Cuelist Activated Within a Cue

[lightman]

I would like to activate a cuelist emulating a flickering candle effect inside a normal cue.

Can this be done?

I have generated a nifty cuelist with near random flickering that is used inside a lantern prop on stage. I want to use this flickering candle in several cues.

I would like to activate it using a cue button along with many other theater light settings in the same cue. I then want to deactivate the lantern by clicking on next cue (using radio buttons) or clicking on same cue button.

I know I can activate the lantern in its own cue button in the show control window... but then the Go Monkey must remember to turn it off. I would like to make it automatic... as part of a cue button.

Regards,
Lightman

[Dave Brown [admin]]

[I believe I answered you via email, but I'll copy my answer here for general info]

There's no way to add a new oscillator shape to the programmer via Python, as the oscillator functionality is embedded within D-Pro itself.

When I need a "flickering" effect, I usually use a very fast square oscillator. At fast speeds, the end effect looks random because of the "interference" between the oscillator rate and the maximum 25Hz DMX data rate. You can get quite a convincing candle flicker by experimenting with subtle changes in oscillator Speed, Pulse Width & Amount.

Alternatively - instead of using a single cuelist to run the show, you could use Show Control 'round robin' buttons (p40 of the D-Pro manual). Assign a bunch of buttons to the same radio group and trigger (e.g. spacebar) and they will execute in order via the spacebar, like a regular cuelist. This lets you mix cues & cuelists in your show design, but still have everything execute from a single button. You can control crossfade times using the button fade in/out controls.

[lightman]

Thanks Dave...I will give your suggestions a try.

Regards,
Lightman

[lightman]

We have decided to stay with the Cue List as it yields the most convincing performance for our particular show.

I did try the fast square wave oscillator (that interacts with 25 hz update rate) and it did produce a fairly fast flicker... and somewhat pseudo random look, however, our director likes a slower wavering effect... so we went back to the cue list.

Trying to use the round robin for this effect would require the Go Monkey to continually cycle through many cues for this act. It would be unruly to do so in this particular play. But non the less, another approach to consider in the future.

Thanks again for the suggestions...

Regards,
Lightman