Posts by fabiankaestner

Hi,

so it seems that it is currently impossible to use an uncooked recipe as an entry in the values field of another recipe. Is there a setting that changes this?

Or is there a reason why this feature doesn't exist?

For example, I have an effect recipe that has some MAtricks and an universal preset as value, but without a selection, so I can apply it to any of my fixture groups.

This works fine, however if I want to create a sequence using a cue recipe, I cannot use this preset. It does not show in the selector menu, and manually assigning it shows it in the UI, but does not create any output values (unless I messed up somewhere).

This is quite inconvenient, as I have to create the effect manually using MAtricks and the universal preset inside my cue recipe, if I want to use the cue recipes feature.

Is there any way to get this workflow to work?

How are you getting around this limitation?

Cheers,

Fabian

Nevermind, answering myself in case anyone else faces this problem: the syntax is FaderMaster Group XX At XX.

Is it currently possible to set the level of a group master from the commandline without having it assigned to an executor?

You are right! It does work!

Thank you for taking the time

However: do I misunderstand the documentation here or does the documentation contradict the actual behaviour?

Quote

• Cue In Fade
  This is the fade time used for all intensity values changing from a lower value and going to a higher and any other attribute changing value. It starts when the cue is triggered and after the Cue In Delay has counted down.
• Cue In Delay
  This is the delay before the fade. This defines a countdown time between the cue is triggered and when the fade should begin. The In Delay affects the In Fade. The default value is 0, meaning that there is no delay.
• Cue Out Fade
  The out fade is used by intensity values fading from a higher value to a lower. It is executed after the Cue Out Delay. The default value is the in fade, meaning that it is the same as whatever the cue in fade is.
• Cue Out Delay
  This is the delay time for the Out Fade. It can be used to delay when intensity values should start to fade down in value. The default value is in delay, meaning that it is the same as the Cue In Delay value.

According to this, the dimmer going back to a higher value should ignore the out fade and out delay, because it is not fading down in value?

Hi Andreas,

thanks for your idea. This probably won't work, because I am forcing the dimmer to zero at the end of my sequence, and the dimmer value will thus be going up after I turn it off (I have other sequences that send values to the dimmer attribute). As the dimmer is fading up, I'm unable to use this solution. Can you reproduce the problem I'm having?

Hi,

it seems to me that setting a delay time for an attribute isn't working in an offcue? Is this a known bug, intended behaviour or am I just doing something wrong? I want a dimmer to be released after the position/other values are released when turning off a sequence. Neither setting individual delay times nor PresetType delay times for the dimmer type seem to have the intended effect. Differing fade times set for dimmer vs other attributes do seem to work.

Does anybody have any insight on this?

Cheers,

Fabian

I'm trying to get a circle chaser from the commandline. I've seen previous posts that state the 'Form' buttons in the phaser editor are just shortcuts for Accel/Decel/etc. values, but I'm struggling. If I set everything the same as the circle form button, the phaser is still just a line. The only difference is that the Accel/Decel fields in the phaser editor have a P in front of the numeric values, as opposed to an F which I get when I press the circle form button. However, I cannot seem to change this. I've a sneaking suspicion that this is the issue. Having looked at the XML of the predefined phasers library, there seems to be an AccelSplineType/DecelSplineType property, that is set to "Free" in the predefined circle phasers. Maybe this is what the F in front of the Accel/Decel values is indicating? Anyway, does anybody have some insight here how to change the values in such a way that I get a circle phaser?

If I understand what you want correctly you can achieve this by using the relative keyword and the plus and minus keywords.

You do Attribute 'Pan' At Relative - 10 or Attribute 'Pan' At Relative + 10

It's very important that you have a space between the +/- and the number, otherwise the value will be interpreted as an 'absolute' relative value (so you'll end up with Pan Relative at -10 if you do Attribute 'Pan' At Relative -10 and not at 10 less than you had before).

Valid point, yeah. I always got the impression that the selling point of getting MA hardware is the parameter unlocking. I think there’s a well established set of macro keyboards and such for MA2 that people use for programming. I really don’t think a Commandwing is intended to compete with an iPad sized macro pad for preprogramming.

That does sound promising, if there's a workaround/better option planned for the next versions, that's fantastic!

And, yes, I really was just wondering why MA chooses to strip this API specifically, while leaving other debug APIs such as mouse or keyboard simulation in the final software. It kind of seems like an oversight being unable to press buttons or turn the encoders from a LUA plugin (at least to me), so I was curious if there is something I'm missing here.

I don’t think this is possible in a single sequence, but if you split your look into multiple sequences, then it’s obviously possible. This is my default workflow anyway, to have different sequences for color/pos/etc.

Yes, the functions are used in a way (even documented) that makes it obvious they are used to simulate a keypress. Feel free to have a look, they’re used in systemtests/ui/uitf/system_test_uitf_hw.lua

MA3 ships with some LUA plugins created by MA. Some are intended for users, such as the start show plugin shipped a few versions ago, and others are (presumably) used by MA in their internal QA tests. You can find these plugins in the resources/lib_plugins folder inside the program data directory of the used MA3 software version. One of these plugins, called systemtests (I think, I’m not at a computer right now) has source code that calls a function called HWKey(). This function is used in the LUA plugin that MA3 ships, but if executed in a publicly available build of MA3 this will cause an error, as the environment does not actually ‚define‘ this function.

This is what I mean by stripped out, we can see that this function is used internally at MA, but cannot be used in release versions of the software.

Hi all,

first off, apologies if this should be in the LUA plugins subforum, I wasn't sure if any folks from MA/the distributors are lurking around there.

The system_test plugins that can be found distributed with the software indicates an internal HWKey and HWEncoder LUA function that is used in tests to verify the software is working correctly.

This means these functions exist and could be used, if they were not stripped from release builds. In release versions of the software, these functions are nil, and there are even tests that verify that these functions are not included with release builds.

Is there anybody willing to comment on why this feature is intentionally disabled? I'm currently looking for a way to control the MA key from a plugin, and I'm finding it impossible to get it working without this HWKey method.

I'd love if this function could be included in future release builds of the software.

If this isn't possible I'd love to know why it's not possible, or if there is any workaround that would be applicable for my problem.

In any case, thank you to any folks at MA responsible for the huge leap in documentation for the LUA interface we've seen with the last few versions.

Cheers,

Fabian

Hi,

is there any way to undo a cue load? Returning to the normal execution order of the sequence?

Thanks,

Fabian

Thank you so much! I totally missed that

Now everything works as expected...

Cheers, Fabian

So MA3 makes it possible to have multiple values for the same attribute in different cue parts. However, storing this is quite difficult.

When I grab a group, set it At 100, and store Cue 1 Part 1, everything works as expected. When I then set the group At 0, and Store Cue 1 Part 2, the value in the first cue part gets cleared out. It is not clear to me why this happens? As I understand it, MA3 should only store the new values in part 2, and not erase the values in part 1.

It is very much possible to enter a value for Part 1 again, manually via the sequence tracking sheet. Another workaround is grabbing the group At 0, Store Cue 2 Part 2 and then Copy/Move Cue 2 Part 2 At Cue 1 Part 2. This way, the duplicate values remain as expected and no deletion happens.

Am I missing something here? Why is MA3 deleting values in another Cue Part when I store a second Cue Part?

Cheers, Fabian

When I create an appearance with image in MA3 version 1.5 or greater, and then assign this appearance to any object, and then assign this object to a layout view, the image doesn't cover the entire element any more. There is a border around the image where the background color of the appearance shines through. I have no idea what causes these borders. In versions 1.4 and below, the image covered the entire object, but now I cannot replicate this behaviour, no matter what settings I touch on the appearance or the layout view object. Is there any way to replicate this behaviour in 1.5 or greater? This new behaviour makes transparent overlay images useless for masking the background color of an object.

Hi Ryan, thank you so much for your response. As expected, it works now :).

Also, apologies for making you paste a link to an answer to my exact problem, I'd googled it extensively and just assumed I wouldn't find anything here either...

While trying to write a show start macro for a production today, I hit a very unexpected snag: It seems to be impossible to set the fader value of an executor master fader from the command line like it was possible in MA2.

Executor XXX At 100 just fails silently.

Am I just missing something obvious here? We tried every combination imaginable of Set commands and executor pages and everything else we could think of, but none of us managed to get a fader to move.

In this particular case we wanted to change group masters to their max value, so if anyone has an idea on how to accomplish that, I'd be grateful.