Control/Dimming Query/Conversation on Virtual Color Picker for Conventionals

After reading the recent thread on Linear Motion From Moving Lights my mind wandered to other "simple" functionality that might be missing from our modern control systems. I should preference this idea with the notion that I come from a heavy EOS background, and much of the following deals with how this might work on that control system. A similar function may already exist on another control surface, and if so, I'd love to hear about it.

The idea would be the creation of a virtual color space that could be automatically created by selecting 2-6? conventional channels with different gel colors assigned in the patch. Using a calibrated database (S4 575w/x?) the color space could be displayed over the RGB color space to allow use of virtual Hue/Saturation/Brightness encoders.

I think it would make sense for the changing values to just respond as regular intensity values, so that they may be recorded as intensity palettes (although this would restrict the use of Color Path.) There could be merit for just creating an entire virtual engine like the Eos Pixel Mapper so that the channels could respond to both regular intensity commands or virtual color palette assignments, but I'm not sure where the intensity aspect would be dumped, and it wouldn't be pretty if somehow the console tried to mark it!

I guess this idea stemmed from the idea of patching RGB Cyc fixtures as an Generic RGB in order to take advantage of the color picker. However I can really think of some situations where being able to color pick a 3 color backlight system or being able to easily create subtleties with non RGB colors for a cyc would really come in handy.

With a little reverse engineering, the engine could also be used to translate a mixture of non RGB cyc colors AND intensities into HSB values for calibrated led lights. This would make updating remounts/rep shows with a 3 or 4 color conventional cyc to LED cyc lights incredibly simple.

Please share your thoughts on this idea, or any other ideas you may have concerning use of conventional fixtures in a modern control environment.

Cheers!

This is a very interesting topic. Are you familiar with ANSI E1.54 PLASA Standard for Color Communication in Entertainment Lighting?
You can download it from here.
It is specific to a 3-colour system, but if you're not familiar with the concept of a universal standard for defining colour and translation between spaces, you'd do well to read this document.

It's an interesting theoretical approach but may not have much use in the real world. The data required to accurately model the color filter, lamp color temperature and intensity curves, would be pretty expensive to develop and maintain. Wouldn't most LDs just tweak intensities until they get the look they like?

This is interesting. I've considered something similar, which would eliminate the need for the software company to collect and maintain the real-world data. It's essnetially a user-calibrate color gamut curve.

I suppose a bit like when you calibrate a touch screen monitor: The software would prompt you to mix certain colors with your fixture based on the targeet it shows on the screen. For example, it would show a deep orange on the screen and provide you with the sliders for the fixture (RGB, or RGBAW, or RGBALUv, etc) and allow you to make adjustments until the real life fixture matches the color on screen as close as its physically possible. Then it moves on to other colors around the wheel until the software can essentially interpolate between these points to determine the range of colors a fixture can produce, and in turn, allow the color picker to be as close as possible based on the fixtures physical limitations - and thus it could even draw the little gamut range shape for the selected fixture right on the color picker.

This could be applied to three color conventional cyc lights as the original post mentioned, as well. The more calibration points that the software prompts, the more accurate it would be, and begin to take into effect the red-shift of the dimmed values.

I've done the RGB channel for conventional cyc fixtures before and found it to be very useful. Definitely makes taking advantage of a console's built-in effects engine much easier for RGB color effects that is much harder to do when you have an independent channel for each color.

Thought about carrying that over to other uses such as Zone 1, 2, 3, etc..., where one parameter is HS Cool another is HS Warm, Down Warm, Down Cool, Front Warm, Front Cool for each zone. Effectively having 15-20 channels with 6-8 parameters each to cover my rep plot. Never actually implemented the idea though. Adds an extra, rather bulky layer of abstraction to programming. The experiment gets out of the cage pretty quickly when you have 5 down wash zones but only 4 high side zones or anything like that. The moment you have to deviate from a carefully though out plot in any way at all to meet the needs of a specific show, you might as well throw the whole idea out because trying to force it to work will cost more time than it saves, and usually at the part of the production process where you cannot afford to be dicking around with esoteric control functions. While interesting from an academic perspective, not particularly practical.

As for using the color picker on a cyc fixture setup or other multi-fixture arrangement, I either set up color palettes or mix it in the moment. In a RGB fixture it's faster to snap the encoders where I want the fixture to go than it is to mess around with the color picker only have to fine tune on the encoders anyway.

In gelled fixtures the color picker will only get you a very rough approximation of where you want to go. Factor in that cyc gels burn up quickly and a lot depends on how bright your fixtures are and how well the cells and adjacent fixtures blend together, I prefer to just look at the stage and dial on in the encoders than to put in extra programming time to try and make the color picker a little more accurate.

I don't use ETC desks a lot but fixtures work similarly on most systems. I see no reason why you could make an RGB fixture like in MNicolais cyc applications and just put patch breaks into a generic RGB fixture to patch your dimmers. It would be more difficult to create amber drift compensation when dimming. IE adding more blue when dimming all of the cells. I suppose it may be possible with DMX curves and DMX remotes, but this would get pretty complex to create especially in a time when tungsten lamps are rapidly being replaced with LED Fixtures.

While I feel creating this would be somewhat academic, it does really hone console programming skills and make you think out of the box for solutions. That leads to better problem solving when the next "I wonder if I can..." comes up.

Rob said:

This is a very interesting topic. Are you familiar with ANSI E1.54 PLASA Standard for Color Communication in Entertainment Lighting?

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Thanks for throwing this out there, I believe I browsed over it in college, made more sense the second time around!

sk8rsdad said:

The data required to accurately model the color filter, lamp color temperature and intensity curves, would be pretty expensive to develop and maintain. Wouldn't most LDs just tweak intensities until they get the look they like?

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Two very valid points here. As for the data, I wouldn't be surprised if much of the data ETC has from the Gel Picker and their in-house led calibration tools could be re-purposed. Either way it wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time to take spectral measurements at a few different benchmark intensities for all the major gel companies. Yes, it would cost money, but it would be an investment in a new feature.

robmerow said:

I've considered something similar, which would eliminate the need for the software company to collect and maintain the real-world data. It's essnetially a user-calibrate color gamut curve.

Click to expand...

This is an interesting approach, it might take a while to set up, but would no doubt be more accurate than any computed guess, at least for now.

MNicolai said:

I prefer to just look at the stage and dial on in the encoders than to put in extra programming time to try and make the color picker a little more accurate.

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You have a point, but I would like to think that technological innovations and just plain R&D could make the color picker more accurate! I'll probably always need to tweak it, but being that much closer will always speed things up. I think in this case, I'm more interested in being able to navigate and sweep around a virtual color space without having to spend the time to think about exact color mixing. These things are computers after all!

Clint Eastwood said:

It would be more difficult to create amber drift compensation when dimming.

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Good ole amber drift does muddy the calculations However, ETC has figured out how to emulate it across their 7-color systems, so I bet those brains could figure this out. If anything, just taking spectral readings at a few benchmark intensities with each color in order to figure out a curve.


While conventional lighting has been around for a while now I'm afraid console manufactures may overlook new ways in which technology could allow us to work with them in favor of new LED/Intelligent features. Just because it's always been done that way isn't an acceptable excuse for not striving for a more efficient workflow!

Hi all,

I step in this conversation since - back to the time I used to work for Claypaky - I recall having met the guys from Carallon, an UK based company which is providing the metadata MA Lighting, ETC and some others are using for their consoles.

Apart from the "fixture library managment" they do offer a service called "Color Mix data", which basically does what you have been talking about - if I'm not wrong.

The point is, as previosuly mentioned from other users, this is pretty expensive and cannot take into account deviations given by lamps gettign older and similar side effect.

Their website is this, while a short overview of the services they offer can be found here.

Cheers,

Luca