Customizing Channel Configuration in XML Markup

[bcarew@protechpts.com]

I am a newbie and trying to reconfigure my channel configuration on a Superstar tree.  Instead of having 12 CCR's with a controller at the head of each string I want to have 4 150 pixel CCR's (generic) ribbons and create a layout that will allow them to be addressed as 12 segments.  I am using E1.31 and an E682.  

 

I have exported a channel configuration from God Bless the USA to get an idea of what the XML looks like and have built code in PHP to generate a channel config that looks like my layout.  I am quite sure I have coding errors in the generated XML to work out but thought I would post a few problems I seem to be encountering and ask for any clues anyone might like to offer to speed the process along.

 

1.  Sometimes I try and import the XML and it just plain errors with a very generic message.  Clearly I have an error in my XML.  I don't suppose there is a way to enable more verbose error reporting?

 

2.  Sometimes the import runs without an error but the channels do not change.

 

3.  Sometimes I import and the existing RGB groups get broken into 3 seperate RGB entities.

 

Is there any documentation on the XML tags and tips and tricks?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Bill

 

 

[BrianBruderer]

There is no document that I know of that describes the XML formats the visualizer uses. I would not recomend creating the XML on your own.

 

In the next release of S3 there will be a DMX Pixel tool that will make things easier. But right now there are 3 other ways to do it, each has its advantages and drawbacks. The 3 ways are:

 

A) Create each pixel as a single bulb and in the fixture properties dialog box, set the type of the bulb to "RGB"
This works and many have done it, but it is tedius and the sequence editor is limited to 1000 fixtures, so you can only create 1000 pixels this way.

There is a 3rd party utility that will create DMX RGB lights for you. Realize that it does it by creating a single bulb for each pixel. But it automates some of the process.
Here is a thread on the forums that discusses it:
http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/26528-rgb-pixel-utility/?p=284313



C) SuperStar v3.10.14 and above have an added feature to help support DMX lights. If you have an older version then download the latest version by going to the lightorama main page, click on "Support" then click on "S3 Download" then click on the "Download Now" button.

To use this feature you must use an imported visualization. There is a new keyword that you can put in the comment line of a Prop that tells superstar that the prop is to be treated as DMX lights. Note that the keyword only works in a prop, it will not work in a fixture. To use this new feature do the following:


1) Launch the Visualizer

2) Click on the "CCR Draw Wizard" tool, this is the one that has a multi-colored circle with a 2 segment line on top of it. (do NOT use the "Draw Cosmic Color Ribbon" tool)

3) Do a click and drag to draw a single line, double click to terminate the line.

4) A dialog box titled "Number of Pixels" will appear, Type in a name for the "Prop (CCR) Name" and then change the number to the total number of pixels in your DMX string. This number can be any number from 2 to 500. In other words, don't worry about having it be more than the number of pixels in a CCR which is 50. In most of my testing I used 60 as the number of pixels in a string.

5) After clicking on OK, a dialog box will appear titled "New/Existing fixture". Use the default which is "Create as many new Fixtures as required (Recommended)"

6) After clicking on OK, the visualizer will create a string that will have one or more CCRs in it, enough to create as many pixels as you specified. Don't worry about defining the Unit IDs for the CCRs, you can leave them undefined because SuperStar will ignore them.

7) On the right side of the visualizer are two buttons labeled "Fixtures" and "Props". Click on the "Props" button and then double click on the prop that you just created.

8) In the comment line of the prop, add the text "superstar dmx=<universe>,<channel>"   (do not enter the double quotes into the comment line, just the text inside the double quotes)

    <universe> is the universe to use for the first pixel of the prop and <channel> is the channel to use for the first pixel of the prop.

   For example, if you had 6 strings with 60 pixels each, you would add 6 props and you could add the following in the comment line of the props:

   superstar dmx=1,1

   superstar dmx=1,181

   superstar dmx=1,361

   superstar dmx=2,31

   superstar dmx=2,231

   superstar dmx=2,410

 

In the above example, the third string starts with universe=1 and channel=361. SuperStar will automatically bump up to the next universe when it runs out of channels for the current universe. So the last 10 pixels in the third string will use universe 2.

Also, as noted earlier, when SuperStar sees the keywords "superstar dmx=" then it ignores the unit id settings in the CCRs that are in the prop and uses the universe, channel settings that you specify.
 
Note that because SuperStar is using the comment line to supporting dmx, you cannot play the exported sequence back to the visualization because the Visualizer doesn't recognize the dmx settings that you placed in the comment line.