Light desks -> vvvv

vvvv beta question
1

Warning -> realy bad english, but i think , if you want you can unterstand it …

HI

i found many hints that you use great consoles to use your vvvv patches:

we are a non-profit culture organisation called morfx, and at the moment we build a Cultural center called “Kulturwerk SAKOG”

So we want to build an integrated system for all of the technical Stuff you use in this type of Events. I have a lot of skills in pd and eyesweb but i’m completely new to vvvv. by the way , it looks great !!!

but back to the question, every patch is only so good as their controller are. So we are a little bit confused which lightning desk we should use. Ore maybe if we should use a lightning desk.

We use the Lanbox LCX since many years and its a really great tool, but for the moment i´m searching for an lightning Desk in cause of the controll possibilities.

Maybe anyone have experience with

MA Lightning GrandMA
Compulite Vecor Orange
Chamsys MagicQ

or any other light consoles with at tleast 2 dmx-Out

I’m interested in preview-functions or something like this on the console

any type of comments could be a great help for me, cause its a really major investment for us, and we can’t test this type of consoles …

greets

robert

2

You might wanne check the posts here, there are some free open source computer based desks out there… so you only ned to buy a proper DMX dongle and a PC.

I personaly was rather impressed by Chamsys, also great helpdesk when you run intoo trouble.

You don’t say what type off lights you wanne controll, if it is only simple DMX dimmerpack stuff, you can patch something like that relatively easy in vvvv.

Moving lights/scans are a bitt harder, but me and Kalle did that for the Rico’s club :)

Happy hunting!!

3

thanks for the prompt answer,

some of the products looks very well …

the equipment: we have

Lights
12x Mac600 (Wash)
8 Coemar cf7 (Spot)
6 Scanners
4 StudioDue CityColor 1800 (asym)
some Strobes
and 84 DimmerChannels
and also 32 LedPars

Beams All@1024x768

8 Mitshubishi Xl5950 (5000 Ansi)
12 Nec (2500 ANSI)
4 Nec (2500 Ansi) with Dmx-controlled-mirror

Ricos Club?! where is it …

4

to add to that: In the cocoon club in frankfurt we´re having a GrandMA (and a MicroMA) seamlessly controlling vvvv over Artnet. Technically this works very well. It is very easy to do light simulations, video players or parametric graphics within vvvv and make them controllable via Artnet.

The GrandMA is a nice device, but we basically pushed the user interface over its limits in the cocoon club. We are having a couple of virtual fixtures (each controlling graphical layers on 23 xga projectors). these fixtures all have 30-40 parameters each. We as computer scientists had some problems understanding the GrandMA interface, but i´ve seen people dealing with it with utmost precision. Anyway things get really messy and cumbersome on the GrandMA as soon as you like to change the numbers or channels of parameters of a fixture during the preparation of a show (while i have to admit, that nobody would invent its own varilights during a production, this is the default use case of graphical programming languages)

so from that experience i´d encourage you to play with the idea of not using a classical light desk but think about a graphical programming language and some fader boxes for building your own.

while thre are no patches for completely replacing a lightdesk are around, there are many works already done in this direction - e.g. we developed many patches for our client and user @West, which is a club in Ijmuiden (in the netherlands) completely without a light desk. Also a lot of user interface studies for VJ instruments had been done - wonderful projects like the sanchette by sanch or trafo by joreg and eno show the way.

if all this is feasible in your context depends obviously on the people around and the type of shows you want to do but technically i do not see any problems for this.

5

Hehe, did a quick Wiki Update on rico’s… more to come there…

The GrandMA in cocoonclub is a wicked device, the top class off the light consoles, and the price according to its status (read: a bit expensive)

Wow, nice collection off Devices you are going to use!! Lot off beamers too.

Not sure what light desk have preview function, we where actualy thinking about implementing that in Ricos, but that would only made things more complicated (for both us and the end user ;) )

At my compagny we have a Jands Event, also ver nice brand and easy to learn, but I think it is not what you are looking for. Most theathers in Holland use Compulite (like the Micron 4D) that is designed more for theatre, only for skipping through scenes, and I think you want to be a bit more dynamic than that.

Patching something yourself in vvvv is a great option, nothing more easy than making your chases and shapes using spreads. But than you realy have to think about a decent interface with the ammount of equipment you have.

How is it controlled at the momemt I wonder?

I wanted to know if the DMX mirrors in front off the Beamer is any good? (I am intresseted in getting 2 off these).

6

West:
Hehe, did a quick Wiki Update on rico’s… more to come there…

How is it controlled at the momemt I wonder?

Not really controlled ;-)

we are closed by the public authorities, in cause of “security-holes”, so we are working since july 2004 on reopening.

Since 2 months we have a legal status, so we hope we can reopen at november.

Thats my Problem …

I have a lot of technical work to do, (from point of sales system to OfiicePcs…) and so i hope we can have a comercial-backup system (lightconsole), so that i have more time to implement all of these things …

In the past we controll all over a Lanbox LCX , and a MA Scancommander

I wanted to know if the DMX mirrors in front off the Beamer is any good? (I am intresseted in getting 2 off these).

they are realy nice we got it from vms, but for the moment we use it only at our project-studio, for two weeks.
They work verry well, but i think that the focus may be a problem in some case (when you use it as projector)
otherwise is the most trickiest moveing-head i’ve ever seen ;-))

7

Hi Robert,

We use the Lanbox LCX since many years and its a really great tool,

well, but the performance of this device is only a little less worse than the worst at all.
i use one for controling a 507 channel 3dLEDmatrix in the “Swarovski Kristallwelten” in Wattens/Austria. i think it was the first DMXthing ever controlled by vvvv. meanwhile there are much faster&cheaper interfaces.

but for the moment i´m searching for an lightning Desk in cause of the controll possibilities.

WTF?!? i don´t get the clue. believe me, controling ANY DMXdevice with vvvv is more fun.

well, for the price of one of those lighting consoles you could afford to buy ME for about 6 months intense programming. think about that.
what would you think about a 3D-Simulation of your location including all MovingLights and whatever Devices?
Think about that simulation as a realtime preview for your lightsettings.
Think about the same simulation displayed somewhere in the location, showing the same light situation in reality and virtuality simultaneous.
The Rico’s thing @West mentioned is basically divided into the following 4 parts:

UserInterface
ContentGeneration for Flatscreens
DMXgeneration on 4 DMXuniverses
3dSimulation

All PCs contain all patches, so mirroring is easy.

These 4 MainPatches Send/Receive their data via Artnet.
so it only depends on hardware issues (where is the touchscreen connected?) on what machine e.g. the UserInterface patch is started.

the Simulationpatch e.g. can be run on any machine in the network (also on djs laptop), because it is receiving the SAME DMX as the fixtures. so you can go and prepare your light settings in the backoffice or wherever you want. that saved our souls in the last two days before opening RICO’S. you know, programming light settings on 4 DMXuniverses needs a little bit concentration what is difficult when next to you 3 carpenters and 2 painters are working .
West told me this: “when you started working on the simulation the first days, i thought WTF is he doing there. But the 2 days before opening i was that glad we had this.”

basically all that should run on 2 pcs but a 3rd one only for spare reasons.
we decided to use all 3 pcs for performance reasons. when 1 pc breaks you can run the whole stuff on 2 pcs as well.

there is also some NetSend/Receive communication, but the patches identify each other by transmitting the IPadress of their containing pc via the first 4 DMXchannels via ArtNet…

any type of comments could be a great help for me, cause its a really major investment for us, and we can’t test this type of consoles …

well, the consoles you mentioned are devices you need specialists for using them.
when you know to use that MA scancommander (which was THAT standard for controling movinglights) it doesn’t mean that you can use the grandMA after 2 weeks of intense rehearsal.
for what reasons do you need a hardware console?
compatibilty to technical riders from artists? (no, then you would have considered a wholehog.).
are you frightened to have pc-based system (–“uuuh, it is running on WINDOWS? can’t work”–don’t believe that.)?
are you missing faders? no problem, connect any MIDIfaderbox to remote what you want. i own an MA Lightcommander which is degraded to a MIDIfaderbox since i know vvvv. The DMXout might be corroded, i don’t even know.

8

but back to the question, every patch is only so good as their controller are. So we are a little bit confused which lightning desk we should use. Ore maybe if we should use a lightning desk.

We use the Lanbox LCX since many years and its a really great tool, but for the moment i´m searching for an lightning Desk in cause of the controll possibilities.

Maybe anyone have experience with

MA Lightning GrandMA
Compulite Vecor Orange
Chamsys MagicQ

or any other light consoles with at tleast 2 dmx-Out

I’m interested in preview-functions or something like this on the console

hi, not sure if i understand well, but if you need a light desk (and not a system like vvvv), you could use a computer based lighting design software. i work with lightfactory, which is a very powerful (& relatively easy) tool. check out their demo (you can dwnload a demo version, no dmx out unfortunately for this). but choice of light desk is a matter of what lights do you have, and what projects do you have…

alex