Simple lighting chase

Edward Updated by Edward

A simple chase is a series of steps each containing a specific lighting state. Each step can contain any number of channels each in a different state. A chase can either run automatically or wait for a trigger before stepping onto the next state.

 

Enter a name to identify the new effect and choose the behavior that the effect will exhibit when run. The choices are “Override (LTP)”, “Build”,” Highest Takes Precedence”,” Inhibit”, “Exclusive”, & ”Subtract”. The behavior may be changed after the effect is created.

 

Click on “OK” to create the new chase and open the effects editor. The newly created chase will immediately become visible in the right-hand side of the effects editor.

Clicking on each step will show the detailed channel state in the right-hand panel.

 

To add a new step, click on the “Add Step” button found below the step list. New steps will always be added to the end of the list. To remove a step, select the entry you want to delete and click “Delete”. A dialog will ask you to confirm the deletion, click “Yes” to complete this operation or “No” to cancel.

 

The “Step Time” specifies the time waited before the next step will be executed. If this is set to zero (0), then the step will wait indefinitely so that the chase can be stepped manually using the play control. If the switch above the step time is set to “Global Timing”, then all steps will use the specified timing.  If the switch is set to “Timing per step”, then each step can have its own time.

 

The “Fade Time” specifies the time it takes to transition from step to step. Simple chases will always cross fade between steps by the time specified in the fade time.

 

The “Fade Out Time” can be used to specify the time it takes for the previous step to fade out. By default, this will be the same value as the fade time.

 

Right click step options

Using the right mouse button on the “Chase Steps” panel will open a menu related to the steps of the chase.

 

Copy step – Select this option to copy the currently selected step to the end of the chase.

 

Reverse step order – Select this option to reverse the order that the steps run.

 

Insert step below the current step – Select this option to add a new step below the one currently selected.

 

Adding channels to a step

Along the bottom of the chase editor panel is an edit box and the “Add Channels” button. Enter the channel list into the exit box provided using the standard channel selection syntax. Press enter or click on the “Add Channels” button to add the channel(s) to the chase step, e.g. “1/5@30” will add channels 1,2,3,4 and 5 to the step with the value set to 30%.

 

If you have groups and/or palettes defined, clicking on the down-arrow will drop down a list. Choosing one of those will add the channels defined within to the current step.

 

Removing channels from a step

To remove channels from the group, select the channel(s) in the grid above and click on the “Remove Channels” button. To select channels, use the same techniques described in the channel display window.

 

You can also remove channels by group similar to adding channels as described above.

 

Editing channel values

To edit the dimmer or attribute values of the channels in the chase step use the same technique as the channel display. Select the channels to modify by clicking on the desired channels (hold down <SHIFT> or <CTRL>to select multiple fixtures) and then use the scroll wheel on your mouse to modify the dimmer values.

 

If the fixture has more attributes, the fixture control window will be displayed as it does in the channel display.

 

The step channel display panel will only show attributes that have been set. Until an attribute is modified it will default to the off state.

 

To clear an attribute from the selected fixtures, use the drop-down menu on the end of the “Remove Channels” button.

 

Right click menu

Right clicking anywhere in the channel grid will bring up the context menu for this window. This is the same menu as the dropdown off the “Remove Channels” button.

Copy selected channels to another step – Use the sub menu to select a chase step to copy the current selection to. The state of the channels will also be copied.

 

Turn off attributes – To remove an attribute type from the step, select the channels and then select from this menu what you want to remove. In the case of color mixing you can use the submenu to select individual colors or remove all colors.

 

Random – Use the submenu to set an attribute type to random values for the selected fixtures.

 

Turn off in all steps – To turn off attributes in all fixtures and all steps use the sub menu to select the type.

 

Matrix View

An alternative way to view a chase step is the matrix view. You can switch between the matrix view and channel view by using the buttons in the top right of the window.

 

In the matrix view the step is shown as it looks from the point of view of a defined matrix.

Use the drop-down combo to select the matrix you want to view as the chase step. You can work with as many matrices as you want. Because the matrix view is just another way to edit the underlying channels you can switch to a different matrix at any time and no information will be lost.

 

This view works like a painting canvas with each grid cell being a position in the matrix that you can set to a color. Use the “Pen” option to select a color and then click anywhere in the matrix grid to paint the color. As soon as a color is painted, the channel will be added to the chase step. If the channel already exists, then it will be updated to reflect the painted color.

 

The eye dropper tool to the right of the pen option can be used to select an existing color from the matrix to set as your current pen color.

 

Load from image – Click this button to map any image to the matrix.

 

Copy from previous step – Use this to copy the state of the previous step to this step.

 

Additional controls allow you to tweak the brightness, red, green or blue content of the matrix.

 

The arrow buttons allow you to reposition the assigned channels.

 

Modifying the chase behavior

Simple chase effects can be run with different behavior types. By default, this is set to Override (LTP), however you can change this to Build, Highest Takes Precedence (HTP), Inhibit, Exclusive or Subtract. The behavior set by this option will result in playback of the chase following the same rules as the behavior set by channel groups.

 

Build will add the output from the chase to whatever the output currently is set in the channels. HTP will only apply the channel output from the chase if that output is higher than what the channel is already outputting.

 

To set the behavior right click on the name of the chase in the left panel and select “Effect Properties” from the popup menu. Use the drop-down combo to set the desired behavior when running the effect.

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