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Up until now we've just been talking about working with outputs on the first DMX port.
If we want to work with things in another port, or what we call in Congo another universe,
we simply select the Output, then say Point and the Port or Universe we want to use. Make
that an output, go ahead and select the channel we want it to be and hit Modify.
It's going to ask us if we want to patch that channel to this output. Notice now it's saying
1.2, as in Output 1 on Port or Universe 2. Also known as 513. Go ahead and hit Modify
to confirm and notice that this is now on our second port.
So now that we've added some things into Patch, it's a good idea to save your show. To do
this hit Browser, scroll down into the files. Since this is our first time we'll go to Save
As, navigate that open, down to Play Archive and hit Modify. We'll give it a name that
we can easily remember and hit Enter or Modify. It's a good idea when patching to save as
often as possible.
If we decide we don't want a channel, we can select the output, 1 Output, and do 0 Modify.
It's going to ask us for confirmation. Now we have Unpatch that output from that channel.
There are a couple of other ways we can patch channels. If we hit Browser, go into Patching,
arrow down to our Settings and Tools and access the Channel list, this gives us a spreadsheet
style list of our channels that we can very simply navigate from one channel to the next,
select a particular dimmer and enter it right on in.
We can also unpatch here by doing the same thing we did in Patch and just saying 0 Modify.
We also have the option of going down into our Output list by hitting Browser, arrowing
down to Output List, selecting the Universe we like using our arrow keys, hit Modify to
bring that up and do the same method we just used, but this time we're adding a channel
with a number in Modify; not adding a dimmer. We can also say 0 and Modify to Unpatch.
While we're in this view, we can also specify a proportion for the dimmer or we can set
a particular curve by arrowing to that field, hitting Modify and then arrowing up and down
to select the particular one we want and hitting Modify again.
Now let's talk about adding scrollers to our channels. To do this we go back into Browser,
come down to the Patch Wizard. We'll navigate over to the Patch Device tab using our right
arrow key.
Arrowing down we'll have the option to select what type of device. In this case we'll just
leave it as Scroller. Come down to number of devices. In my particular show I have 15
scrollers. So I'm gonna say 15 Modify starting at desk channel 6, 6 Modify. Then we setup
where they are addressed. My show starts at 71. They're all on DMX Universe 1, but I could
specify something else here if I needed to and they're all lined up right next to each
other, which means I'm gonna leave my Output Offset at 1.
Underneath this we have a very important checkbox. If I had left this checked it would have replaced
my channels 6 through 20 with this new scroller. What I wanna do is actually add them to it
so they're all controlled together. So I'm gonna hit Modify to take out that checkbox.
Come down to Scroller Roll. This allows me to select from some pre-made scrollers. We'll
talk about making custom scrollers in a minute, but for right now I'm just gonna select a
generic 32 Frame Scroller Roll. Down once more and hit Modify on Execute. It's going
to tell me that 15 devices have been patched and I can see Channel List for the details.
Go ahead and hit Modify once more for okay and then Escape to clear out the wizard.
If we take a look in our output editor now, we can see that Outputs 71 through 85 have
now been patched to Channel 6 through 20. If we take a look in our live table, we can
see that 6 through 20 are now shaped slightly differently and they have a row underneath
them that's going to show us what scroll is active.
When I patched my scrollers I selected a generic 32 frame scroll roll, but I have the option
to make my own. To do this hit Browser, scroll down to Devices and open up that node and
then down to the bottom into Settings and Tools. The first option will be Scroller Rolls.
Hit Modify. To add a new one simply select the number you want. In this case 10. Hit
Insert.
We can label our Scroller Roll by arrowing over to the Text field and hit Modify. Type
in a name and hit Modify again. To actually edit the roll, arrow back over to the number
and hit Modify. This is gonna give us our Scroller Item Wizard. All we have to do here
is enter in the number of frames we want. In this case, 32 and hit Modify. Arrow down
to Execute and hit Modify again. This is gonna create a 32 scroll custom scroller roll.
I can navigate over to my Text field. If I push and hold Column and scroll the Level
Wheel, I can make this a little bit bigger and give myself some room to work. When I
hit Modify now it's gonna let me type in exactly what is in this position. In this case, it's
my Open Frame. Hit Modify again when you're done and arrow down and we can start labeling
exactly what gels are in our frames. Hit Modify when you're done. Down again and continue
until you've labeled every frame in your roll.
So now that we've created our custom scroller roll, we need to actually apply it to our
fixtures. Hit Browser, arrow up to Patching and go down to the Device List and hit Modify.
The Device List is a spreadsheet of all of -- how should we phrase this -- the Device
List is a spread sheet of all of the devices we currently have patched in our show. Right
now we just have our scrollers. Notice that the column for Scroller Roll has that 32 frame
scroll that we put in when we created the show. I didn't like that.
Notice that the scroller roll has the 32 frame generic scroll that we added in when we first
patched the channels. If we wanna select this entire column, all we have to do is push the
Column button. We then can say Modify and we have a dropdown list that includes the
custom roll we made in the Editor a second ago. Hit Modify again to assign this and now
we have our scroller roll patched in.
Now, when you're working with scrollers sometimes you have to go back in and calibrate them,
whether they're off a little bit or they've aged a bit and stretched. To do this let's
select our channel. So in this case 6 Channel, roll up the wheel to get some intensity and
now arrow over to the Calibration Editor and hit Modify. This shows us all of our scrolls,
their adjusted position and the scroller roll position.
The adjusted position is our calibrated position. As we navigate through these individual rolls,
notice that our scroller changes to match. We can then use the level wheel either up
or down to move the scroll back and forth until we get it perfectly centered in the
frame. As soon as we're done with that, just hit Escape and go back to the list.