Posts by JPK

Since DMXControl 3.2 is now released and some of you might have questions, we are planning another Live Q&A in December 2019. In this thread we will collect your questions. We try to summarize these questions again and then answer as many as possible. For this purpose we have summarized the rules for the questions:

Rules for the questions:

• One or more questions can be asked per person or per post.
• Questions can be asked about the functionality of individual program parts of DMXControl 3.2.
• Questions can be asked about possible implementations of an use case.
• Questions like "When will this certain feature come?" etc. will be not answered, because this Q&A is about the handling of DMXControl 3.2.

Your DMXControl-Team

Hi,

yes, to use the binary switcher and use it to stop the cuelist if the button signal is not "true" is one (the) correct way to implement this Some advanced ideas could possibly be showed in one of our Did you know? posts in the special week So stay tuned

Feedback: The midi input itself already supports feedback, so you can change the intensity of the button light, if it is pressed by the input function itself. But the input assignment can not give a feedback to midi yet. One reason for that is, that there were so many other things to do in the IA and we had to make a cut in order to get the basic features done. The other thing is, that midi feedback is in some cases more complicated than a feedback to other input types (thats why we have already a feedback function for the new softdesk). The midi feedback should take motor fader feedback into account too. But motor faders have a mechanical delay, a transient change of the input value towards the target value and such a fader can be blocked (other than controls on the softdesk). So we think about integrating some advanced functions like a feedback loop detection or a blocking detection to protect controls on the midi devices to handle those challenges. Thats why it is not included yet.

Regards

JP

Hi,

this is a problem, Microsoft introduced with their august update. There was a bug in this update which crashes the support for a special function in Visual Basic (which is the programming language of DMXControl 2). But now there are specific updates to encounter this problem. You will find a table of required updates separated for every current Windows version in the following post of mine: Fehler 5 "Translator" nach Win-Update 1903 To add the according update, you normally only have to start the update process once again (manually) and the correct fix should be selected and installed. If not, select the fix you see in the linked table and install it by hand.

Regards

JP

Hi,

apologies for the late response.

Quote from NeilM

Am I correct to think that Softdesk is a replacement for Submasters?

Yes and No. There is no exact Submasters like kind of thing in DMXControl 3. This is because of the different paradigms in DMXControl 2 and 3. Because I only described the differences in the paradigms in an other German post here in the forum, and not in English, here a short description: DMXControl 2 works channel value based. There are some definitions of the functionality of a device channel, but DMXControl 2 doesn't really know which function will be activated in a device if a specific value pattern is sent. Therefor you as controller has to know which functionalities a device have (but yes, the graphical DDF view in the Graphical View supports you for this). However, DMXControl 3 works device functionality based. It knows, which functionalities a device have and how to activate them. The great advance is, that we can now control different devices (even different device types) in the same way and we doesn't have to know which functionality is on which channel. We only control the functionality (such as color, position etc.) and DMXControl 3 translate this command into the right DMX Values. Therefor there is no Submaster because a Submaster is usually channel based. But there are different tools to control the device functionalities such as the Softdesk.

The downside of the functionality based control is that DMXControl 3 have to know all functionalities which could potentially exist in an device and have to support them. Unfortunately, the color temperature is not supported yet. The only thing you can do is to define a raw channel to tell DMXControl 3 that there is a functionality which it can not control directly but you want to. A raw channel will be displayed in the device control and you can manipulate this functionality.

To give you an example, I created a demo project for you. As you can see, I've created a new device type with a dimmer functionality and the raw function "Color Temperature". Then I created a Softdesk and linked the Slider in it with the Color Temp functionality of the device group. After that, you can control the color temperature with the slider. You can see the correct connection by looking into the channel overview. All raw channels should now have the value of the slider as desired.

Regards

JP

Hi and welcome in our Forum,

at first a little explanation why there are ArtPoll, ArtPollReply and ArtDMX packets and why DMXControl 3 works as specified in the ArtNet-spec . The ArtPoll-Request asks all nodes in the network to answer and identify them-self. The ArtPollReply is this answer and is send by your Interface (you can see this at the source IP address, which differs from the one of the ArtPoll-Packet). After that DMXControl 3 sends some ArtNet data with the ArtDMX-Packets. DMXControl 3 sends those packets if the ArtNet-Interface is enabled in the Interface-Tab of DMXControl. The third packets are used to transport the DMX values. However there have to be a refresh signal to keep ArtNet nodes from going into their "unconnected"-mode. Therefor DMXControl 3 sends those packets even if there are no changes. Those processes are specified in the ArtNet-spec.

So to your problem: Do you have another ArtNet sender in your network? If yes, do both sender (DMXControl 3 and the other Sender) send to the same ArtNet interface? This usually produces such flickers and random movements. You have to select one receiver node for one sender or turn one of the two sender off (e.g. by disabling the ArtNet plugin in DMXControl 3). If you need the ArtNet-Interface of DMXControl 3, then go into the ArtNet interface settings in DMXControl 3 and change the Nets and Ports to some other ones (not used by your other ArtNet connection). I hope, this will solve your problems.

Regards

JP

Quote from GazDJ

I think that I'm going to have some more questions, as there are a few things that I can't work out how to do yet

Feel free to ask them if they came up

Quote from GazDJ

(such as with DMXcontrol 2 you could assign chasers into groups, so only one chaser from within that group could run at a time).

DMXControl 3 has a quite similar thing, called cuelist groups. To add a new cuelist group just go to the project explorer and open the "cuelist group" folder. Add a new group (e.g. via right click into the right part of the project explorer) and drag&drop the cuelists you want to group on the group entry in the tree. The last step is to go into the group settings via right click => Properties (if you have multiple groups you can select all of them and do the following changes for all at once). There you change the cuelist start behavior from "None" to "single list running". Now the cuelists in the group behave in the same way as in DMXControl 2.

Hi and welcome in our forum,

because the Midi-Plugin is not build with our code signing certificate and because it is "from the internet" (as Microsoft say), you have to unblock all files individually. To do so, do a right click on every single file of the plugin and go into the property window. There is a "unblock" button. After clicking this button for every file, the plugin should appear in the plugin manager. However while using the plugin there could be in some corner cases a deadlock and the DMXControl 3 GUI crashes (the kernel keeps running). But after reconnecting to the kernel with another GUI, the midi plugin doesn't load correctly and you could not use it until you restart DMXControl 3 in total. In DMXControl 3.2 (which will hopefully be released in the next few weeks) the midi functionality is integrated in DMXControl 3 itself and the bug is fixed. So I would recommend you to start trying DMXControl 3 now with some cuelists and not to pay that much attention on the midi input and the Input Assignment. Especially the second one is replaced in total and you have to redo your connections anyway when updating from 3.1.3 to 3.2.

JP

Hi,

you connect 3D Easy View with DMXControl 3 as follows:

1. Start DMXControl 3 Kernel and GUI and connect them. 3D Easy View should be closed
2. Open up the DMX Interfaces window. You find it under Settings => DMX Interfaces
3. Click the Add Interface... Button
4. In the dialog, open up the tree Generic => Nicolaudie, select the item in the Nicolaudie folder and click OK
5. Now, a new entry with some sub-entries should be in the interfaces table and a second dialog should open up. If not, select the Easy View entry and click on Advanced Interface Settings
   
6. In this dialog, there should be a Path entry in the table. Here you should specify the path to the MEVP.dll, which should be located in the 3D Easy View program folder. If this DLL is not there, then use the Windows Explorer and navigate to the 3D Easy View program folder. There is a zip-file called MEVP.zip. Open it and there is the MEVP.dll. Just copy it from there and paste it in the 3D Easy View program folder.
7. Confirm the Advanced Interface Settings by clicking OK
8. Afterwards, 3D Easy View should start automatically and should be linked to DMXControl 3. From now on, every time you start DMXControl 3, 3D Easy View should be started too.

I hope, this little step by step manual is useful

JP

P.S.: If you already have a DMX interface configured, then maybe the DMX-Out addresses in the interface table could be wrong. Then you have to change them according to your setup. Enter 1.1 for the first DMX universe, 2.1 for the second and so on (DMXControl 3 supports 16 universes).

P.P.S.: You can ask your questions in English too

Hi,

I found a third-party website, which has the installer of Magic 3D Viewer: https://magic-3d-easyview.software.informer.com/download/ I downloaded it, checked it with Kaspersky for any viruses and made a diff between this installer and a one I have previously downloaded directly from Sunlite / Nicolaudie. They are identical, so this download should be trust-able (but with no guarantee).

Regards

JP

Hi and welcome in this forum,

hmmm ok, then maybe Nicolaudie changed their download path for the 3D Magic Easy View viewer. But you can install and use DMXControl 3 without it. Just uncheck the "Install Magic 3D Easy View" checkbox on the according installer page. Please also open up a new ticket in our ticket system (https://bugs.dmxcontrol-projects.org). Even if the most bugs are reported in german, you can write bug reports in english. Then our developers can check the download path and fix it in the installer. If you want to use Magic 3D Easy View, then I will search for the correct download path for you tomorrow.

regards

JP

Hi,

ok, if the interface is configured, then you can do some tests with channel values to figure out, which channels the HJ KZQ 100 uses: Set the address of the HJ KZQ 100 to 1 and open the Channel Overview in DMXControl 3 (via Windows=>Channel Overview). Now select the first channel and change the slider on the left. It is a RGB-LED controller, so it should have channels for those three colors. In addition, it can have an additional dimmer channel and maybe a strobe channel. In addition, if the LED Tape is an intelligent one with single LED control, then there are multiple channels for each segment on the tape. With this in mind, you can start to change the first channel. If there is some Light-output in a specific color, then you have found the function of the first channel. After that or if there is no output of the LED tape, reset the current channel to 0 and change the next one. If there are no changes at all, try to set two channels to values other than zero. With this method, you should be able to get all information to write the DDF.

Hi,

have you already configured the Enttec interface in DMXControl 3? If not, then this is the first step. Just follow the following Lesson in our wiki: Lesson 6. It shows you, how to add an DMX interface. Afterwards you have to add your LED tape as a device in DMXControl 3. Do you know how many channels our HJ-KZQ-100 uses and what function each channel have? This information is important to generate a device definition file (called DDF) to tell DMXControl 3 in which way it should control your LED tape.

Regards

JP

Thread is closed because the Live-Q&A was on 2019/04/06 at 8pm.

DMXControl 3 Live-Q&A:

Hi,

Quote from NicolasB

to set a different ascent and descent time during a transfer,

Here would be the question, what you mean, when you speak of "during a transfer". Do you want to change the duration of a fade while the fade in of a cue is running? If yes, then this is not possible. But what you can do is to go to the next cue by selecting the next cue, do a right click on the very first cell in the cue row (the blank one on the left side) and choose "goto cue". Then DMXControl 3 will fade to this cue no matter how long the fade have already run. This goto time can also be changed for every cuelist individually. You can find it in the settings of a cuelist (default are 5 seconds).

Maybe the following is also interesting for you: We have also some diagrams of the lifecycle of cues and for the triggers in DMXControl 3. You can find them in our wiki in the tutorials Lesson_8_Tut3 and Lesson_11_Tut3.

Regards

JP

Hi,

first of all: DMXControl 3 has no channel-based workflow. Instead, it relies on a device-property-based concept. This means: Normally, you did not see any channels while controlling your devices. You just set up all device properties (e.g. the dimmer, the color, the gobo etc.) and DMXControl 3 do the rest for you (mapping the current setting of device properties to values for the different channels of a device).

For this reason, the workflow is some kind of the following steps: First of all you add your devices to your project. After that, you have all your devices in the stage view window. Just open it by clicking on the stage view button on the left side. After that, you can select devices and / or groups and set their properties. For example have eight front lights and you want the left ones to be set to 50%. The first way is to select all of them and set the dimmer value with the dimmer / shutter control window (usually in the bottom left corner of the DMXControl 3 user interface) or the device control (right side of the UI). If you need those devices more often, then you can add them to a device group (right click on one of the selected devices and select "add to group"). After that, you can control those devices via the group. You can even add some effects like chaser or pulses to device properties by opening the effects window and drag&drop one of the effects onto a property in the device control on the right side of DMXControl 3.

If you have your light scene right, just click on "add Cue" in the left menu bar. Now you can select all properties, you want to save and then the scene will be added to a new cuelist. You can now add additional cues step by step.

I hope this quick workflow introduction was understandable. If not, just ask for additional details In addition, we have a (unfortunately a little bit outdated) tutorial. You can find it here: https://wiki-en.dmxcontrol-pro…le=Tutorials_DMXControl_3 Even though it is not on the current state of the software, you can use it to learn the basic actions in DMXControl 3

Regards

JP

P.S.: No problem This forum is for all kind of questions about DMXControl (basic as well as pro-user questions)

P.P.S.: Sorry for the late answer

Hi,

well yes, there is no support for a DMXControl 2-like custom control panel anymore. But there is a reason for that. We have unified the access to device properties in the device control on the right side of DMXControl 3. Just select the fixture in the Stage View and the device properties will pop up in the device control. There is now also an inbuilt support for RGBx-Colors (e.g. RGBWAUV, lime, indigo etc.). So you now only specify the color-channel in the DDF and if needed the position in the color circle. DMXControl 3 then adds the color entry in the device control and a possibility to control the specified color. Slider and dropdowns are also supported in the device control. But they are now automatically generated according to the specified device properties. For example DMXControl 3 adds a slider for the amber property by clicking on the amber entry in the device control and the arrow on the right side of this entry. An example for dropdowns is attached. Just add a "rawstep" block in the DDF.

You are right, there is very few documentation especially in english. But we have now for a few months a DDF documentation in our german Wiki https://wiki-de.dmxcontrol-pro…index.php?title=DDF_DMXC3 It is not translated yet, but maybe it is helpful for you anyway to determine, how to specify the device properties in the DDF. And if you have any questions about that, just ask here in the thread / forum

regards

JP

Edit: The DDF for the Eurolite PS-4 HCL should be in a way similar to the DMXC3 DDF of the ADJ HexPar 5P RGBWAUV (12CH Mode). If you attach the manual / DMX address table then I can create a DDF for you. The other way would be you create the DDF and attach it here with the address table and I will review it for you

In this thread you can post your questions about DMXControl 3, which we will address in the livestream on 2019/04/06 at 8pm. We will sort them and try to address as many of them as possible. However, depending on the number of questions, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to answer all of them. The basis is DMXControl 3.1.3.

Questions can be of the following types:

• General questions about operation
• Questions about functions of DMXControl 3
• Questions on how to proceed in DMXControl 3 in certain cases
• Questions about specific tags in DDFs or in the DDF creation process
• Questions about handling interfaces (general)

Questions that are not answered because they are not the target of this livestream:

• "When does DMXControl X or Program X be available?";
• "When does function X be available in DMXControl 3?";
• Questions about a specific DMX interface
• Questions about specific DDFs
• Questions about DMXControl 2

Hi,

as far as I understand, you want to be flexible to mix some intensity + position cues in one cuelist with colors and gobos assigned on different executors, right? I ask this because for proper functionality, every executor in DMXControl 3 needs to be linked to a cuelist. Therefor you have to create a new cuelist for every property selection. Let me explain it with a little example: We want to select between some different gobos on some moving lights via executors. Lets say we have five different gobo scenes we want to choose of. We then create five cuelists and give them individual names. We then set up the cues. Every gobo scene is saved to one cue in one of the five cuelists. Afterwards we assign all five cuelists (one cue long each) to five executors. Now we can start those five gobo scenes by press play on one of the five executors. But we have to do one other thing. We have to stop the cuelists too. Therefor we create a cuelist group and assign all five cuelists to this group. There is an option in the settings of the cuelist group called "Cuelist start behavior". Here you select the "Single list running" entry. From now on only one cuelist of those five cuelists can run at the same time. If you start another one, the current cuelist running will be stopped automatically. You can now do this procedure for every device property / set of device properties you want to control via executors. There are also optional things to set up: Cues have usually a fade time and the cuelists a release time other than zero. For color scenes started with executors this is a good thing. But with gobos or devices with color wheels you maybe want to switch the cuelists without any fade. So you have to set both mentioned values to zero.

Regards

JP

P.S.: I hope my post is understandable

Hi,

at first let's start with the DDFs folder. In your Windows start menu there should be a folder for DMXControl 3. If you open it, there should be a link to the custom DDF folder (I hope, this link is translated into english, otherwise the links name is the german "Eigene DDFs" (Own DDFs)). If you follow the link, you enter a folder, were you can place all your custom DDFs. I searched in our Device Library https://ddf.dmxcontrol.de/devices;search=chauvet but could not find any suitable DDF. So you have to write your own one for this fixture. Unfortunately our DDFCreator is not up to date and we haven't translate our DDF structure definition (https://wiki-de.dmxcontrol-pro…index.php?title=DDF_DMXC3) yet. But if you post a DMX chart of your device , I will create a DDF for you.

2 and 3: Yes, there is a kind of user manual. You will find it under the following link: https://wiki-en.dmxcontrol-pro…le=Tutorials_DMXControl_3 This tutorial is very old and some things have been changed since the creation of this documentation. But you should get some information for a first step into DMXControl 3. The way to save cues in a cuelist are the same as back then. But here are the basic steps: Set up your light scene by selecting the devices / groups in the stage view and change the values in the device control on the right side. After that, you can save this scene to a cue by clicking on the button "Save as cue" on the left Side of the DMXControl window. You will now be asked, which device functions should be saved. By clicking on "ok", you save your scene to a new cuelist. This cuelist should now pop up and you can edit it further.

Well as I mentioned, the tutorial doesn't represent the current state of the software. We work hard do update our documentation but this will take some time (because we have not enough manpower).

I hope I could help you with my post. If you have any further questions, just ask

Regards

JP

Ah, what I forgot: You can use any Art-Net-Interface (even of other vendors). DMXControl 2 and 3 can both send their DMX-Values to such network interfaces.