Using Multiple Instruments as one on the Ion

[Kicman]

Hello, recently I was talking with a friend and he mentioned that someone he knew used three source 4 pars and had red, green and blue gels in them. Then he said they were able to create an instrument in the patch, that used those three lights and the board would then give a color wheel, and it would mix the color selected, from those three pars.

Does anybody have more in depth knowledge on how this is accomplished?

 

[CBR372]

When you are patching your fixtures, instead of patching them as dimmers you can patch them as a generic RGB LED. I can't remember off the top of my head how to get the individual addresses in there as it will default to a chronological address patch (meaning CHN 1 is an "RGB LED" with address 50-52). You can also create your own custom fixture but right now my head is to ballooned up from allergies that I can't think straight. Hopefully someone will be along here soon that can elaborate.

 

[RickR]

That is quite possible. In fact you can use the built in library unit for a "Generic" RGB LED that only uses 3 channels. (Assuming the dimmers are sequential) This would work equally well for a cyc set or boarder strips that use a basic color mix like LEDs do. I would also go so far as to say it should work on almost any console that has a color selector of some type.

Of course the color wheel was never intended to be an exact color match, and the gel selections would be off somewhat as well. There was an excellent article in a recent Protocol magazine, by Mike Wood, that discussed the limits of console color selectors. http://www.mikewoodconsulting.com/articles/Protocol Spring 2012 - Color Pickers.pdf

So keep your eyes on the stage!

 

[Kicman]

Awesome. I'll definitely have to try this soon.

Thanks!

 

[derekleffew]

http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/12913-skycyc-rgb.html
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/23885-palette-color-picker-rgb-cycloramas.html
From http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/21655-rgb-mixing-quick-reference.html :

As Grog12 said, results will vary, but a page like Color Mixer Tool - ColorTools.net | or similar is a good educational tool. There's also a handy iPhone app: DMX Color Mixer for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store .

For cheaters , attached is an Excel workbook I've tweaked, from one found here: ChromaKinetics.com.

View attachment 3698

EDIT: See also this thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/14862-rgb-cyc.html, especially this post. Sure, use the console's built-in color picker, but first learn how to do it by hand. You'll be a better designer/programmer for it.

.

 

[Kicman]

Okay, so I was playing in the offline editor, and when I patched it as say, for example Channel 10 with Addresses 165+166+167, it works. But say if I patch it as Channel 10 with Addresses 164+166+168, the board consumes 164 thru 170. Do the addresses that are not hard patched and just included in that group gone?

 

[CBR372]

Using those particular three example addresses what you are essentially telling the console is that address 164 is a three channel LED that consumes addresses 164-166, the next takes 166-168 and the last one 168-170. This could create problems because now the first and last address are overlapped. So lets say you bring up the blue in the first unit, the blue will come up BUT so will the red channel in the second unit.

 

[danTt]

No. It means you need to have the addresses sequential for this kind of thing on the ion.

 

[Kicman]

No. It means you need to have the addresses sequential for this kind of thing on the ion.

Okay, that's what I thought. Thanks for the clarification guys.

 

[TimMiller]

I know it can be done on a hog, it is called multipatch or split patch, it has been a number of years since I have used that feature, I'm surprised it cannot be done on an ion. If I remember correctly it can also be done on the grandMA.

 

[sk8rsdad]

On Ion you have to jump through some hoops to patch non-contiguous addresses and get RGB colour mixing.

From an ETC forum post by travisres

Create 3 new fixures types. Red / Green / Blue. Each one contains all three RGB attributes so that it auto adds the HSI attributes. In the Red fixture, set the Green and Blue DMX to 0. In the Green fixture, set Blue and Red to DMX 0. Blue - Green and Red at DMX 0.

Patch the three new fixtures as 3 parts on the control channel. Because the fixtures contain the HSI values, it enables the color picker. When patching, since each fixture only has 1 DMX item, it only takes up 1 address. This way you can patch any dimmer regardless of order.

When testing by clicking the color picker and looking at the about screen of the channel, outputs look like the correct values.

 

[gbirdsall]

this should be able tobe done on a congo jr correct?