Can I simplify the Cue List widget side controls ?

[mcallegari]

Hey guys,
these days I'm dealing with the usual crossfading issues.
Unfortunately, it's a neverending story due to the burden of handling all the possible options available right now:
- linked / not linked faders
- blended / not blended
- primary / secondary fader level

It would simplify my life if there could be one single fader and no options at all. The proposal is:
- one single fader with the blue / orange indication on top and bottom of the fader. This would indicate from which to which step you will crossfade.
- linked option always active. No more "unbalanced" crossfades
- blended mode always active

Mockup

Please vote to let me know your opinion. If you're not for this change, please explain your usage case.
Thanks

[edogawa]

In theater there can be situations where you want the next cue to be added before the previous fades out...

E.g. one special spot is supposed to fade out with a new cue, another one to appear either a bit before or latest at crossfade time, but the exact time depends on actual stage play, so unlinked faders allow to bring up the new one earlier if needed... I could do another scene in between with both spots at their level but that takes away flexibility.

Another example that I'm doing regularly:
scene 1. bowing lights: stage bright, audience dark
scene 2: people leave the hall: stage at some darker level or dark, audience bright

After the third round of clapping/bowing people in the audience start to raise from their seats, so you want the houselights to go at half or even up to the level of the "while the stage stays bright, only when the actors leave stage you complete the (unlinked) crossfade.

If the faders were linked my stage would go darker as soon as I move them. If I raise a separate fader for houselights outside the cue list, houselights would go brighter as soon as I move the Crossfader towards scene 2. That's also what I described in that derailed "VC playback bugs" thread a few days ago:

- With Blend mode set( that's the detail I missed to understand when originally reporting), the crossfader has to be at 0% or 100% position, not anywhere between two steps, otherwise VC slider/button levels (for channels that are also part of the cuelist output) are being added, not clamped with HTP rule.

- OTOH I need Blend mode set in order to get "dipless" crossfades for channels that occur in both steps of a manual crossfade. That's why it was added originally, after all.

If this would work as expected, I think I'd be totally fine with a single Crossfader. There may be other uses for separate faders I didn't consider, for example, it's an easy way to black out cuelist playback during rehearsals, to start from scratch for a new scene...

I've started studying the qlcplus code with doxygen and Kdbg or gdb, to get an understanding how all the level calculation is done before it is sent to DMX output.
The pointers Jano gave in GH issue #439 are helping but the code lines linked by him to explain, don't fit anymore. I've understood that the cuelist crossfade has no idea about channel levels, and channel modifiers and blend modes complicate things when VCsliders etc. also have to be processed.

As for Blend mode, that one is essential for me to stay on all the time, so the checkbutton could go away if additive blend were the default setting.

So to summarize, I cannot vote for one or the other, as long as the dilemma described above exists. Fact is, in theater we need maximum flexibility and simplicity at the same time, because directors can come up with all sorts of weird or clever ideas and you'd rather manage to make them work, otherwise that can quickly harm your reputation...

[giacomo]

Fact is, in theater we need maximum flexibility and simplicity at the same time

This is way it's time to decide for something clear and functional, for us and for Massimo,
once we have it we'll find the solutions to our specific cases.

eg. Applause (but also for your special spot):
simply prepare an extra fader for the audience light, isn't?

In any case we will always miss some functions used in theatre, like for me the wait time or the single channel split times, so we'll need always to find other ways to achieve similar results.
(and personally I don't mind it at all because it requires myself to be flexible as well)

People, please vote for Massimo's question so he can take a decision,
we've the opportunity to have the Cue List fixed!

[edogawa]

Am I the only one who feels this is a problem?

I tried to express that an extra fader for the audience does NOT work in this case, which is my standard setting:

1. the cuelist has blend mode on,
2. manual crossfade anywhere except 0% and 100%
3. audience lights are programmed into the scenes...


Not sure if the solution is to simply keep that audience channel completely separate...
Because you have to take extra care for these affected channels when dmx dumping or overwriting existing scenes for this cuelist during rehearsal run-throughs.

Real example from my september show:

The conductor is lit by a 500 Fresnel @ 50% from a tripod in front of him somewhere in the middle of the orchestra, both for reading the score and grabbing a video image of him.
(His conducting has to be projected in the back of the audience for the singers to see him conducting, as the orchestra is aside or behind the stage.)

a) I put this conductor light to a separate fader or button:
When I dmx dump to a new scene and forget to uncheck this channel (the check selection doesn't survive a program restart for example) this cue will alter my conductor light level when inserted to my cuelist.

b) I include this channel in all my cuelist cues from the beginning to end, it fades out only in final blackout because this should be a real blackout and as dark as possible-
When I insert a new cue, e.g. during a lighting rehearsal without conductor/orchestra, it's easy to forget to include this channel. In a subsequent runthrough with orchestra, the conductor will kill me if his light goes out during performance, but having the extra fader/button does not work because it messes up all my programmed levels.
Going through a list of if I'm lucky 30, or more commonly 50 - 80 scenes and check the occurrance and level of a single channel takes an hour at least, and a LOT of concentration and GUI clicking as you know.

I suspect there is a relatively simple thinko or error in the logic for blend mode, possibly in universe:writeBlended(), but haven't understood the code well enough, yet. Maybe I'm totally on the wrong track. I just hope that it should be possible to take the input from whatever qlc+ value sources from functions/blind mode off in design mode, external input DMX data, VC elements including cuelist and Simple Desk, and mix them all together following the HTP rule for intensity channels...


That's all I need to become happy. Then I could happily simulate whatever the cuelist lacks to provide.

And I'm all up for what Giacomo says, better a clear and functional feature poorer design than a not-working confusing feature rich one.

[GGGss]

Edgar,

^^ to me this is totally Off Topic... to me It reveals more your lack of automation skills than adding functionality to QLC+. If all your quoted conductors' light settings should be verified after rehersal: open the project file with a text editor and find / replace or whatever needs to be done. It's a simple .xml file... I don't want to attack you in any way, you seem to have vast C++ skills reading QLC+ source - yet dealing with a script resetting buggy 'conductor light' steps shouldn't be that hard, doesn't it?

* personally: if houselights, backstage, bar lights, foyer, even inventory room and dug-out lights have to be controlled I'd opt for an extra desk + dmx-in / artnet synched settings. (Same goes for EDM-shows ... I tend to split stage, performer(s), audience, the surround lights for a) simplicity, b) complexity debuggin, c) easy of use. So yes 3/4 desks, the one bigger than the other.

[edogawa]

On topic, I'm still undecided, I surely need split I/O times sometimes, and generally prefer manual crossfade...

You know I'm taking this serious, maybe too serious, I've written another answer/defense posting and have thrown it away again, I feel I make myself appear as a fool more and more, with every sentence.

I'll reconsider my workflow and stay quiet from here on, I feel like I blast any thread I'm taking part ...

My sincere apologies for all this mess, I don't know what went wrong with me during the last months in that hall, all I can say is that the combination of personal workload, bugs, communication errors and hardware fails built up to give the impression of a haunted venue.

So please bear with me, I'll shut up now and hopefully recover from all that in a while.

[GGGss]

I'm not going to flood this thread with off-topics but Edgar's input has to be seen as a professional input with perfectionalism in mind. Under his temporary workload he might have used the wrong words expressing himself?

case closed? And Edgar you are more than welcome to out your opinion...

back to the initial issue: Cue list widget X-fade behaviour.
(I don't have enough experience to judge so I won't vote...)

[mcallegari]

Alright, I've done the proposed change.
I also took the chance to fix some more cases of crossfade + submaster.
Please help to test the latest test version and report here if you find anything not working. Thanks.

[sbenejam]

I have done some tests with recent projects and it seems that everything works well. I have tried a cue list of lights and other with audio cue list. The cue list of lights has worked correctly. The audio one would even say that better than before, because it was blocked audio when you switched fast from one step to the next.
I found that the automatic input detection of the side slider did not work, I did not remember if in the previous QLC+ version this worked.
Tested on Ubuntu 18.04.

[giacomo]

where can we download or build it?

[sbenejam]

Hi Giacomo, I have build QLC+ from GIT on Ubuntu 18.04 with Qt5 5.12.0

[mcallegari]

Hi Santiago, that was actually a bug and I just fixed it. Thanks for reporting.

[mcallegari]

where can we download or build it?

In your case I think from OBS. I updated the builds yesterday.

[sbenejam]

Hi Santiago, that was actually a bug and I just fixed it. Thanks for reporting.

Thanks Massimo, on my new laptop build QLC+ took 5 minutes compared to 35-40 minutes that took in my old laptop. Yesterday I build QLC+ 4.12 from GIT and QLC+5 appimage at same time and in 5 minutes I can do the tests.

[edogawa]

A minor glitch i've seen, when I activate side fader "crossfader" option in cuelist properties, then press OK, the side fader is shown but the first click on the crossfader icon does nothing, so I think it's not in "active" state/synced to actual fader appearance. Every further click is in sync and hides/shows the fader properly.

[mcallegari]

A minor glitch i've seen, when I activate side fader "crossfader" option in cuelist properties, then press OK, the side fader is shown but the first click on the crossfader icon does nothing, so I think it's not in "active" state/synced to actual fader appearance. Every further click is in sync and hides/shows the fader properly.

Yep, I noticed that too. Gonna fix it.

[giacomo]

I like it, move the slider for a manual xfade or push the button for a timed transition, super clear.

[mcallegari]

And when Giacomo says he likes something, it means it's REALLY good ... I'm just kidding

Right now I'm porting this solution to QLC+ 5, so it will be there in Alpha 4

[maximortal]

Sorry but I not agree with this change, In theatre is very very important to have separated faders, that helps a lot to try manually diferent times before programming it in the chase editor. That said if you decided for that change I just have adapt myself to common will.

[mcallegari]

Sorry but I not agree with this change, In theatre is very very important to have separated faders, that helps a lot to try manually diferent times before programming it in the chase editor. That said if you decided for that change I just have adapt myself to common will.

"Try" is different from the "production" use. If you just need to "try" timings, why don't use 2 VC Sliders in playback mode only for the editing phase ? Then you can remove them.
Otherwise, there's always the VC live editing, which allows to modify Chaser timings on the fly.