programming question

[sobi]

I'm using showxpress to do some programming, and I'm curious if there is a short cut to what I'm doing.
I'll have 10 uplights going around a room, and on a truss, 2 bar style washes and a couple of moving heads. What I'm trying to do is have all lighting one color (lets say red) while I have a white light doing a chase around the room. While that's happening, I'd have my movers doing their thing too.
Here is my conundrum. I'd want to have the movers scanning the room left to right. During the time it takes to do the 180 degree pan, I'd want that "chase sequence" for the uplighting/wash lights to circle the room/do their pattern, about 4 times. That means I'd have to program roughly 48 steps to make the washes do what I plan. Am I going to have to do all 48 steps individually on the movers just to pan over all of them, or is there some type of short cut?

[DJ M&M]

showxpress lets ur run overlay cues (i.e. two cue running at once) so just make two seperate cues and set the timing so that it works out that

[sobi]

can you elaborate on that? what exactly are the overlay cues, and what part of the program are they in?

[DigitalArtDJs]

can you elaborate on that? what exactly are the overlay cues, and what part of the program are they in?

I suspect what DJ M&M was suggesting is that you program using "layers" which means program one function at a time in a scene. For example, you have 2 movers, select both of them in the editor, program the left-to-right movement you want, then before you save the scene, select ALL channels EXCEPT those of the "X" and "Y" axis - on my movers channels 1-4 (Pan, Tilt, Pan fine & Tilt fine).

You will know you selected the channel as a check mark will display (hold down <cntl> and continue selecting all other channels except the X & Y channels - make sure you do the same thing for both movers). Once all selected right click and select deselect channels. Then save the scene and save that scene as a movement and assign it to a button in live. Repeat the process for all your colors, gobos, focus, dimmer (on/off), etc.

Then in live, you can select a movement you saved, then select another option like add any color (or gobo, focus, dimmer, strobe, etc) you want to that movement (because you saved each as a "layer" etc.) buy selecting that button (i.e. you have multiple scenes playing at the same time). You will need to also right click on the page in live and make sure you unselect "solo buttons." Hopefully that makes sense.

Now to do what you are describing above, I would suggesting programming your movers as described above. Then use the same "layer" methodology to program your uplighting. Program 1 scene to have your movers start where you want and then just create a macro that engages both the movers and the uplighting to accomplish the scene you want to create via a macro.

I know it's not a close-up photo, but in the photo below, you should be able to see all the buttons I have programmed on the left computer. I use 4 pages at a time. I have 3 or 4 pages just for my movers, a page for my uplighting, a page for macros, a page for my hazer, a page for my dance floor lighting etc. I use keyboard shortcuts to control my macros and blackouts and it has worked great for me. Hope this helps!

http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/xx325/jasplat88/Forums/th_031.jpg (http://s768.photobucket.com/albums/xx325/jasplat88/Forums/?action=view&current=031.jpg)

Edit:
Here's a bad video demo of what I am talking about but I was using the Android app on my phone to control live...but it shows what I am trying to describe.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TON9xxlWR2Y

[sobi]

wow... mind... blown...
heh. I had no idea all of that was possible. I've been programming 100 step programs. Not anymore, though it's gonna take me a while to learn all of that. Looks great man!

[DigitalArtDJs]

Thanks - honestly I wish someone would have provided me this information sooner when I was in your position. Have fun programming (and use the "generator" feature - it will save you a ton of time).

[Ryan Ruel]

Yep. In any of these programs, it helps to step back and work out in your head what you are intending to do. Then group things, sometimes by fixture, sometimes by function. I just moved from Martin LightJockey II to ShowCad Artist, and had to re-think everything about how my lighting was setup. Fortunately, programming in Artist is about 10x easier than in LightJockey because of the ease of combining as many cues as you like.

ShowXpress is similar in that regard.