presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Chat about Show Buddy Active lighting & video control software
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Hello everybody!

I use showbuddy active at our church for all our lighting needs. I love it!

We trigger our lighting presets with Midi notes from Pro Presenter. The problem I’m running into is when we trigger a preset that has color changing chases applied, and then trigger the next song with different color chases applied, it does not fade the chases smoothly, but instead, they abruptly jump to the next chase style, even when fade times are set to 5 seconds. It seems the chase function ignores the fade values. But this is only when a channel has an oscillator (sine is the most common one I use). If it’s a static color, it works great!

Any ideas on how to overcome this? I read something about using midi CC for better fade control but I’m not sure how I’d apply that in this setting.

Thanks so much for any suggestions!

-Zack
vwodwo22
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:36 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by vwodwo22 »

Hey Zack,
So I tried to recreate what you were talking about and may have recreated it. Couple of questions. when you say color chase, do you mean like a program/macro that’s on a fader?which will run through a series of preset colors? How many channels is the light you are using? I was testing on a 7 channel
1.R
2. G
3. B
4. Strobe
5. Program/macro
6. X
7. Dimmer

Now, I did notice a few thing. I have a moveable spot. I created to presets. One with yellow color pointing forward, one with red pointing back. In my .dmx file for that particular light, I had the tilt as “s” for static. When fading under this particular with “s”, mid way through the fade time it would go from front to back instantly. I changed this setting to “v” and it actually slowly moved from front to back. Same with the color. That may point you in the right direction. By the way CC could work, however, this In my opinion could be tedious depending on how many songs are you programming, how many lights, how many channels.
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Thanks so much for replying!

My chases are not on the macro channel of a fixture, but rather the RGB channels of a fixture with, for example, a sine wave oscillator applied to these RGB channels with an offset of 3 and 4 bars of speed where im able to get a blue and purple color morph. Then I attempt to fade from that to my next cue with oscillator on just G and B for a blue green morph.
vwodwo22
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:36 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by vwodwo22 »

Hey Zach,
So I got a chance to try it out and here are my settings:
All my lights:
Preset1
1. Red: 128, Oscillator sine, 50%
2. Green 0
3. Blue 255, no oscillator
Fade time 20 seconds

Preset2
1. Red: 0
2. Green 128, oscillator sine, 50%
3. Blue 255, no oscillator
Fade time 20 seconds

Changing back and forth, (and you can watch what happens on the controls page, hence 20 second fade) blue always stayed at 100%. When I would transition from preset to preset, the oscillators would slowly transition from preset1 to preset2(both red and green channels start moving during this time). Because red was going away and green was coming in, it was kind of white about 10 seconds in. If yours, with the same settings as above, is still holding the blue/purple then transitioning to a blue/green quickly at about 10 seconds, I would be willing to guess it might be the .dmx file for that particular light. Did you make/edit the .dmx file for your particular light or get it from the web? Perhaps post the configuration here.

Good luck.
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Thanks again for your response!

To clarify, the jump between oscillators is reflected in the 2d visualizer also. It does not show a smooth fade and its happening to ALL my fixtures. Not just 1. So I don’t think it’s a .dmx file issue. Would any of my global settings be affecting this?
vwodwo22
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:36 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by vwodwo22 »

Few Quick Questions:

1. What Operating System are you using?
2.In any preset, if you have an oscillator running on any of the RGB channels, is the fader with that channel moving? For example: Pick a light, on the Red fader, set the value to 128, set the oscillator type to sine, amount to 50%. With these settings, is the RED fader actively moving in front of your eyes at all? If not, this points me in one direction (audio/midi settings). If it is, it points me in another (.dmx file).
There's also the option that its something else, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there.

Also here is my .dmx file settings just for reference. The D is the important part (one of many really)
R
D,0,255,
G
D,0,255,
B
D,0,255,
Col
S,0,7,Amb1
S,8,15,Amb248...
......
.....
Dim
D,0,255,
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Mac OS 10.13.6 High Sierra

Faders do move in the software. The behavior upon fades seems to be that the oscillating faders peg out at their max value as they “start over” for their next preset.

With your .dmx file settings, would I need to open up the fixture editor on fixtures.dmxis.com to understand and see what this “d” value is or what it means?
vwodwo22
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:36 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by vwodwo22 »

Well, at least the oscillators are working. I'm not sure where it is on MAC OS but, in windows under Users>Public>Public Documents>db-audioware>Show Buddy Active>DMX Library you can go in and find the light.dmx files for the lights that used to create your show. Mince was under American DJ>Mega TriPar Profile 7 Channel.dmx. You can just open this file in a text editor to view it. I don't though that that could be the issue. (Although it might be). Any way you can take a 30 second video of what is happening. If so have it show your settings and faders. Good Luck
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Ok I’ll try to take some video tomorrow and post it. Thanks again for helping narrow this down!
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Hello! Well i finally got around to taking a screen record clip of the oscillators not fading between presets but rather jumping. This is with a fresh demo version just downloaded. I checked the .dmx file of the sample fixture I have loaded and the "D" is present for the R,G,B channels. Here is the video clip and fixture settings

[BBvideo]https://youtu.be/6p00cebXD-4[/BBvideo]

G
D,0,255,
R
D,0,255,
B
D,0,255,
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Is there anybody that could weigh in on this issue?

I just tested the same exact theory on my friend's setup at their venue running show buddy active and it does the same exact thing, jumping / flashing from one preset to the next, which tells me its not an isolated problem with my setup.

The lack of smooth fading between oscillators is kind of a big deal and seem contrary to what the user manual says.

Has anybody else experienced this?

-Zack
vwodwo22
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:36 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by vwodwo22 »

hey Zack,

Saw your vid . If you can send your (zip/rar) setup to xxxccccc and I will try to give a look to see if I can see if I can take a deep look at whats causing it. FYI I will delete this post in a few days or if you respond for obvious reasons. Unfortunately no PM function on here.
zackhinrichs
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:38 am

Re: presets with color chases won’t fade smoothly to next preset with different color chase

Post by zackhinrichs »

Thank you! I emailed you the zipped file. Yea PM would be awesome

-Zack
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