber Status to the system clipboard. You can then paste this text into Notepad to save it if need be.



Typing VIEW [FIXTURE NUMBER] ENTER allows you to change the labels of a channel to make your Channel Grid a little easier to understand. Alternately, you can select them and right-click with the mouse and choose Channel Label.



Right click on the divider to the left of the Channel Grid to set 20 vs. 25 across.



The Status Window will tell you what tool you will get if you touch the TOOLS button. To change the tool, press SHIFT and TOOLS and select a new tool using the SOFTKEYS.



If you want to get back to the stage display while in the patch, just press a SELECT key.



Instead of using the command line to patch channels, try using the Blue Box. Select the first cell, press EDIT, type in the desired number then just keep pressing the DOWN ARROW rather than ENTER.



Press S4 - CONTROL PANEL to get to applications other than the Palette, such as MS PAINT, Internet Explorer and Media Player.

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

Running your finger along the very right-hand side of the track pad allows you to adjust the levels of the selected channels.



Why print to paper? Just e-mail your PDF output right from your desk.



There is a text editor built into Palette that allows you to take notes. Get to it using S4 CONTROL PANEL.



Use the WHEEL in dialog boxes to scroll through lists, number boxes and combo boxes. Holding down SHIFT while rolling the WHEEL will change numeric fields by 0.1.



Press S4 - CONTROL PANEL to change your Screen Saver. Changing the Settings of "My Pictures Slideshow" allows you to point to your own directory of images that you place on the hard drive.



Create a chase easily by selecting a range of cues' ACTIONs with the Blue Box, touch EDIT and select Follow After Fade. Then select the NEXT CUE to be linked to the first.



When controlling moving lights, group multiple attributes together and control them simultaneously by holding down combinations of S1-S4 and rolling the wheel.



Palettes can be nested. If you build Position A from raw values, then build Position B using Position A, updating Position A will affect Position B.



You can Flip moving head channels easily by using the FLIP Tool. Do this and update the cue when the light 'took the long way 'round' when running cues.

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Screen Layout

Toolbars

Palette has three different toolbars. If you are not sure about any tool’s function, position the mouse pointer on a toolbar button (without clicking). The tool is highlighted, and the Tool Tip display indicates the function:

The functions of the Toolbars are detailed below. Most of these functions have QWERTY keyboard

equivalents.

Cue List Toolbar

The Cue List Toolbar is located directly above the Cue List on the left side of the display.

The Autoscroll button turns the Autoscroll Cue List function on and off . [S11] also

toggles the pin.

The GO button (Console Equivalent: [GO], QWERTY Equivalent: [SPACE]):



 activates the cue indicated by the Cue List Pointer



 advances to the next cue in the recorded time (activating any Cue Actions and executing

any Follow Cues)

The HALT button stops any cue that are playing back on this cue list from running. Once the cue list has been stopped, hitting the Halt button again will backup to the previous cue in the default Cue List Back fade time (See [S2] Show Options QWERTY Equivalent: [Z])

The Go Back button is equivalent to doing a Goto on the previous cue in its own cue time. ( Console Equivalent: [SHIFT] [HALT/BACK] QWERTY Equivalent: [SHIFT] [Z])

The Step Back button replays the cue before the active cue in the default Step Time (See

[S2] Show Options

to go to the top of a cue list.

). (Console Equivalent: [STEP UP] QWERTY Equivalent: "[") Use with [SHIFT]

in the cue's recorded time

). (Console Equivalent: [HALT/BACK]

The Step Forward button goes to the cue after the active cue on the default Step Time (See

[S2] Show Options

to go to the bottom of a cue list. If a long fading cue is running, pressing this button will complete the cue in Step Time

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The Release Cue List button halts all cues on that Cue List and releases all channels controlled by that Cue List. (The channels will either return to their default levels, or to the levels set by any other Cue List or Sub Master that has control of them. They will fade out using the Cue List's release time [SHIFT] to release all cue lists.

The Goto Cue button activates the highlighted cue on the Cue List in the default time. (Console Equivalent: [SHIFT] [GOTO CUE], QWERTY Equivalent: [SHIFT] [Q] [#] [ENTER] - (Un-Check [S6]) Goto and Do Not Execute Follows)

The Goto and Run button fades to the highlighted cue in the recorded time. (Console Equivalent: [SHIFT] [GOTO CUE], QWERTY Equivalent: [SHIFT] [Q] - (Check [S6]) Goto and Execute Follows)

Cue Properties are accessed via the Cue Properties dialog box. [VIEW] [CUE] [#] [ENTER] QWERTY Equivalent: [V] [F10] [#] [ENTER])

). (Console Equivalent: [REL-PB] QWERTY Equivalent: [\]) Use with

Channel Grid Toolbar

When in Live mode, the levels you see in the Channel Grid show what is being output to the stage. Any levels with a blue background are not controlled by the Selected Cue List. Get in and out of Live mode by pressing [SHIFT] [BLIND] or on the QWERTY keyboard with [B].

When in Blind mode, the Channel Grid has a grey background. See the status window to see what is currently loaded in Blind. Get in and out of Blind mode by pressing [SHIFT] [BLIND] or on the QWERTY keyboard with [B]. See Blind keys to move the Blue Box [LOAD] or [SHIFT] [B], the Load dialog box will be automatically stuffed with the highlighted cue number.

When the Tracking button is down in Blind, the levels that have tracked into the Loaded cue are shown even though those levels are not recorded in the loaded cue. This button is only shown when in Blind

The Record button accesses the Record dialog box.

Update will open the Update dialog box presenting a list of possible playback items to

update.

Changes the Channel and Attribute Grid displays to show Intensity Levels and Attribute Values. The Moving Light Attribute Grid (see below) must be displayed to see Attribute values such as Pan/Tilt and Color.

Changes the Channel and Attribute Grid displays to show Wait/Fade Times. The

keyboard shortcut

to toggle between Levels and Times is [SHIFT] [EDIT].

, the highlighted cue will automatically be loaded. When you press

. While in Blind, if you use the arrow

The first click of the Release button release the last altered attribute. The second click

releases selected channels and the third releases all captured

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Cue List Directory Toolbar

Use the Cue List Directory toolbar to switch between displaying Cue Lists, Patch and Time Events .

See Also:

Keyboard Shortcuts Softkeys Described

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Channel Grid

The Channel Grid is the field of numbers located in the top right pane of the display:



Each Channel in the system is represented in the Channel grid in two lines.

The top line represents Channel numbers

The second line can either show levels or fade and wait times. (See Independent

Timing)



Channel levels are color-coded to indicate the status of the Channel. (See Channel Colors and

Symbols)



Channels with a small red triangle by their number are Channels that have more attributes than just intensity. The other attributes can be found in the Attribute Grid

Adjusting the Size of the Channel Grid Display

Move the mouse over the line separating the Channel Grid from the Cue List until it

turns into this symbol Click on the vertical line and hold down the mouse button to adjust the width of the

Channel Grid display.

Right-click once the

right-click menu.

symbol appears, and select a set Channel Grid size from the

Moving around the Channel Grid using the

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

 Inside the Scroll Bar is the Thumb, which

indicates the section displayed. (If it is near the top of the scroll bar, you are near the top of the display.



 Click above (or below) the thumb to

move the Channelgrid will move up (or down) a page.



 To move up (or down) line by line, click

on the arrow at the top or bottom of the scroll bar. Each click will move the display one line. If you hold down the mouse button while the mouse pointer is over the arrow, the screen will continue moving line by line.



 To move in big steps, put the mouse

pointer on the thumb, hold down the mouse button and the drag the thumb up or down in the scroll bar.

Wheel

While no Channels are selected, you can hold down [SHIFT] and roll the Wheel to scroll the Channel grid. If you have channels selected and you don't want to release them, use the [BKSP] key to clear the command line.

Moving around the Channel Grid Display with the trackpad

The Scroll Bar is located along the right edge of the cue list display as well as the Channel display and it identifies whether the display is near the top, middle or bottom.

See Also:

Attribute Grid

Screen Resolution Toolbars Channels Colors and Symbols

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Description of the different states of channels

When you are programming your show, the channels you select and work with can be described as existing in different states. Understand the definitions of what changes these states helps explain why Palette may treat them differently at different times.

Channels can be:

Released

Selected

Changed

Captured

Under Playback control

Under Sub Master control

Under Flash/Highlight/Lowlight control

See Also:

Channel Colors and Symbols Channels to Record Channel Resolution Show Option

Released channels are channels that are not captured for use in a pending record operation. These channels may be at their default level (i.e. not controlled by anything) or they may be set to a level by a currently active Cue List or Sub Master.

Examples of Released channels:

Selected channels are channels that have been addressed and are pending immediate hands-on control. Selected channels that have not Changed and are not Captured can still be controlled by active Playbacks or Sub Masters.

Selected channel Only:

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Selected and Changed:

Selected, Changed and assigned new part:

Under control of either Flash, Highlight or Lowlight tool:

Changed channels are currently or recently under control after being selected, but not yet recorded. These channels are necessarily Captured.

Changed, Selected and Captured

Changed and Captured

Captured channels have likely have changed and are pending a record. If you are in the LIVE display, these channels will not be controlled by Cue Lists or Sub Masters. If you do a record, the Changed delta symbol is removed, but the channels are still Captured, meaning that Cue Lists and Sub Masters will not control their level until they are released.

Captured channel (not Selected but Changed):

Captured channel (Selected and Changed)

Captured Not Changed (not Selected, probably just Recorded, but not released)

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Note:

You can control whether or not Captured channels are automatically Released after

recording a cue in Show Options There is a Console Option in Hardware Setup that allows you to use Last Action

Editing. If you choose Last Action Editing, channels will remain captured until a cue takes control of them.

Channels under Playback Control must be Released. If you are using Last Action Editing, attributes will automatically be Released when a Cue Lists needs to take control of them.

Under Playback Control:

Channel under Sub Master Control must be Released. Additive Looks can affect levels sim ilar to Cues, either under HTP or LTP intensity that is currently either under Cue List Control or Additive Sub Master Control.

Under Additive Sub Master Control:

control. Inhibitive Looks negatively affecting a channel's

Channel under Cue List Control being inhibited by Inhibitive Sub Master

Channel under Cue List Control being inhibited by Cue List Master or Grand Master

Flashing channels are Selected. It may or may not be Captured. (See: Flash Fixture or Output and Highlight/Lowlight)

Flashing or Highlighted channel:

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Attribute Grid

If you have patched moving lights in your show, the Attribute Grid will appear below the Channel Grid. You can turn on or off the Attribute Grid display by using the Display menu, [S5].

You can also dock a Second Window with just the Attribute Grid in it by selecting Second Window from the Display menu or selecting it from the [S5] popup.

The Channel Grid shows that a channel has more attributes than just intensity by displaying a

red triangle in its upper left corner: Grid:

The channels are listed in rows and the attributes are show in columns. The first two columns are fixed, such that when you scroll the pane horizontally, you can always see which channel is on which row and you can see its current intensity. The other columns will shift left an right if you move the horizontal scroll bar or automatically when you address individual attributes such that the one you are working with is visible. The column order cannot be switched, but you can size the columns by placing the cursor between two column headings, clicking and dragging. The column width will be persistent between show files as it is not saved in with the show.

When you select a moving light, the row in which it appears will be highlighted with a grey background.

Note:

Just by selecting a moving light, you do not Capture the individual attributes. They are still being controlled by cues and looks until you actually adjust their values. Check out the topic called Channel Colors and Symbols to see what the different sym bols mean.

The grey highlighted background shows you which attributes are available for that channel. In the image above, you can clearly see that the VL1000 does not have a Color Wheel and the VL2000 Wash does not have a Gobo Wheel.

The attribute control windows at the bottom of the screen show you individual control of the various aspects of the selected attributes. Sometimes two or more of these controls are string concatenated into a full description of what the attribute is doing within a single column. The Gobo wheel on the VL1000 shown above is a great example. When you selected Gobo after selecting the VL1000, there at three controls that affect how the Gobo Wheel is going to behave:

The additional attributes can be seen in the Attribute

The first bubble Selects the specific gobo from the gobo wheel (in this case Pinwheel). Adjusting the Gobo Mode determines how the individual gobos will behave (in this case, the gobo will rotate Clockwise), and the third bubble shows specifically how the behaviour is configured (in this

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case, it shows Revolutions Per Minute, but if the behaviour was to index the gobo, it would show the angle in degrees from the home position). You can read these bubbles from left to right like this: "The Pinwheel gobo will Rotate Clockwise at 6 RPM". In the attribute grid, it appears

concatenated like this: For more inform ation on the relationship of control handles and attributes, check out the topic

Universal Attribute Control Model

See Also:

Channel Grid Channel Colors and Symbols Controlling Moving Lights Universal Attribute Control Model

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File Menu

The File pull down menu on the Menu Bar provides access to the following functions.



New - Use to create a new show. You will have to Save it to give it a name.



Open – Useto access an existing show for playback or editing. The File Open dialog box allows you to open Palette Show files, Checkpoint files and Backup files. By default, the combo is set to open Palette Show files (*.spf). You can also open 500 Series Show files (*.ssf). The conventional patch and cue lists will be opened.



Close – Use to exit the show that is currently in use. If the show file has been changed, it will ask you to save first.



Save – Use to record the contents of the current show to disk. You can also press [S8] on the main softkey YourShowFile.spb. The *.spb extension is used for backup files. The current show file is automatically backed up at regular intervals to a Checkpoint file. Checkpoint file use the same name as the show file, but has the extension *.spc. If your system crashes or you lose power, when you recover

You will need to verify you want to continue working with the Checkpoint file or the real show file. If you choose Yes to open the Checkpoint file, you will do a SaveAs the first time you choose Save. You can manually Open checkpoint files by changing the "Files of Type" combo in the File|Open dialog box to "Palette Checkpoint". Set the time interval of how often checkpoint files

toolbar. Once you save the show, the old file on disk will be renamed

the Checkpoint file will be opened rather than the show file:

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are written in Show Options files are automatically deleted if you exit Palette manually.



Save As – Use to record the current show under another name and continue working under that name.



Backup - Use to make a backup copy (*.spb) of the current show to another location and continue working under the original name. Set your backup configurations in Show Save

Options.



Print to PDF - Opens the Print dialog box to allow you to customize what sort of document you want to create using the current show.



Recent files will be listed by number. Using the QWERTY keyboard, press that number to load it.



Enable Outputs - This option is a indicated by a check mark. If you disable the outputs, the console's DMX ports and Ethernet outputs will remain static until you re-enable them:

. (Check out Mirrored Saves also found in Show Options) Checkpoint

Upon recovery from an improper shut down, you can choose to enable or disable outputs. If the

Console Option

desirable in architectural situations.



Disconnect Remote Video - If you are monitoring a console using your PC or laptop as a

Remote Video

Imm ediately, you will be presented with the Connect dialog box to re-connect to the sam e or other recently used consoles.



Exit – Use to close down the lighting control software. Upon exiting, the checkpoint file for the current show will be deleted to prevent you from opening a stale show file.

Note:

Any time you see a word with an underlined letter on the menu bar or in a pull-down menu, this means you can access it from the QWERTY keyboard using the ALT key and the underlined letter. For example, ALT, F, O will access the File drop down menu from the Menu Bar, and then the Open file dialog box will appear.

See Also:

Show Save Options Recovery - Enable Outputs Display Menu Help Menu

Force Outputs upon Recovery is checked, they will always be enabled, which is

terminal, you can disconnect from the main console using this options.

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Display Menu

Used to turn on and off the display of the Cue Lists/Live Display, Patch, Time Events, Macro

Buttons, Virtual Sub Masters, Moving Light Attribute Grid, Running Effects Grid, Second Window

and Track Sheets

A large popup display is available by pressing [S5] on the main Softkey menu:

Use the wheel to select a display, then press [ENTER] to close the popup and select the new display.

See Also:

Softkeys Described File Menu Help Menu

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Help Menu

The Help pull down menu on the Menu Bar provides access to the following functions.



Palette Help - Opens the on-line Help files.



About Palette... – Displays copyright and version information for Palette, including the User Interface, Fade Engine and Show File version numbers.

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

Upgrade Palette... - Allows you to either use Dealer Codes or go On-Line to order more control channels for your Palette



Tip of the Day – Use to access the Tip of The Day display, which can provide tips and notes on Palette operation. The Tip of The Day dialog box has a check box to determine if the Tips should be shown at startup.

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See Also:

Keyboard Shortcuts Select Softkeys Profiles Display Palette Control Panel Controlling Moving Lights Command Line Syntax Blue Box

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Status Window

This box in the lower right hand corner of the display shows you various pieices of information. What is displayed in this window area is configured with the Status Softkey [S10]

History

In the History window a record is kept of the actions you perform ed when operating your console. The time of the operation is marked and the last two hundred events are shown in the list. You can right click to clear the list or copy it to the system clipboard.

Some of the actions that are reported in the Status Window include:



Show Open/New/Save (delineated with horizontal line placed above)



Show Checkpoint



Mirrored Save success or failure



Go, Halt, Back (shown in green text)



Assert Cue List



Release Cue List



Blue Box edits



Triggers



Show Options



Hardware Setup



Goto Cue



Goto Top/Bottom of Cue List



Move/Copy Cue



Move/Copy Look



Load Cue



Load Look



Delete Cue

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

Delete Look



Record Cue (red if recording an empty cue)



Record Look



Bump Buttons



Sub Masters Moves



DBO (shown in red text)



Grand Master (shown in red text)



USB On-Line status



Time Events

Status

In the status Window, information about the last selected channel is displayed.

Tool

The Tool Selected shows what Tool is currently active or which tool will be active if you press the [TOOLS] button (QWERTY equivalent [T] button). When you first start your session, this will display [---] because no Tool has been selected yet. Press [SHIFT] and the [TOOLS] button and select the tool using the softkeys. When a tool is active, the LED on the Tools button on the console will illuminate.

Saved

After you save the current show, this marks the time at which you did that. A timer also shows you how long it has been since you last saved. The Hostory Windows marks a horizontal line where the save occurred. If checkpoint success or failure is also noted in the Uber Status box. [S8] Save Show is available when the

default softkeys

are displayed.

files or mirrored saving is enabled, their

Time

The Time of Day and date is displayed. You can set the date and time of your console through the Control Panel

HW Status

This will tell you if your Palette hardware is either On-Line or Off-Line or whether or not the outputs are enabled your Hardware type, serial number, and what type of processor and what amount of memory your system has. The total number of channels your system is authorized for and other additional options, such as Remote Focus Unit

. Use the Help drop down to view the Hardware Status dialog box to view

or Remote Video authorization, is also shown

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here.

Playbacks

A display of playbacks real or virtual is displayed.

See Also:

File Menu Hardware Setup - Grand Master and Black Out Button Load SMPTE Time Code on Cue Lists Enable Outputs - Recovery

(checkpoint files and mirrored saving)

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Look Pages

Looks are recorded and arranged on Pages. You can see the Look pages by selecting the Looks Display Display|Looks or pressing the [S5] Display softkey and select Looks from the pop-up list.

Additionally, these pages may be laid out on your hardware's sliders (via Hardware Setup) so that you can quickly playback Looks live via Sub Masters.

New show files have five Look Pages (Sub Page, Group, Position, Color and Other). You can add pages by right clicking in the Cue List Directory

If you want to change the name or other properties of the Look Page, press [VIEW] [S11] then press [S1] to select the Look Page. You can repeatedly press [S1] to change the highlight in the list, or use the Wheel to scroll the list. Once you have highlighted the desired page, press [ENTER].

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You will then be presented with the Look Page Properties box:

In this dialog box you can change the name of the page. The scroll list at the bottom of the window tells you what Looks are recorded on this page (double clicking on them does nothing).

The Attributes button will open the Attribute Family Masking dialog box:

By de-selecting different attribute families, these will not be recorded (by default) when you records Looks to this page. Therefore, if you wanted a whole bunch of Looks that only had Pan/Tilt information in them, you would de-select all but Position. Then each time you went to

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record a Look on this page, the Record dialog box would already be masking out (not recording) any attributes except Position attributes. This can be overridden in the Record dialog box at will.

Note:

If you double tap [S5] (or any other softkey), it will 'solo' Position. That is, all other

check marks will clear and Position will remain checked. While in the main Properties dialog box, if you press [SHIFT], the Attribute button will

look like this

Pressing any of these changes the attribute masking without the need to open the Attribute

dialog box. You can also press [SHIFT] and double tap any attribute family to solo it. See Also:

Look Recording Looks Sub Master Types Recording and Using Groups Hardware Setup - Slider Panels Hardware Setup - Button Array

and the softkeys will change to the following:

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Macro Buttons

Macro buttons are a method of setting Variables which, in turn, can either run macros or change variable values to either true or false.

Variables can be thought of as a meeting place for different pieces of hardware and virtual console elements. Variable Pages can be 'hard patched' to Look Pages, Cue Lists or physical Button Stations in the show file. The Macro buttons are just one method of tying user buttons to Variable Pages for the purpose of seeing the variables' current values and to provide a method to change them.

You can show virtual Macro Buttons by selecting Macro Buttons in the Display menu or by pressing [S5] from the main softkey menu and selecting from the pop up list.

The combo box to the left shows which Variable Page the macros buttons are assigned to. If you have multiple Variable pages, use the mouse to choose which one you want to see. To operate a Macro Button, left click on it with the mouse or using the QWERTY keyboard, hold down ALT while pressing [F1] through [F12].

To change the function of the macro buttons you must change the Variables it is tied to. Do this by accessing Variables in the Display menu or press the traffic light icon in the Cue List Directory

Toolbar

or press [S5] from the main softkey menu and select Variables from the pop up list:

Select the desired Variable Page using the mouse, then use the Blue Box and [EDIT] to change

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any of the parameters of the variables. The name and the value of the variable (true or false or zero or none zero show as normal or pushed in) can be seen if the Variable Page is selected. Icons also show if a button is a radio, toggle or momentary button.

Momentary Buttons

If a variable's type is Momentary, the corresponding Macro Button will have a red 'mushroom' button icon. These buttons are only down as long as you have your finger on them. When it goes down, Button Down, Off Zero or Value Change actions will occur and the variable's value will change from zero to 1 or 100 (depending on what is patched to it). When you release your finger, the variable's value will return to zero and any Up Action or On Zero or Value Change actions will be executed.

Toggle Buttons

Toggle variables, denoted by a rocker switch, make the down action of a button stick. Pressing the button again, pops the button back up. Again, macros are fired on Button Down, Button Up and Value Change events where applicable.

Radio Buttons

Similar to an old car radio, only one radio button (or station) can be down (or tuned in) at a time. Pressing another button down, pops the current button up. The Variable display has a column called Radio Group. The text in these fields can be anything; as long as they match the variables are in the same group. You may have as many radio groups per Variable page as need be and buttons in each group will not affect buttons in other groups. Leaving the Radio Group field blank is also valid (i.e., any Radio Variable who has no text in this column will be part of the same radio group).

To learn more about Macros and Variables, check out the topics below.

See Also:

Macro Editor Variables

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View Properties

Pressing [VIEW] button or [V] displays the View dialog box.

When the dialog box opens, the Fixture tab is active allowing you to use the syntax [VIEW] [#] [ENTER] to see the properties of a specific channel.

This is the method in which you get to View and Edit the Properties of almost anything on the console. You can navigate this box using the Softkeys and the display on the right hand side will change to allow you to further narrow your selection.

When on the console, there are two very handy accelerators that speed you through this box. You can press [VIEW] [BUMP] or [VIEW] [SELECT] to directly open the Properties box for either a Look or a Cue List. You can also press [VIEW] [CUE] [#] [ENTER] rather than [VIEW] [S10] [#] [ENTER] to quickly see the properties of a specific cue. Similarly, [VIEW] [LOOK] [#] [ENTER] shows you the properties of the specified Look.