3. Controlling lights manually

Owned by Karen Cook (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jun 23, 2016
4 min read

In the Fixture Chooser view, each square represents one light, or multiple lights plugged into the same dimmer which operate together. The yellow pentagons are Groups (more on those later). 

To bring up (turn on) a light for testing or focusing, follow this procedure:

  1. Click on the icon representing the light. You can also select multiple lights by clicking on multiple icons, or selecting them by dragging a box around them. The selected icon/s will have a yellow box around them and a blue number in the top left to show the order in which they were selected (this is only relevant when using Effects - more on that later). To deselect the icon, click the selected icon or click in empty space.

2. On the right side of the screen are controls for the lights. For generic lights (aka normal lights) you can only control their intensity.

Click in the Intensity bar and drag the intensity to the right. The icon will become illuminated and if the light is functioning correctly, it will turn on. You can see the intensity value of the light in the text box on the right of the bar - shown below, it is at 75%.

It is best practise to fade up a light over a couple of seconds. Snapping it to full intensity when cold is likely to blow the light. Other ways to set the intensity are by clicking the values above the intensity bar (10, 20, 30 etc) or typing the value into the text box to the right of the bar. You can also use the arrows on the left and right of the intensity bar to snap a light to 0% or 100% (only do this when the light is warm). 

This process is the same for the generics, LED strips and movers.

3. To operate the LED strips, click on the icon/s to select one or both of them. Use the same method for controlling intensity.

To select the colour, click in the colour palette on screen right. The LED fixture as well as the icon will change colour with the selection. You must have intensity on the light to be able to see the result. For a more saturated colour, select something from the top of the palette. For lighter tints, select from lower in the palette. Avoid using the saturation bar below the colour palette - it generally does not function in the way people expect, and can cause issues with the intensity. 

 

4. To operate the movers, click on the icon/s to select one or both of them.  

Use the same method for controlling intensity and colour. With the movers, you can also control position and zoom. Position control is located between the intensity bar and the colour palette on screen right, and zoom control is in the bottom right. With a mover selected, move the circle around the quadrant. The light, as well as the arrow in the icon, will move. You will notice that it moves very fast and may be difficult to control. Press the "fine" button to turn on fine control, allowing more precise movements. With fine control turned on, the position of the light will not match up to the circle shown on the quadrants, but you will still have full control of it. You can turn fine control on or off as you like. 

Use zoom to make the beam of light bigger or smaller, by dragging the zoom bar or typing a value into the text box. You cannot change the shape of the light or the sharpness of the beam edge. 

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