simonB wrote:...No it is not possible to do this as it goes against the format of every other fixtures layout...
Not quite true simon !!!! Quite a lot of VaryLite fixtures have a seperate dimmer channel (actually the dimmer is often supplied seperately by the user, i.e. it is not part of the fixture). Some software and desks know about this and allows for the dimmer channel to be attached to the fixture. So for example you have a 24 channel dimmer pack which sits on the first 24 channels and the you have your VaryLite VL500 starting at address 25, so you could using "other" software create a fixture for the VL500 that can be patched at address 25 and still allow for you to associate the correct dimmer channel to the fixture as well, does not even have to be in sequence, so you could say that the first VL500 has it's dimmer channel on channel 24 the second VL500 has it's dimmer channel on channel 12 the third VL500 has it's dimmer channel on channel 13 and so on.
Some software even allows you to do cross patching of fixtures, i.e. for example channel 1 does not actually refer to DMX address channel 1 it could be any of the 512 channels, I think of it like an old phone exchange, or even network patch panels.
Generally though most DMX software only allows a 1 to 1 straight patch.
