Source 4 LEDS, Ion and on the fly color mixing.

qdigger

Member
We have a dance show coming up with no tech time so we can't write cues. We are trying to figure out the best way to do on the fly color mixing that could still happen at slow or fast times. Our less expensive LED pars, we were able to set up the color mixing on the board very easily: with red blue green and worked right way.

But the S4 led are not working in the same way. We tried recording submasters different colors of the S4 leds which we could then busk into different colors. We have the intensity in one fader and the saturation in another fader. When we we try to add the hue into another for red, blue and green it will just switch to the other without fading. Are color palettes the best way to go? Or is there a better way to do?

Thanks so much,

Kathe
 
Just grab your S4 run the color to whatever color and record sub # , rinse repeat for other colors. Don’t mess with hue and saturation.
 
We could not make it color mix the two faders together it would just go to other color unless we where doing it wrong.
 
Presumably you are asking about RGB mixing on subs? record each color parameter to a sub separately. It is a pretty old school way to handle color these days though.

selection Red Record Sub x
selection Green Record Sub y
....
 
It sounds like your trying to record from a hue and saturation not the specific colors themselves. Alternatively you can just create a few generic color scenes record them to a sub. Then durning your short tech decide what you like record to a cue and just play the goto cue game or slap the playback each transition.

If you have time to make some subs surely you can record cues on the fly too.
 
We are recording the subs while the lights are set up with no dancers, trying to give us flexibility when see dancers in space. We have seen rehearsals but no one has danced in the space yet. It is going to be interesting. I also have a student designer who has some ideas but not sure exactly what he wants to do hence the color mixing.

I think we might be running the S4 LEDs in the wrong mode to be able to control each color led separately. Like I said the cheap pars worked fine, set up no problems but the S4 LED's have more perimeters and have the self calibration so basically they don't want to act dumb. I honestly thought this would be really easy as well and can't believe it is turning into such an ordeal.
 
You could simply set up a tab on a split screen with the color picker and turn them loose. The other half could be a magic sheet with groups and colors they know they will use. Since magic sheets were released, I haven’t really used a fader except for house and work lights. Another way, if they know gel color is “channel@#/###” where the # before the slash is 3 for Lee and 5 for Rosco and the second # is their gel number. So 3/162 is bastard amber and 5/80 is primary blue.
 
My base file has color palettes for all the 'standard' colors in the color picker (red 100, 75, 50, 25 etc. only one white). These go on direct selects with group selects. That combined with the encoders is pretty fast and easy.
 
We have a dance show coming up with no tech time so we can't write cues. We are trying to figure out the best way to do on the fly color mixing that could still happen at slow or fast times. Our less expensive LED pars, we were able to set up the color mixing on the board very easily: with red blue green and worked right way.

But the S4 led are not working in the same way. We tried recording submasters different colors of the S4 leds which we could then busk into different colors. We have the intensity in one fader and the saturation in another fader. When we we try to add the hue into another for red, blue and green it will just switch to the other without fading. Are color palettes the best way to go? Or is there a better way to do?

Thanks so much,

Kathe
what you propose is a bit absurd, in the world of design., for it is not design at all. why not do something you CAN control, like maybe no colour at all, some basic washes, a few specials, and try to wing that? simpler is always better, and i've learned that after earning my NYU MFA in design, and almost fifty years as a theatre worker.
 
what you propose is a bit absurd, in the world of design., for it is not design at all. why not do something you CAN control, like maybe no colour at all, some basic washes, a few specials, and try to wing that? simpler is always better, and i've learned that after earning my NYU MFA in design, and almost fifty years as a theatre worker.

You're speaking from your experience, which while not invalid, is not universal. I work in a road/rental house and an academic environment where time is often a very limited commodity and I'm lucky if I get to see one run through before we have an audience. Did we get a tech week to sit down and finesse each look? No. Would I still consider what I'm doing design? Absolutely. Is what OP trying to accomplish a form of design? Absolutely.

I will often map color parameters on subs and mix colors on the fly. It gives me a lot of flexibility in how colors change from one to the next in a live event and quick access without a lot of clicking around in run-and-gun rehearsal setting. It's very do-able on an EOS/Ion and with a little practice can look very polished and professional.

OP - Which ETC LED fixtures do you have? When you look at the expanded view of the fixture on the screen, does it have RBG parameters? If not, then you might need to change the profile; I don't think the console will create virtual RBG parameters. (If someone wants to correct me on this, please do. I know it will create virtual HSI, but I'm not sure if it goes the other way.) If so, you can absolutely control the colors separately*. The default "home" of all the color parameters in the Source4 fixture profiles (last I looked, anyway) is 100%, so if you give them no other info and run up the intensity, they'll come on in full white. Same with H/S. That could be what's messing with your subs. There are a couple of different ways to over-ride that, and I'd be happy to help in more detail if you need it.

*some of the ETC fixtures that have more than RGB colors have modes that will blend in the others based on what it thinks you're trying to do (send it Red and Green, it might add some amber, etc) so you could get more than you literally asked for in that scenario.

You also need to make sure that your subs have information for the parameter you want to control and ONLY the parameter you want to control. To do this, you'll need to go into the sub and [@][Enter] any parameters that aren't the color for that sub.

Use Hue/Sat or RGB but NOT BOTH. So if you have subs for hue/sat, don't mess with RBG, if you have subs for RBG, don't mess with hue/sat. Personally, I would work in RGB, but my brain grooves like that way of thinking.
 
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You also need to make sure that your subs have information for the parameter you want to control and ONLY the parameter you want to control. To do this, you'll need to go into the sub and [@][Enter] any parameters that aren't the color for that sub.

This. ^^^ So much this.

So many queries on forums about why controlling colour fixtures via subs isn't working as expected comes down, in the end, to having more information recorded into the sub than is required. Always, always do selective recording so you are only altering the parameter you want. In the old days where only intensity was controlled, it really didn't matter, because everything was HTP and anything recorded at 0 for example had no effect. But colour parameters are LTP, and anything recorded will immediately take over when the sub is moved, so you must be sure you only have the parameters you want to affect recorded. A parameter recorded at 0 is not the same as a parameter which is absent ([@][Enter] to remove unwanted parameters, as stated above).
 
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You're speaking from your experience, which while not invalid, is not universal. I work in a road/rental house and an academic environment where time is often a very limited commodity and I'm lucky if I get to see one run through before we have an audience. Did we get a tech week to sit down and finesse each look? No. Would I still consider what I'm doing design? Absolutely. Is what OP trying to accomplish a form of design? Absolutely.

I will often map color parameters on subs and mix colors on the fly. It gives me a lot of flexibility in how colors change from one to the next in a live event and quick access without a lot of clicking around in run-and-gun rehearsal setting. It's very do-able on an EOS/Ion and with a little practice can look very polished and professional.

OP - Which ETC LED fixtures do you have? When you look at the expanded view of the fixture on the screen, does it have RBG parameters? If not, then you might need to change the profile; I don't think the console will create virtual RBG parameters. (If someone wants to correct me on this, please do. I know it will create virtual HSI, but I'm not sure if it goes the other way.) If so, you can absolutely control the colors separately*. The default "home" of all the color parameters in the Source4 fixture profiles (last I looked, anyway) is 100%, so if you give them no other info and run up the intensity, they'll come on in full white. Same with H/S. That could be what's messing with your subs. There are a couple of different ways to over-ride that, and I'd be happy to help in more detail if you need it.

*some of the ETC fixtures that have more than RGB colors have modes that will blend in the others based on what it thinks you're trying to do (send it Red and Green, it might add some amber, etc) so you could get more than you literally asked for in that scenario.

You also need to make sure that your subs have information for the parameter you want to control and ONLY the parameter you want to control. To do this, you'll need to go into the sub and [@][Enter] any parameters that aren't the color for that sub.

Use Hue/Sat or RGB but NOT BOTH. So if you have subs for hue/sat, don't mess with RBG, if you have subs for RBG, don't mess with hue/sat. Personally, I would work in RGB, but my brain grooves like that way of thinking.
No run throughs, no tech week, no finesse are exactly NOT a design contribution. It’s not your fault. It’s just that lighting design requires all of those to be part of the designer’s offering.

Nearly everyone I have met who goes through the process you describe considers themselves to be a lighting designer. I don’t know a single working designer (well, that’s kind of a stretch these days, sorry) who does consider it to be ‘design’.

It’s not semantics, it’s just the way the theatre world works.
 
I suppose if you configure the rig, optimize the console for buskability, and do your best to interpret and augment the performance, then it's fair to consider yourself a lighting designer. Don't get me started on the overuse of the term engineer though.

sk8rs_dad, P.Eng

Real engineers get to drive the train! Woo Wooo!!
 
No run throughs, no tech week, no finesse are exactly NOT a design contribution. It’s not your fault. It’s just that lighting design requires all of those to be part of the designer’s offering.

Nearly everyone I have met who goes through the process you describe considers themselves to be a lighting designer. I don’t know a single working designer (well, that’s kind of a stretch these days, sorry) who does consider it to be ‘design’.

It’s not semantics, it’s just the way the theatre world works.

Theatre, uses and holds on to the term designer in an antiquated way. If I have drawn up a plot, specified color or color mixing fixtures and determined where they are focused I would consider that a system design. If I have assigned values to those fixtures for a scene or a dance piece or a song in a concert, and recorded it as a cue, by your definition, that is design. Please explain to me how that is different if I have designed the system and assigned values to fixture on the fly for a scene, dance piece or concert song and not bothered to record it? I did the exact same process that the person doing the straight theater show did without all those rehearsals and all of the "increase channel 23 at 5.767% and roll the green one percent less". It's the same way straight theatre regards musical sound designers. Just because a typical musical may not include "traditional" elements of SD, creating music beds, sound effects and cutting tape does not mean a person who creates the rig, specs the mics, places the mics and determines levels for the cast and orchestra, is not a designer? And what about costumes? If every costume is either pulled from stock or purchased is that a design?

Our industry, and I will use that as a definition of the entertainment industry as a whole, can no longer consider itself as the segments we once were. We are a whole, we, or at least many of us, work in theatre and concerts and TV and film. Hell, right now how many of us are in some way broadcasting our shows, be it a play, concert, dance or church service? The old definitions are no longer relevant because times have changed.
 
This does raise an interesting question in my mind; the industry has a lot of demarcations between who can do what, the difference between who hangs a lantern and who cables it, perhaps. I wonder if the "all hands on deck" effect of the virus is going to erode those demarcations.
 
For all intents and purposes, there are different levels and natures of care that all fall broadly under the term "Lighting Design". Same goes for all forms of design. Some sound designers pull a few sound effects off the web and others go out and record their own in the wild. Both options are entirely appropriate based on the goals of the client. Some scenery is pulled from stock with a fresh coat of paint but someone still has to pick those stock pieces and figure out the best way to integrate them into the production.

Try arguing to a client that they should book the theater out for 3-4 more days so you can elaborately design each number of theirs one at a time and then burn 2 rehearsals just to make sure the dancers can hit their marks where you happened to focus them. If you're designing for the regional ballet -- completely appropriate. If you're designing for a recital, you better have a very good explanation why you want the client to spend an extra $15,000 - 30,000 renting the venue and staff just so you can feel like you are a "Designer" with a capital "D". You also better be prepared to argue with 200 parents who want to know why they have to drive their kids out to the theater extra nights that week.

I happen to have Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design tacked up above my desk. #13 - "Design is based on requirements. There is no justification for designing one bit "better" than the requirements dictate". Yes, that is an engineering answer to an artistic question, but what good is your art if your clients cannot afford your demands on how to produce it.

This is what bugs the sh%t out of me about people feel compelled to argue that it's actually spelled "Theatre", not "Theater". There is an inherent arrogance and snobbery for anyone who chooses to pick that fight and there's no place in a collaborative art for that kind of condescension toward peers, colleagues, and patrons.
 

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