Whole Hog Question

L

lighttechie5948

Active Member
Hi All,

I have primarily programmed only on ETC Expresses and Expressions. I know my way around the Expression Software really well.

How much faster can I program Mover Cues if I use a Hog? It usually takes me at least 5 minutes a cue to program 10 movers to where I want them. And if I want to create an effect cue with 10 movers moving around for a song, I'm looking at 20 mins or more.

For an upcoming show I want to midi together an Expression 3 and a Hog iPC or a Full Boar. The Expression will handle conventionals, scrollers, haze and other effect machines, and the Hog will handle all of the movers.

The plot will have about 40 Source Fours, 20 Source Four Pars, 25 Par 64s, 35 Scrollers, and strobes, hazers, foggers, etc. on the Expression. And 2 Mac 2ks, 2 VL2500s, 4 Robe 250ATs, 2 Mac 250s and possibly 3 MAC 250 washes.

Can this midi-thing be accomplished? How well will it work? Like if I press "Go" will it know what cues i mean? And would I press the Hog's "Go" or the Expresses "Go"....and basically can someone explain to me exactly how miding the boards would work and what it would mean for me as a programmer...
 
Speed will be determined on how well you know the software and how intense your cueing is. Period....

That being said, yes, I personally feel it's faster. I have a rig of 72 movers, 144 conventionals, 30 LEDs, 2 hazers and 1 media server that I program regularly on my H3. Some cues, I can do in as little as 5 seconds...some cues can take 15-20 minutes.

Download Hog3PC and one of the demo visualizers and play with the software. You'll see how quickly things can be accomplished and also have questions BEFORE you get into setting up the show.

Now, as far as MIDI-ing the consoles together. Absolutely this will work as long as the cues are EXACTLY the same. So, if you have 195 cues on the Expression, you have to have 195 cues on the Hog list, even if they are blank dummy cues. When you hit GO on the console, the other one does the same thing. Download the manual and take a look at linking consoles via MIDI.

Hope it helps...
 
It will take a little longer to set up the Hog, and you'll be fighting a learning curve too. However, once you get comfortable with the programming that will go 10x faster on the Hog. Take the plunge and go for it. At the very least you have learned new programming skills.
 
Thanks for all your help!

How hard is it to, for example, make 4 FOH movers move around the house for a finale song?? On an express it would take a REALLY long time because I would either have to create like 10 different cues and set every movers pan and tilt in the cue and then set each cue to follow. How hard would this be on a hog??

Thanks again,
Joe
 
derekleffew said:
As easy as two touchscreen presses:
{Fixture Group} {Effect: Ballyhoo}.
Click to expand...

Okay, so the OS seems pretty straight forward. How long does it take to set up the hog initially. I'm guessing after patching, you have to set up fixture groups and focus points. Is there anything else you should set up before cueing?
 
You should take your time creating pallettes as they can make or break your programming. Definitely create your own groups and focus pallettes. If you are in a rush for time you can have the board generate color and beam pallettes, although I would recommend creating your own.

Personally, I would forget the MIDI link and just run the whole show off the Hog. It can handle all of that no problem.
 
Yeah, I was thinking that I should just run everything off of the hog to make it easier.

I have a couple more questions:
* What are palettes?
* How many different cue lists can be created?
* How many cues can be stored in each cue list?

Can someone walk me through what creating a cue is like on a hog? Like on an expression you would set the channels by using chan (or group) ##, @, %% or FL. Then when your done you would hit RECORD, CUE, ##, ENTER.

Sorry for all the questions, it's just that I'm really serious about using a hog on a dance recital show next year, and I only have experience with expressions. I am comfortable using a hog on the show as long as I have a good knowledge about it. And my ME is Hog-trained, and he offered to help me learn it and program!

Do they offer classes or personal training on hogs? How much is it?
 
you are virtually unlimited as far as cues and cue lists go. Pallets are presets. you have focus, beam, intensity, color pallets. To record a color pallete you set your movers or scrollers to the color you like, just hit record then touch the pallete you want to record then hit set to give your pallete a name. You can do the same with focus (which is where the light is focused), beam (gobos, shutters, etc), intensity (i dont mess with it other than 0% and 100%), group (you can program any number of fixtures together to be in a group, such as all my cyc red on ch's 1, 23, 28, and 36 are in a group labeled cyc red, and color, which is the color you make using the movers or scrollers. Just throw your entire show onto one cue list and run it cue by cue. Its the easiest way to run the show. As far as recording its identical to an express (lets say your convientional are ch 1-100, and movers are 101-150) Say you want all of your conventionals at 50% movers at 75, just type in 1 thru 100 @ 50 enter, then 101 thru 150 @ 75 enter, then hit record 1 enter and your done, cue 1 is recorded just like an express.
 
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