4.11.0 Bug in manual control of chaser containing collections

The issues found when using the Virtual Console
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lightuser
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:35 pm
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I discovered a bug.
Explanation:
I created a chaser (to manually control in the virtual console) existing of collections.
I have 5 dimmer lights and i want to make a light wave with them.
These are the steps:

1: on, 2: off, 3: off, 4: off, 5: off

1: on, 2: on, 3: off, 4: off, 5: off

1: on, 2: on, 3: on, 4: off, 5: off

1: off, 2: on, 3: on, 4: on, 5: off

1: off, 2: off, 3: on, 4: on, 5: on

1: off, 2: off, 3: off, 4: on, 5: on

1: off, 2: off, 3: off, 4: off, 5: on

1: off, 2: off, 3: off, 4: off, 5: off

Instead of making a scene for every step.
I created 5 steps: 1on, 2on, 3on, 4on, 5on

After that i created collections
1+2:on 1+2+3:on 2+3+4:on 3+4+5:on ...

I putted those collections into a chaser.
When playing them automatically while building the chaser, everything is working as it should.
When i let it play automatically in the virtual console, everything is also working correctly.
But when i change the timing settings in the chaser to 'infinity' (so i can control the steps manually), the lights are behaving very strange.
(i control them manually in the virtual console on screen or with midi fader with the chaser-steps-faders in linked + blend mode)
Behavior: in Some steps, there are no lights working and sometimes i see a light going on and off for half a second. It's not behaving as it should.
I am using the latest stable version QLC+ 4.11.0 on Mac with Entec USB Pro.
This is the result in a video:
https://youtu.be/iAg2n2zdOwA
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mcallegari
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Please share the workspace you used in the video and the steps to reproduce. Thanks.
lightuser
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Here is the workplace file with 5 dimmers.
Bug_collections.qxw
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siegmund
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I tested this under Xubuntu 14.04 64Bit and indeed this is not working well (not at all) when using the cue list widget. When adding a speed dial to it everything is fine so I guess it seems to me like the cue list widget somehow has a problem with handling steps with infinite speed.
lightuser
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Update:

I changed the "infinity" time setting to 0ms for fade in and 0ms for fade out.
I changed the hold time to 36h (as you can see in the video below)
Same problem, i can go through the steps manually when editing the chaser without a problem (as you can see in the monitor 2D view)
But when controlling it in the virtual console, the output of the cue list is going crazy.
I guess it has something to do with crossfading between collections that contain (partially) the same scenes.

https://youtu.be/xNF6k1GPDU0
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mcallegari
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First of all: setting fade in and fade out to infinite, as in the project you shared, doesn't make any sense. You just need to set hold to infinite
Secondly: this has nothing to do with speeds, but more like how Collection works

Now, there's no solution to this unless risking to break some other usage case.
I have no idea about your usage case and why you wanted to complicate things like that.
In the attached example, I show how this could be done, with half of the functions you used (basically it's just 1 chaser + 7 Scenes)

Now the explanation how QLC+ handles Collections:
A Collection starts some Functions all at the same time, but if when the Collection is running an external event stops one of the Function started by a Collection, the Collection itself doesn't do anything about it.
In the attached example I show a usage case where the above behavior can be convenient, and I'm pretty sure more than one user is using it.
If you want control over functions ran by a Collection with some buttons, you don't want the Collection to keep the functions running if you explicitly told QLC+ to stop them.

Translated into your example:
- Scene 1on starts
- manual blending between 1on and 1+2on works fine until 1on reaches 0%
- 1on is stopped and the 1+2on Collection doesn't do anything about it, as explained above

I hope this clear things out
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Bug_collections.qxw
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lightuser
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Thanks for the information.

Let me explain what i want to do.
I have a theatre show with +100 cues (i want to do the live show with a queue list so i can easily fade through the steps with one fader in linked/blend mode).
In our show, we have multple groups of lights.
For example floor LED PAR's to color the wall. Regular lighting to fill the scene, narrow profiles to make light accents on the stage and some extra special lights hanging above the stage.
Every theatre cue is a combination of floor LED, regular Light, accent lights..
For example:
1st cue in the theatre is: "all the lights off, only the last 2 Floor LED PAR's blue"
2nd cue: regular lighting on 50% and all the LED PAR's Red"
3d cue: regular lighting on 50% and all the LED PAR's orange"
4th cue: regular lighting on 100% and accent lights on 50%.
5the cue: regular lighting on 50% and accent lights on 100%..

So i make scenes called "regular lighting 50%", "regular lighting 100%", "accent lights 50%", "accent lights 100%", "Floor LED Par's RED", "Floor LED Par's Orange", "2 Last Floor LED Par's Red".
And then i can start to make combinations: For the first cue i can use the scene "2 last Floor LED Par's Blue". For the 2nd cue i want a combination of "Regular lighting on 50%" and "Floor LED Par's RED". And i tried to achieve this with a collection (i tought it was a feature to combine multiple scenes into one 'containter').
I want to do it in a way like this because i don't want to program a unique QLC+ scene for every theatre cue i have. Because in a later stage of the creation process of the theatre show, there is a big chance that lights will be changed or added. And i don't want to change +100 QLC+ scenes because they want to add 2 Floor LED Par's.

Maybe there is an easier way to achieve this?
Regards
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mcallegari
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I want to do it in a way like this because i don't want to program a unique QLC+ scene for every theatre cue i have. Because in a later stage of the creation process of the theatre show, there is a big chance that lights will be changed or added. And i don't want to change +100 QLC+ scenes because they want to add 2 Floor LED Par's.
That's why there's a remapping functionality.
You can easily clone everything and add 2 pars in the process
lightuser
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mcallegari wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:51 pm Translated into your example:
- Scene 1on starts
- manual blending between 1on and 1+2on works fine until 1on reaches 0%
- 1on is stopped and the 1+2on Collection doesn't do anything about it, as explained above
So this means, if i create a collection with blue floor light (scene) and red ceiling light (also a scene).
And after that, i want a collection with (again the same same scene) blue floor light and yellow ceiling light (another scene).
This is not possible? Because after fading from collection one to collection 2, the blue floor light scene is stopped and cant be used anymore?
AllanR
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Real Name: Allan Rhynas

What 'lightuser' is trying to achieve is something I'd find very useful too. The ability to set intensities, colours etc. for a particular scene and re-use that scene multiple times throughout a production (e.g. a garden scene, a bedroom scene etc.) would be a great time-saver especially when the Director decides at the last minute adjustments are needed.

Altering just the one scene would cause all instances to affected/changed. Collections seem to almost offer this - they operate OK for Cue List mouse-click advance, just not for the dual-fader adjust.
janosvitok
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I consider this basic usage of chaser/collections. There should be some kind of lookahead that tells the fading process that the scene (channel?) will stay on and does not need to be faded.
As Allan said, the natural process is to create building blocks (positions, colors, intensities), combine them to make a look/scene and then put them all to a chaser so they can be put in a cue list widget
(or better, so they can be run one by one).

For theatre guys, this may well be a showstopper.

Actually, right now a friend asked me for advice -- he's going to run sound for a theatre and most probably he will also need to run lights as well. What's he's looking for is something
where he can push go/next and don't care for anything else during the show (once it's preprogrammed). I'm really afraid he will hit this bug with QLC+.
JohnnyDMonic
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This sounds like the same problem I ran into over 2 years ago:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9238

Really frustrating for people coming to QLC+ from a traditional theatre background, where most of the time the whole show is pre-programmed and you can hand it over to someone with relatively little experience and say "just follow the script and press GO at the right times". Especially for small touring theatre companies where the sound/lighting designer is only brought in during the initial phase, and doesn't go on tour with the rest of the company.

Completely agree with this:
I consider this basic usage of chaser/collections. There should be some kind of lookahead that tells the fading process that the scene (channel?) will stay on and does not need to be faded.
As Allan said, the natural process is to create building blocks (positions, colors, intensities), combine them to make a look/scene and then put them all to a chaser so they can be put in a cue list widget
(or better, so they can be run one by one).
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