Daslight 4 official - Bugs, Suggestions, Questions

[Klangplantage]

Hi everybody.
I´m intensively working with D4 since about 2 Months, here are my results:

BUG (tk-B0001) on Version 26 May 2016: Crash when setting Effect "Bar Graph" or "Level Meter", in both Pixel and Matrix Effect Selection.
BUG (tk-B0002) on Version 26 May 2016: Palette "Pan/Tilt" unusable in 16bit Resolution: Strange jumping of the position across the field when releasing the mouse in the right bottom. Changes when using the faders, the "jump" will set to another section of the palette-field
(Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8g306p1w6r4lu ... t.mp4?dl=0)
BUG (tk-B0003) on Version 26 May 2016 and before: If two "extra color channels" were set (RGBWA-Fixure) the white channel (for both warm and cold white) will send no feedback in D4
(Image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxyyojy0dslgj ... l.jpg?dl=0)

Suggestion (tk-S0001): Color-feedback in 2D view for fixed colours of rgb-fixures. For many LED-Devices there is a seperate channel for fixed color presets. But there is no possibility to set them for the right view/feedback in the software. Adding a "fixed color channel" in ScanLibrary Editor would solve this problem and would be more than nice and up todate, nearly necessary for a "new software". Its possible to get a feedback by setting all RGB-Channels to 100% (=white) and then configure this fixed colors channel as Color Wheel, but this is not how the device works. Everything in lighting goes LED but its not possible to show them correctly in the SW. Would be a great change!

Suggestion (tk-S0002): adding a "TAB-Button" for a exact manual Sound-to-Light option. This could be activatet in Live-Mode by setting a scene not to bpm or pulse but to (the added) tab-mode and than by having a tab-button (which is also able to be mapped to midi or keyboard etc.) you will be able to play your show the exactest way to the sound. This wold be a great option and e.g. for Live-Bands a really helpfull tool if you have to react fast to changing sounds.

Suggestion (tk-S0003): adding an Overlay-Option. This means you can create a scene (for example "White Flash all devices") and set them to overlay. So then, no matter what other scene(s) are playing, if you activate this overlay it will take over the priority of the used channels until its deactivatet again (here, all devices wil flash in white and then return to the originally scene). There are many more usefull examples for this simple feature, one maybe you can interrupt the moving beams and spot them temporaly on the drum riser flashing in color and then quickly return to the show-sequence and many many more...

Suggestion (tk-S0004): adding a Master Fader next to the Master Dimmer which takes over the same function as the master dim but on the fade-times. Great to react live when the sound suddenly takes a smooth break (eg electronic music such as trance)

Suggestion (tk-S0005): simplify updating patched devices. If you are customise, correct or testing your fixure in ScanLibrary Editor, you have to delete the Fixure in your show, save the change and close D4, then restart and repatch thefixure again to controll/see the changes. Could become very demandig by time if you have to create your own fixures.
Also a possibility to check the device live in ScanLibrary Editor (DMX-Output) would be nice and helpful, especially if the presets are not defined in the Fixure-Manual.

Suggestion (tk-S0006): adding the possibility to programm a channel scene with value fader off. Simple example: i have LED Bars which run in 8 sections (beams) controlled by DMX in 24 channels. This means for each section you have one channel for red, green and blue. BUT: No Dimmer-Channel or Strobe-Channel. So you can ad a scene which simply sets the channels to "on" in the first step and to "off" in the second. Means you can programm your missing strobe-channel on your own without changing other settings of your scenes, you simply strobe your running scene by switching the valued channels on and off. You will so be able to pulse them and many more.

So long for the moment, to be continued
Great work and i´m really pleased about the way you handle the communication with your users! Thats not normal in those days and its a pleasure to get this feeling to grow this D4 together!

Greez, Chris

[Klangplantage]

Question (tk-Q0001): If i zoom in in the fixure field, is there a possibility to move the view? For example i want to check the beam index of my led-bars, so i have to zoom in to see the numbers. But the zoom seems to zoom in where it likes without any rules, i can not directly zoom in or move the zoom to the fixures i need. Most of the mouses have a middle wheel, this coud be greatfully used to zoom in and out from the position of the mouse cursor. This would make it much more easy to select singular beams eg or control fixures.

Question/Bug? (tk-Q0002): Can i store the order of my fixures-selection in the bottom of the Window? (Direct selection of fixures)
By now, they were sortet by date adding in the patch. I can customize the order by which i need to controll the most in live, but it isnt possible to store this order. Next time i start D4 they were again sortet by date patched.

[PolDavril]

Hi,

(tk-B0001) I cannot reproduce the issue. Which fixture are you using for that effect ? What's your audio input device ?

(tk-B0002) Yes, a bug.

(tk-B0003) Yes, a bug. For now, it works for one additional color (e.g. RGBW) but not for more.

(tk-S0005) I second this feature.

(tk-Q0001) You can use the "Move All" tool (5th icon in the fixtures view) to move all fixtures at once. When the Move mode is active, the icon becomes a lock and the mouse pointer is a hand. Click on the lock again to leave the move mode.

(tk-Q0002) Yes, a bug. As soon as the order of the fixture tabs can be changed, it has to be saved within the show file.

Thanks. I will add these issues to my bugs list so I can check and follow the fixes later.

[TomHat]

Hey Chris,

First, thank you for the interest you show for our software, and your feedback that will help us make it better.
This comes to complete PolDavril's answers as he posted just before I did

BUG (tk-B0001) on Version 26 May 2016: Crash when setting Effect "Bar Graph" or "Level Meter"

- Are you sure you are using the latest (Official) Daslight 4 ?
- Do you have any audio input device (microphone, for example) plugged to the computer when generating these effects ?

BUG (tk-B0002) on Version 26 May 2016: Palette "Pan/Tilt" unusable in 16bit Resolution

- Could you please send us your show file and maybe the SSL file of the fixture you're using to produce this bug ?

Question/Bug? (tk-Q0002): Can i store the order of my fixures-selection

- That seems to be a bug indeed. We'll look into it.

I'll add your suggestions to our ideas list for future versions.

Regards,

[Klangplantage]

Hey everybody

Thanks for your quick response! It´s a pleasure to work together in this way!

(tk-B0001) It´s quite wayne which fixure i´ll use for that. I´ll tried all my LEDs and it´s quite the same. Setting the effect will crash the SW. For Audio-Input i use my internal Soundcard (Realtek High Definition, both ways, Microphone and Line in will cause the crash) on WIN10 (tried this also on my older Laptop with WIN7: same).
In these versions before there were the same config and no problems.
Software-Version is the release of May 26 (16.526.6957.949), so i think this is the first release of the official D4, is´nt it?

(tk-B0002) I´ll send you the files in a personal message.

(tk-Q0001) Thanks It works

[Klangplantage]

BUG (tk-B0004):
In patch - The order of the fixures is not sortet by index but by order of the adresses. Yesterday, i wrote everything new to get a clean index for the pixel effects (referrence: Knight Rider). I addet all Fixures in the order they should work with the effect and let D4 set the index. Before, i tried to change the Fixure-Index manually because of adding 2 new LED-Bars, this didn´t work. So, i create a completely new show, new patch step by step in order of my preferred lines for the pixel effects.
After done this, the effects work properly. Then i moved the fixures in patch to a logical order in DMX-Adressing and readressed all my fixures in here. The effects still worked properly...
Until restarting the software... (despite that i saved all the config more than once and it worked before): All the fixures were rearranged by dmx-adresse and the effect works now in this order, the fixure-index still replies in the name of the fixure but takes no effect in the pixel order...

Suggestion (tk-S0007):
Because of this issue, there are two suggestions which are quite necessary:
First: the index must be save and hold even if i readress the fixure in patch and
Second: the possibility to change the index of a fixure is needed if you add new ones of the same kind later on. I had 6 LED-Bars, yesterday i ordered two new ones so i now have 8, but i have no possibility to add them properly exept writing a complete new patch. I needed them to add after #1 and #5, so had to patch all the bars and every other fixure behind them totally new.

Have a nice start into this new week
Regards, Chris

[Klangplantage]

Suggestion (tk-S0008): Please, let me read all the numers in patch Only one row in the dropdown is displayed, quite difficult for e.g. 512 channels in dmx

patch1.JPG (18.13 KiB) Viewed 27683 times

[Klangplantage]

UPDATE (tk-B0004) - Fixure Index Problem.

I found out that the problem i have, something is overwriting the fixure index i patched, is not caused by move the fixures to another adress in patch. It seems that it is me who causes this "bug" in fixure window, but i dont know where or why.
I tryed to rearrange the fixures in the primary order i did on the first patch. If the index for the effects will follow this order the problem should be solved, but it is´nt. Fixure-Index and order is quite right again i think, but selection in fixure window still works in groups of fixure-type...

patch_index.JPG (44.54 KiB) Viewed 27664 times

To explain what i wanna do and why (i think) i need this fixure index:
I have LED-Bars on the back wall and LED-Pars in line on the ceiling. I would like to combine these fixures in effects, means that beam-index starts on the left bottom of the back wall (LED-Bars) and goes over to the left front of the ceiling, so on for each row. The refference effect "knight rider" will walk from the left bottom, over the ceiling to the right bottom. As you can see in the screenshot, the beam-index is starting quite right in the bottom at the left side, but is no longer combined but sortet by fixure-type, so the effect starts walking through the LED-Bars in the back and then jumpes to the ceiling.
The index should be 1-4 left bar (not 13-16), 5-7 Singular Par Can from bottom to top (instead of 1-3), 8-12 second bar... and so on.

So, what have i done wrong??

fixure_index_problem.JPG (48.06 KiB) Viewed 27664 times

-------------------------
EDIT / UPDATE

It seems that the Pixel Effects only work in Fixure-Groups (Tab whise), which is really a great pity.
I tried it again, begun a completely new showfile. Adding each fixure step by step in order of beam index i like to show later on without moving them in patch for a logical order (just the first patch). Again, all beams are correctly set as configured in patch by Fixure Index. (see patch image up here) And again, all Pixel Effects work great combining those two fixure groups as one selection.
Store, restart the software, same effect: all beam indexes were sortet by Fixure Tab in groups, the setting of the Fixure Index in Patch takes no Effect... Bug?

fixure_index_aslike.JPG (43.1 KiB) Viewed 27655 times

[Klangplantage]

Imagine....

You spend lots of weeks and even more hours in programming your show and scenes for a upcoming event in 3 weeks...
Then, most of work is done, you finally set your trigger to BPM to those scenes, in order to play...
Then, you realize that in case of setting your BPM-trigger on "BPM on fade" to make your show more smooth (Main Fade still seems to be too much work...) some steps will be "killed" so that the whole work in creating great beam shows is going to be wasted... And the whole setting is going out of BPM range cause of those missing steps.

Please, dear Daslight Team. Your Idea of D4 is great, but FIRST work on those basic things to work properly! Those functions are necessary and essential and they HAVE to WORK!
And yes, i´m a little bit upset, but still hoping...

Other thing, in live, setting the time trigger to e.g. 1/8 will not be stored after restarting D4. It´s again 1/1 everytime starting the software.

Yours, Chris

[TomHat]

Hey Chris,

Sad to read that you're experiencing these bugs. I understand this must have been very disappointing for you. Could you please send me your showfile so I can try running the software with it and know what's going wrong ?

Thanks for reporting, we'll get a fix ready ASAP.

Regards,

[edwardmyers]

I recognize your request and leisure assured it has been introduced to the long run ideas list. Nevertheless we're now not including aspects to Daslight four so this would be a request to be regarded for a future variation so it can be no longer whatever that might happen soon.

[Macarena]

The icons "color" in the palette are not displayed correctly.

[John Koster]

Hello guys,

What for me would be a very pleasant feature to have in DVC-4 has to do with the mapping part of the software.
It would be a great if combinations of midi triggers could be mapped.
For this you would need an option to add to each midi map function an additional state of an additional midi trigger that you can select.
With state of the additional trigger I mean that you can choose if this additional trigger needs to be held down manually, if it is on when pushed once or off when pushed for a second time.
The actual midi trigger that the additional midi trigger is referring to then can have multiple functions and there is no needs for numerous physical faders and button and you can do much more in one layer of your midi controller and work much faster.
Please see for instance a different kind of software like DJ software Traktor Pro from Native Instruments which I use and control via a midi controller.
Also it woud be great if not only actual buttons, faders and scenes can be mapped but as an addition you would be able to map a direction (with going back and forwards mapped as two separate functions) in which you can select for instance the function buttons on the right hand side in the live window.
Also the add a step in a scene would be very practical to be mappable, this will speed up the programming from a midi controller instead of having to also use the keyboard of your computer.
Thank you very much for the lovely software, I am a very happy user and am happy to recommend it.

Kind regards,

John

[gecko]

1. (Suggestion): For precise steering of moving heads the Grid is insufficient because in fact it does not use the u-channel. steering using 4 faders is quite annoying.
Therefore i would really apreciate if Daslight would detect if there is a u-channel and use it in the xy-grid.

2. (suggestion): I am also missing possibilities of fine-adjusting the grid. for example the up-down of the arrow keys increases 4-10 dmx values. you could use shift+arrow or string+arrow for a wider/finer adjustment.

3. (Bug): Problems with feedback to motorfader-controllers like the bcf-2000:
when linking midi to dmx-channels there is no feedback to the controller of any changes in palettes, live-mode or easy-remote. when linking midi to palete-elements the data is properly fed back only while the corresponding fixture is selected in palette-view. But in that case, the motor-faders freeze because of a midi-loop (although "feedback changes" is deactivated).
This means: after clicking "next szene" i have to select every of my 24 Par-Lights individually to get the new values to the controller und then change from palette to sliders to be able to make adjustments to the values using the midi-controller.
For me this looks like there are 2 Problems:
1. the palette creating a loop while in focus
2. missing feedback to the controller on data-changes by easyremote or scenes.
(Suggestion:) In my opinion the solution would be to feed back every changed value by easyremote or scenes to the controller imediately. To prevent Feedback of constantly changing values like fadings or movements there would be 2 possibilities: either detect these automatically and prevent feedback selectively or adding a "dont feed back changes to midi"-checkbox within the settings of each scene.

4. (Feature-request): Controlling the moving-Head-position via midi-controller is even worse, as long as 14bit-midi-values are not supported. I am able to link low and high bytes of 14-bit-midi seperately to Pan and uPan and Tilt and uTilt, but on each 255-0-jump or 0-255-jump of uPan/uTilt the Pan/Tilt-channel is rised by two which is not accurate.
(Suggestion:) The solution would be to use the highest u-Bit as the lowest Pan/Tilt-bit (adding two low 0-bits to expand the 14 midi-bits to 16 bits of the 2 dmx-channels). Thus finetuning of moving Heads (Pan/Tilt AND uPan/uTilt) could be cdone by one 14bit midi-fader.

[cbabbman]

I believe I may have found a bug using fixtures that have 2 sets of RGBW LEDs, such as an ADJ B-Eyes K10 or any similar fixture... (I tried several different fixture ssl2's from the library as well as one of my own. And, this exact problem also occurs in myDMX 3)

The problem is the onscreen display of the channels and their indicators as well as the representations in the fixture window to the right of the channels. Both react in the same way. Fortunately, the actual DMX signals going to the fixture work properly. It's just the onscreen indicators that are not working correctly.

Here's a link to a video I made of the issue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-CNtWJCIHs

The 1st set of RGBW faders, RGB does not turn the indicators on or show the selected color. The White channel turns on all the indicators on both sets of RGBW faders.

The 2nd set of RGBW faders does display the proper colors but turns on the indicators on both sets, rather than just its own set.

The only way to get the fixture window to show the beam is to have all 3 dimmer channels on (this fixture has a main Dimmer and because it does pixel shapes, has an additional dimmer for the shape foreground and another dimmer for the shape background). This does not reflect the actual function of the fixture as all you need to turn on the beam is the main dimmer and an open shutter. The other dimmers only come into play if you turn on the shaping functions.

As I said, this issue only affects the display in the program. The actual fixture works exactly as it should. Unfortunately, I don't always have the actual fixture sitting in front of me when programming so the on screen indications are really important to me.

Anyone else?