Quote:
Originally Posted by charcoaldabs
...I'm thinking maybe I should take tracking off. If it confuses me, I'm sure it confuses everyone. Edit: Unless someone wants to explain it...  ? |
This might be tough for you to grasp, having never worked with Piano Boards, but I bet you're up to it. Tracking, when used and understood, makes a world of sense, particularly for moving lights. In 1975, when Tharon Musser and others were consulting with Century-
Strand on the development of the Light
Palette, they said they wanted a console that thinks like a Lighting Designer thinks. On a
Piano Board, when you put a
dimmer at say 50% in a cue, the handle stays there until a different cue says to change it, regardless of how many cues there are between. So if in Q1 you bring the blue
cyc up to 50% and it says that way until intermission, Q99. Cues2-98 do other things, but never affect the cyc. Then the director tells you he/she wants the cyc red during the first act. So in Q1 you record the "blue cyc" at zero and the "red cyc" at 50%. Make sure that Q99 takes the "red cyc" to 0%. No need to change anything about cues 2-98. Almost all console displays use colors to differentiate between a
channel that has tracked from a previous cue and a channel that moves in the current cue. (I don't know Strand's code). Also, for blackouts and other major cues, it's a good idea to insert a "blocking" cue (Colortran used to call this a "clean-up" cue, Express(ion) calls this an "AllFade). This is a cue that inserts a "hard value" for every channel, and thus stops all tracking. A similar outcome, for one time use, can be achieved using "record
Q-only."
The best explanation of tracking, especially for moving lights, I have found is in
The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook, Brad Schiller. Focal Press, 2004. One more thing: don't get tracking confused with HTP and LTP, they are similar, but different concepts.