Fixture Monitor 2D View

Generic issues not specifically related to a QLC+ area.
Post here only if you can't really find the reason of an issue
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mgweber
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:39 pm
Real Name: Matt Weber

Hi, I noticed what appears to be a new issue in 4.10.5b. In the fixture monitor I have various LED Par cans laid out as they are in the grid. I used to be able to get an approximation of the output by looking at the 2D view of the fixture monitor. In this release I do not see any indication of level or color for the LED fixtures. The single channel dimmers look good and indicate the gel color. When switching to DMX view I do see the output levels indicated correctly so it is only the 2D representation of the multi channel fixtures. I observed this on both the Windows and Linux builds.

Thanks
janosvitok
Posts: 1266
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 7:05 am
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Real Name: Jano Svitok
Contact:

Hi,

would you please post an example workspace + any custom fixture definitions?

Jano
mgweber
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:39 pm
Real Name: Matt Weber

Hi,

I created a sample workspace using the generic RGB device and my custom fixture. The generic RGB shows in the 2d view but the custom fixture does not. This fixture has worked in the 2d view during a previous release. Unfortunately, I don't know which release introduced this change.

I attached the custom fixture and the workspace.

Thanks
Attachments
WDPAC-Par-HK-RGBW-18.qxf
(2.84 KiB) Downloaded 93 times
Sample RGB Workspace.qxw
(2.05 KiB) Downloaded 94 times
janosvitok
Posts: 1266
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 7:05 am
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Real Name: Jano Svitok
Contact:

Hi,

the problem is that your strobe channel is marked as intensity group, which means dimmer. QLC+ now considers both dimmer and strobe channels as dimmer.
On your side, change the group for strobe channel to shutter, and if you need HTP behavior, force HTP in the channel properties dialog. If that doesn't help, please report back.

On my side, I think it's error that QLC+ uses two dimmer channels when the fixture has only one head. Two channels should be used when there are more heads (i.e. one master dimmer and several per-head dimmers). It does not make sense here. I will check if there are any fixtures that have more dimmer channels while having only one head.

On the other hand, if the strobe channel is marked as dimmer (group intensity and no color), for QLC+ there is no way to distinguish which one is the real dimmer channel (except checking the channel name, which is fragile and we want to avoid it).

Note: the change in QLC+ appeared first in 4.10.5. The goal is to properly handle fixtures that have global and per head dimmer and fixtures that have dimmer channel only, especially in RGB matrixes (so that you can have RGB matrixes over PAR cans, etc.) Formerly, dimmer channels were set to full in RGB Matrixes. Now, if the fixture has only dimmer channels (i.e. no RGB/CMY), dimmer channel is set proportionally to color intensity. Global dimmers and dimmers for RGB heads are still set to full.

Jano
mgweber
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:39 pm
Real Name: Matt Weber

Hi,

Thank you for the info. I will try it out tonight. I think the reason why I used intensity for strobe when I created the fixture a couple of years ago is to preserve the HTP behavior. I seem to recall that I had some issues with a slider managing the strobe rate of the fixtures. However, at the time I was not as aware of the difference between HTP and LTP so that might have been part of the issue ;-)

I will update the fixture definition and provide an update.

Thanks,
Matt
mgweber
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:39 pm
Real Name: Matt Weber

Hi, changing the fixture definition to use the shutter group for the strobe channel worked. I did need to go into the fade configuration and force that channel to HTP to get the behavior that I wanted. All is good now. Thank you!

Matt
cboling
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Mar 09, 2017 5:17 am
Real Name: Chris Boling

I just started working with QLC+ and had this problem also. I had my strobe channel set to a "speed" channel type. My master fader channel was set to intensity with red, green, blue also set to intensity channel types. But I also had them set (incorrectly) to 16bit channels. I could not get the monitor to display color changes. Once I changed the channels to 8bit channels, the color changes began to appear in the monitor (2D) view. Thanks for your information here.
MORINGA
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2017 4:13 pm
Real Name:

cboling wrote: Thu Mar 09, 2017 6:13 am I just started working with QLC+ and had this problem also. I had my strobe channel set to a "speed" channel type. My master fader channel was set to intensity with red, green, blue also set to intensity channel types. But I also had them set (incorrectly) to 16bit channels. I could not get the monitor to display color changes. Once I changed the channels to 8bit channels, the color changes began to appear in the monitor (2D) view. Thanks for your information here.
In my case, it was also a "not used" channel set as "intensity"; so if one has a "N/A" channel, they better make sure it's set as "nothing". :)
Two issues, just because I had to "probe" some unknown PARs...and btw it worked live and within the DMX viewer, just not within the 2D viewer. :mrgreen:
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