Seemingly random results from fade-in

[pdx97206]

I'm new to this, having played successfully with MyDMX and one of the DasLight programs. When we upgraded to an Enttec DMXUSB PRO (the MyDMX 2.0 software was missing key components), I started looking into FreeStyler based on its reputation as being user-friendly and whatnot.

So far, I'm not wild about it.

This is version 3.6.35. I am setting up a simple pink fade-in for 7 lights (3 different types of RGB LED's). It worked initially, but suddenly everything decided to hang up on blue lights. Then during the fades the blue would come in first and very pronounced early into the fades, but only on some of the lighting fixtures.

I have spent hours trying to follow the instructions, but they seem to be missing vast amounts of information (finding out how to load saved sequences was pure guesswork, as the instructions didn't help).

How on earth do you do a simple fade up? All I can seem to do is barely get it, and then watch it fall apart.

[Partyman]

When you say a simple pink "fade in" what exactly do you mean and how long do you want the fade in to take? What are your fixtures and how many channels? Do they have dimmer channels or straight RGB?

[pdx97206]

Black to pink, I set up a 1-minute fade up. 4 Venue LED PAR64's (6 channels), 1 ADJ Mega Tripar Profile (6 channels), 4 Venue Thinpar 38's (7 channels). The Tripar has a designated master fader channel in its profile, while the others do not. Two of the Venue Par64's are fading up blue first, then red. When blue got "stuck," it was on the Par64's and Par38's. The Tripar behaved properly.

[pdx97206]

....and in testing it right now after leaving it overnight, the fades don't work at all.

[Partyman]

Where are you trying to run sequences from?

[pdx97206]

The editor initially, though it seems pretty useless for actually seeing what you're doing while you build. Running from the cue list, it just seems to do whatever it wants. Now all I get are solid pink, even though the editor clearly shows step 1 is all dark, and step 2 has a 1 minute fade with the lights at 100%. Playback doesn't seem to care, it just leaves the lights on for whatever step it is running.

[Partyman]

what is happening to you is not typical and I can almost assure is because of programming errors. I have used freestyler on dozens of machines (I own 7 Enttec Pro Dongles) and can tell you that the sequence creator and editor work very well with very few errors.


Lets start over and work with 1 fixture type at a time then add in the others to achieve the full effect (please choose a fixture with dimmer).
* Open Freestyler
* Within freestyler select the fixture that you want to use and check that all DMX values correspond correctly to the fixtures DMX layout AND that no other fixture are being affected by the changes you make.
*(proceed if correct, if not back to setup)
* Restart Freestyler
* Open Sequence creator
* select global fade and scene checkboxes
* Set both times to 6000
* Select fixture
* set box to right of fixture sliders: Dimmer ON (yellow), Red Fade (green), Green Fade (green), Blue Fade (green). any other channels set to zero and turn on (yellow)
* Raise red channel to 100%
* hit the "+" button
* reduce red to zero and raise green to 100%
* hit the "+" button
* reduce green to zero and raise blue to 100%
* Hit the play button in editor

The light should now be doing a slow fade through the entire color palette.
Please report back your results so that we can find the problems with your sequences and correct them

[pdx97206]

It stays red the entire sequence, though the control panel for the fixture shows the colors should be changing.

[pdx97206]

Going back and starting from scratch again, the fixture responds when it is selected and the set box is played with. When the sequence editing box is opened, the fixture stops responding to settings.

[Partyman]

You do know that you cannot run sequence outside of the sequence editor while the sequence editor is open? Never try to run cues, cuelist, submasters, or overrides while the sequence editor is open it then runs in offline mode. I was trying to be very specific on steps to take to program successfully

[pdx97206]

I did follow your instructions. I am presuming here you are referring to running the sequence in the fast cue switcher. I did not do this.

You said to hit the play button in the editor.

I did.

It stayed red throughout, even though the bars on the right showed the colors changing..

I re-did it again. This time the blue stayed on the entire time as the other 2 colors cycled, in spite of step 3 only being written with blue. I had to go back through and remove blue from each other color, then run it. Now it runs properly. Will it continue to run properly? My guess is that based on my previous work with this, no, it won't.

[jtlayne]

I had a similar issue recently. The best I can describe it is that I have a strobe scene I created. When I hit play on the que selector the scene plays correctly, but then when I go back to another scene some of the lights continue to strobe. Almost like once strobe was set to on the only way to make them stop strobing was to manually select the fixtures and turn the strobe value off. In addition to that I have seen where changing from a fade scene to a scene where the colors change rapidly that some of the lights stay stuck on whatever their last value was in the previous scene.

This brings 2 questions to mind.

First, if at all possible how do you set freestyler to specifically not use a channel in a scene? Is that done by clicking the box next to the fader values on that specific fixture? If I use the strobing effect as an override button it would work as expected and the values would not "stick".

Second, does / would changing the output refresh rate have anything to do with values being stuck on even though the sequence plays out correctly in editor?

Lastly, I might note that since I upgraded to the latest version that these issues havent show up, but that may also be because instead of using a scene for strobing I added the scene to the override buttons instead. Also, blackout wouldnt blackout 2 of my fixtures so I had to manually create a blackout sequence and add it to the override buttons.

[jtlayne]

UPDATE!!! Something clicked in me head on the way home. I set all the channels in each of my sequences to either Static ( lightning bolt ) or fade ( green rising symbol ) depending on what I was looking for. This has fixed my issues. Basically, always set channels you want switching on or off to static and for fades use the green rising symbol for those.

To fade into a single color you should be able to open sequence editor, start with your dimmers all the way down or if you dont have a dimmer channel start with the colors all the way down, on each fixture you should set the symbol beside all the faders to the lightning bolt ( static ), save your sequence now.

Click the plus sign to add the pink color in the sequence. For each fixture set the appropriate dimmer and color channels to the desired values with the symbol next to each channel being the green rising symbol.

Select your global and scene fade timers. Save your scene.

Good luck. It worked for me

[Partyman]

PDX, could you send me a backup file of all of your settings and let me take a look (under file menu) send it to rusty@partyman.net

[pdx97206]

I'm sorry, I wouldn't even know how to begin to do that.

[Partyman]

At the very top left of Freestyler there are menu items: File, Edit, Fixture, Setup,...

Under the "file" tab there is a Backup/Restore setting. Select to backup, then email me the backup file

[pdx97206]

Sorry, just finally gave up on fighting with this. I'm coming over from MyDMX 2.1, which though very limited, is very user-friendly for newbs like myself. Trying Freestyler with an Enttec Pro, since Freestyler seems to have this great reputation. For what that's worth, I'm fighting getting even the most basic stuff to work with Freestyler.

At some point I will try this again, so thank you for trying to help out. I really hate MyDMX, but it works. For now, trying to get Freestyler to work is just not worth the stress!