[solved] Only one of two fixtures work as expected in a chaser

The issues found when using the Function Manager panel
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Mibmusic
Posts: 133
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:55 pm
Real Name: Gerard van Hamburg

Hi all,

Since I do not have access to real fixtures I need to built our new show offline. I have created some chasers and in monitor they look fine. But when I hooked up the fixtures yesterday, in some cases not all fixtures do what I expect. What is the best way to troubleshoot this and what could be wrong?

Just take chaser ‘23 - Chaser - Collection - Ayra RGB Matrix - Bass' as an example. It works fine in Monitor but in real only 1 fixture works. And this same thing is happening in some other chasers too.

Any help is appreciated.
Gerard-0.57.qxw
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GGGss
Posts: 2732
Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:15 pm
Location: Belgium
Real Name: Fredje Gallon

Gerard,

Sorry to tell you - but your project is almost impossible to debug...
Please start thinking in very small steps. Your RGB matrix 23-ayra-bass is a simple ping pong chaser (sequencer). Forget the matrix and make an chaser or sequence.
Then the collection you use inside the chaser? Only to set intensity (because the matrix isn't fired correctly)? You know you are repeating 3x resetting 3x the intensity value to 255 again? - Unneeded complexity - you will run into problems for sure.
Then the show part - here you combine almost everything and as we already know the fades in a show are buggy.
I stopped my attempt to debug after seeing that I had to wait like minutes before the 20-something showfile does something anyway and monitoring in DMX view I can see blue ping pong and a red one and again a blue ping pong. So even though way to complex for such a little effect this worked in DMX view that is.
(Behind all the mambo jambo - due to your complexity - I can imagine that the QLC+ logic will have quite a job to follow. And now we shouldn't even start talking about HTP & LTP)

Praise you very lucky that you aren't using any movers - this would be a really mess (resetting a value because you refire a collection - resets the values again while a fade is running. This means your mover will go slow and by refireing the collection inside the chaser the mover would quickly tweak back to start and then quickly go back to where it was with the fade. Oh my (!)

I only can make one suggestion: KISS your project Keep It Simply Stupid or Stupid Simple.
think in themes:
statics (color views, adaptable intensities (you will need them later))
dynamics (chaser, sequencers, ...)
then EFX (matrixes, masking RGB's, ...)

Now will be able to debug step by step and after that combining things in a logic way.
(Keep in mind that the start of one thing may stop an other thing)
All electric machines work on smoke... when the smoke escapes... they don't work anymore
Mibmusic
Posts: 133
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:55 pm
Real Name: Gerard van Hamburg

HI GGGss,

Thank you so much for your respons. So to be honest, I thought i did keep it simple when I created this, haha. I will try to explain how I came up with this all.

I am very new to DMX and QLC+ but it is the only software I found sofar that is able to start and stop shows on VC via midi notes from a Roland SPD-SX sample pad. I have tested over and over and it works very good. As you can see it is my version 0.57 so not even close to a 1.0 production version.

The reason I used the RGX matrix is just for testing it. I can create a chaser too, I am aware of that but does that save time? I think I then need to have a scene for every light of the led bar. So I have to create a lot of scenes.

And the reason I used the Chaser in a collection is because I wanted to be able to dim the RGX matrix. And I used this forum to find out how to do it, via a collection. Since a collection can't be part of a show I needed to add it to a chaser. There I ran into the fact that it needs to stop after 3 x 16 bars (the intro of the song) so I came up with this. I agree this is a lot of work but using this forum I thought this was the way to go. Please keep in mind, there is no actual person controlling QLC+. I just start the backing track (via the Roland SPD-SX) and lights will follow.

(And you can slide the marker in show view)
Mibmusic
Posts: 133
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:55 pm
Real Name: Gerard van Hamburg

Ok so it turns out that the sequence funtion is my friend. It does what it needs to do. There’s only one thing that makes no sense: Why does QLC+ make a copy of the sequence when adding one to a show? That does not make sense, does it?
Mibmusic
Posts: 133
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:55 pm
Real Name: Gerard van Hamburg

Changed to sequence, cleaned up the showfile and now it works. Thank you all!
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