Fixtures Modes and Numbering of fixtures

[Cristiano Alves]

Good morning guys. 

Question 1:
[Fixtures Modes]
I'm in the process of making the DMX Patch in Vectorworks, and I realised that I don't have any Fixture Mode information in some lighting devices (for example: Robe Spikie, GLP X4 Bar 20).
This never happened with other fixture types before. (For example: Claypaky Sharpy)

How do I know the DMX footprint by fixture type on a specific mode? 
Do you know if it is supposed to fill manually the DMX footprint?

Question 2:
[Number fixtures]
What is the difference and what is the supposed workflow of these variables:

Channel

Dimmer

Unit Number

What I see is that to export to grandMA2/3 the "Channel" is. value that is in the console's "Fixture ID", however, can someone explain to me the supposed usefulness of the other

[klinzey]

If there there is a Fixture Mode (used for Vision) or GDTF Fixture mode set the the DMX footprint is set by the mode. If no mode is defined then the DMX footprint is user defined.

We try to use the Instrument Type to automatically select a Fixture mode. If we can't find a good match the fixture mode defaults to None.

The mapping to MA, Vision and GDTF is here.
Visualizer data mapping

The other fields are often used by Lightwright and other applications.
Unit Number is normally the sequence of the fixture on a position.
Dimmer is primarily used for conventional fixtures with remote dimmer racks especially when it's not dimmer per circuit.

[Cristiano Alves]

4 hours ago, klinzey said:

If there there is a Fixture Mode (used for Vision) or GDTF Fixture mode set the the DMX footprint is set by the mode. If no mode is defined then the DMX footprint is user defined.

We try to use the Instrument Type to automatically select a Fixture mode. If we can't find a good match the fixture mode defaults to None.

To build a Symbol of all fixtures, the Vectorworks team, needs to find dimensions information about the fixture. Why don't they search about the DMX modes that fixtures have and add this information on official libraries?

[klinzey]

@Cristiano Alves The fixture modes come from Vision. It requires significantly more time to create all the details that go into the fixture modes so they are only created when a fixture for Vision is created.

[Cristiano Alves]

On 11/20/2023 at 8:42 PM, klinzey said:

@Cristiano Alves The fixture modes come from Vision. It requires significantly more time to create all the details that go into the fixture modes so they are only created when a fixture for Vision is created.

I understand that, however, you don't need to build all of these things to just add the number of channels for each mode of the fixtures.

It will be much easier for the Designer when he starts the patch process.
At the end of the day, if this information is present in official libraries, the patch data will be more robust, because it will avoid transcript errors when we go to the manual of the fixture to check the modes and how many channels they have all the times that we need make a patch on a new project.

I think this is a good suggestion/improvement do Vectorworks think about the future.
We can help to complete that information for example.