Electronic Theatre Controls Express 24/48 User Manual download pdf (Page 11)

4 User Manual Supplement - Expression/Express consoles

Moving lights: concepts and terms

Fixtures

Conventional lights, sometimes called fixtures, are single attribute devices

whose intensity can be controlled by a console connected to a dimmer. In

ETC moving light consoles, however, the term

fixture

is restricted to

multi-attribute devices, such as moving lights, to conveniently distinguish

them from conventional lights. The same operational principles apply to

other multi-attribute fixtures as to moving lights, including color scrollers,

relays, smoke machines and video projectors.

Attributes

Every fixture has a set of attributes that you use to control it. For instance,

a basic moving light might have only three attributes: intensity, pan and

tilt. You control the fixture’s brightness by adjusting the level of a DMX512

channel that controls a dimmer assigned to the fixture. Similarly, you

control the fixture’s horizontal and vertical movements by adjusting the

levels of DMX512 channels assigned to the fixture’s pan and tilt attributes.

This simple fixture would require three channels to fully control it. Other,

more complicated fixtures could have additional attributes such as color,

focus or gobo, and each additional attribute would require an additional

DMX512 channel to control it.

In contrast, a standard ellipsoidal spotlight needs only one DMX512

channel to fully control it, namely the one that controls the dimmer

assigned to the spotlight. Only the spotlight’s intensity can be controlled

by changing the channel level. It has no other attributes.

Categories

Most attributes can be naturally categorized as affecting the beam, the

image, the color or the position. All attributes are initially assigned to one

of these four categories or to a fifth one called None. Beam attributes

include Intensity, Zoom, Focus, Iris, and Frost. Image attributes include

Gobo and F/X. Color attributes include Color, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.

Position attributes include Pan and Tilt. You can customize the assignment

of attributes to categories, including assigning an attribute to multiple cat-

egories and assigning as many attributes as you want to a single category.

Personalities

Every fixture has an electronic personality that describes how it can be

controlled. The personality specifies the attributes for the fixture and the

order in which these attributes are presented to DMX512 channels.

Assigning a personality to a fixture makes channel patching quick and

easy. All you need to do is define which console channels and DMX512

addresses are first; the personality directs the rest of the assignment.

Many personalities are included with version 3.0 software. Other person-

alities for leading moving light fixtures on the market will be developed by

ETC. These additional personalities can be obtained from your dealer or

downloaded from the ETC website. See the Forward section of this User

Manual Supplement for instructions about how to contact ETC.

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Electronic Theatre Controls Express 24/48 User Manual Page 11

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