Moving heads move to right on blackout?

[Aakburns]

I've been working for a company that uses software to run moving head lights.

I simply made a black out scene that kept the light from going to their 'default' position which is all the way to the right.

I'm buying a real lighting console and am curious how to go about this with stage blackout.
The board has a blackout button, but now I'm curious what you guys yourself do in this case. I cant have the light turn all the way around to the right everytime I black out or they will have to spin and look silly when I now pull the fader up.

Any help?

 

[MagicDave]

Easiest solution, don't use the blackout button if you are concerned about that. It may take a little bit longer to program, but it will work.

And in my experience, the blackout button doesnt usually alter the pan and tilt of lights, it merely removes the intensity

 

[Aakburns]

Yeah. Thats what I've been doing. I was never sure if it was normal or not.

 

[shiben]

Yeah the first thing I do is disable the grand master and disable the blackout button when Im programming my own shows. You dont need them. But then, whenever you want to write a blackout cue, make sure not to home them until they are dark. On a real console its pretty simple to do what you are talking about, and in fact it might be harder to not do that than anything else...

 

[JFR]

I'm buying a real lighting console and am curious how to go about this with stage blackout. The board has a blackout button, but now I'm curious what you guys yourself do in this case.

Depending on what console you are purchasing, it may have auto tracking for mover positions. If you're building a cue list and running a cue list it might keep a mover in its last used position until it needs to preset for the next cue where the intensity comes on.

Sometimes I run special events where the mover doesn't need to change positions, but just needs to fade in and out. In that case I will build a submaster with the focus position and keep that up for the whole show and run a separate submaster for the intensity. But if you have this sub up and use the blackout button, it will clear the levels and your mover will pan/tilt to its 0% location.

 

[Aakburns]

 

[derekleffew]

... I'm buying a real lighting console and am curious how to go about this with stage blackout.
The board has a blackout button, but now I'm curious what you guys yourself do in this case. ...

"Real" lighting consoles, and most software that is "moving light aware," will not let the DBO button or GrandMaster affect NIPs.

This is usually a problem that arises only when one uses moving lights/color scroller s/DMX gadgets on a system that was originally intended to control only dimmers. Even the lowly ETC Express offered the option to make some or all channels "Independent" and thus not controlled by intensity masters.

See also the concept of LTP and HTP, and realize that HTP is rarely, if ever, appropropriate for NIPs.
.

 

[aldholland]

Why not program a scene with ONLY the dimmer channels to zero and leave the rest out. In some cases you then can save this scene to a fader and there you have it, a master dimmer fader.

 

[len]

When you clear a cue or go to blackout, most boards default to "0/0" which takes the movers to that position. Movers need to receive "128/128" pan and tilt in order to point straight down. There should be a way to make that the default output at that address, but it depends on which board you have and/or are buying.