stage lighting control

[Mal]

This is all getting a little fustrating, probably as i still have no proper idea of what i'm really doing or how to drive FS/GM, and that the show is now little more than 2 weeks away.
FS going into Offline mode every few minutes needing a restart isn't helping, either.

Trying to create the following scenes in GM (with halt on for each scene)
spot red near yellow
spot red near red
spot green near yellow
only turns on the first spot red light. The "spot green" at the end never occurs and the right lamp doesn't come on at all.
If i immediately switch back to FS then i can turn on the lights manually or with the cue creator, so FS is still working and addressing etc is ok. It's almost as if GM and FS aren't communicating fully...?

So as a beginner i'm afraid i'll need a little more of your help to see where i'm going wrong. It may be something as simple as my original FS sequences are incorrect.

Can you help with more information?
As an example, what do i need to put where to get the sequence above?

Cheers,

mal

[Mattotone]

can you send me your freestyler backup too please.

The file in Go Monkey looks fine.

However iv remembered your running an older version of FS. If so you will need to use an older version of goMonkey. The older version doesn't have the xml editor so you will have to create it in the new version but play it from the old version.
Or update FS to the latest version if possible.

[Mal]

I'm using 3.5.0 at the moment on a different machine than before.
I'll try 3.5.2 and see if that makes any difference before sending anything else.

Mal

[Mattotone]

Im not sure which version the command GoMokey uses to trigger cues was updated, i only noticed it in 3.5.2

[Mal]

Sadly, the same problem occurs with 3.5.2.
Hopefully you can find a backup attached.

mal

[Mattotone]

The sequence redSpot is empty and the reason ti why it never works.

the next requires a bug report, The sequence loads and appears to be playing yet looking at the output nothing is actually happening.
The sequences have to be stopped and started again. No work around im afraid, you will have to use the older version of GOMonkey which uses the old method of firing cues within FS.

[Mattotone]

Please try gomonkey version 6

[Mattotone]

reuploaded due to server corrupting files.

[Mal]

Thanks, i was going to ask...

TBH, i'm not surprised there was a sequence problem.
I'll try it again with a better red spot and see how it goes with version 6.
Is there any way to see the detail of what should be in each step in a sequence?

I'll make a bug report next week sometime....

Cheers,

Mal

[Mattotone]

you can load a sequence in FS and step through it to see the steps.

[Mattotone]

version 8 released: bug fixes.

[Mal]

you can load a sequence in FS and step through it to see the steps.

That's how i missed it in the first place, despite thinking i was checking it.
Is there no other way? I had a quick look with a hex editor and there seemed nothing obvious i could do easily.
If i knew how to code and had the CHB filespec, then i'd have a go at knocking something up.

Will GM8 fix the FS bug i'm suffering from? Not had a chance to try with GM6 yet.

Mal

[Mal]

reuploaded due to server corrupting files.

Sorry Matt, could you check the version that was re-uploaded?
Downloading GM6.zip from the front page of the Original GM thread shows as V4 in the title bar when the program is executed.
Could you confirm this really is V6, despite what it says?

Cheers,

Mal

[Mattotone]

Yeah GM8 should fix the past issues, I didn't have v6 saved any-more so i recreated the changes using v4 as a base. But use G8.2 should work much better.

[Mattotone]

http://www.freestylersupport.com/wiki/c ... erstanding

chb structure

[Mal]

Ok, i'll give 8.2 a go and see how it goes.

Mal

[Mal]

http://www.freestylersupport.com/wiki/c ... erstanding

chb structure

Hmm, ok. I know a little excel VBA. I'll see if i can knock something up, but it won't be for a few days.

GM8.2 seems to be working much better now and gets me to a point where i an start developing the scenes i need. Apparently now up from ~80 to ~130.

Finally, FS+GM looks like just what i need. Thanks for you help so far!

Cheers,

Mal

[Mal]

Looking through the CHB file specification, a couple of points.

CHB files on my machine here created with FS3.5.0 start with 2 words, both 0x5a00, which are not mentioned in the wiki. Any idea about them? I'll try 3.5.2 CHB's tonight. Do you have any other versions i could try?
Are CHBs created solely by FS? Or was this file format used to follow some other application that used them?

The LSbyte in each word seems to always be 0x00 (it's the MSbyte that contains the important values) which makes an excel macro much easier to code

Mal

[Mal]

Yeah GM8 should fix the past issues, I didn't have v6 saved any-more so i recreated the changes using v4 as a base. But use G8.2 should work much better.

Sorry, Matt.
After working with it tonight, seems like i'm having the same problems with 8.2 as before. Each time "it" goes wrong (now testing with just 2 fixtures) either fixture stops responding to the cues in the GM stack.
Coincidentally, each time i switch back to FS to check the status, the cue sequencer is in Offline mode needing a restart. I guess this is not so much GM's problem and again the same problem with FS?

Mal