Dmx?

[1pet2_9]

Hi, general question: is Vixen very good at DMX? I've got a show to do that's mostly DMX stage lights, with a little pixels mixed in. I like Xlights, and technically it CAN do anything DMX, but it's not so good at it. The stage light sequencers more-or-less can't do ws2811. Was wondering if Vixen's effects can seamlessly apply themselves to both ws2811 and DMX, before I spend much time learning it?

[ChiefWarrant]

Hi, general question: is Vixen very good at DMX? I've got a show to do that's mostly DMX stage lights, with a little pixels mixed in. I like Xlights, and technically it CAN do anything DMX, but it's not so good at it. The stage light sequencers more-or-less can't do ws2811. Was wondering if Vixen's effects can seamlessly apply themselves to both ws2811 and DMX, before I spend much time learning it?

I use Vixen to drive 60 channels of DMX, thousands of pixel channels and hundreds of Renard channels, all without issue. I also have a DMX 3-axis RGB spot beam I am toying with. All are fully supported in Vixen.

I am not an xLights user, but I had always assumed that it can do the same thing as Vixen. I mostly use DMX in my show for "dumb" RGB props and mechanical relays, but Vixen recently revamped their 3-axis DMX support, calling it intelligent fixtures, which I still tinker with in my spare time.

[MartinMueller2003]

I think you need to stop thinking about DMX and start thinking in terms of channels being controlled. Both Vixen and xLights were designed to control channels of lighting. Pixels were added later and are just three (or four) channels logically bound together (with special attributes).

Effects are applied to channels. Some effects work better with pixels and others work better with strings of lights or individual lighting fixtures. It is up to you to use effects that make your show shine. FYI: Channels can be grouped together to form elements (like my old superstrings) that can have more sophisticated effects applied to them. My superstrings had RGBYW 150 light strings. That is a 4 channel group. In vixen I added color handling filters to the channels and applied effects to the group as opposed to the channels. xLights has the same functionality (uses different words). Using this you can get color changes and simple chase / wave effects. Sophisticated effects like moving shapes, swirls etc. will require some pixels.

DMX is just one of many ways of grouping a set of channels together.

[1pet2_9]

Maybe I can be more specific: Xlights will let you set any DMX channel to any integer value at any time frame, so yes, Xlights CAN do anything in DMX. But now let's try strobe effect: pixels go on-off at some user-specified period. But for DMX, that's shutter. You keep RGBAW on, but set shutter to some value between 1-254. You have to use two effects: strobe for pixels, and a DMX effect for DMX. DMX props pretty much always have to use only the DMX effect, where you can control the channels. Whereas the rest of the effects have this abstraction layer, such as "Twinkle" or "Butterly". If I lay down a row of Renard AC's, I can apply a Single Strand effect and the Renard lights will go on/off in a cascade, like you would expect. But the DMX, I have to lay down a bunch of DMX effects by hand. And with stage lights, what I want is the Marquee effect--which is a pain to do by hand. I've created marquee chases on a light board, and that takes forever. I line a window frame with pixels, and I get instant Marquee by laying down that one effect.

Similarly, if I go over to QLC+, it has an EFX menu which lets you move your moving heads in all sorts of patterns, like figure-8's. But in Xlights, I have to figure out all those pan and tilt values by hand, and all I can do are a bunch of quantized frames. I'm much more limited in what I can realistically do.

Plus, the visualizer/preview window doesn't really portray the DMX lights that well. I can model the moving head itself, or a floodlight, or an area that's washed in light. Cones of light aren't really modelled. I guess people don't haze their outdoor displays nearly as much as they do indoor, but in the end I have to just visualize the moving beams in my head. The visualizer only shows me the heads themselves move.

[MartinMueller2003]

Maybe I can be more specific: Xlights will let you set any DMX channel to any integer value at any time frame, so yes, Xlights CAN do anything in DMX. But now let's try strobe effect: pixels go on-off at some user-specified period. But for DMX, that's shutter. You keep RGBAW on, but set shutter to some value between 1-254. You have to use two effects: strobe for pixels, and a DMX effect for DMX. DMX props pretty much always have to use only the DMX effect, where you can control the channels. Whereas the rest of the effects have this abstraction layer, such as "Twinkle" or "Butterly". If I lay down a row of Renard AC's, I can apply a Single Strand effect and the Renard lights will go on/off in a cascade, like you would expect. But the DMX, I have to lay down a bunch of DMX effects by hand. And with stage lights, what I want is the Marquee effect--which is a pain to do by hand. I've created marquee chases on a light board, and that takes forever. I line a window frame with pixels, and I get instant Marquee by laying down that one effect.

Similarly, if I go over to QLC+, it has an EFX menu which lets you move your moving heads in all sorts of patterns, like figure-8's. But in Xlights, I have to figure out all those pan and tilt values by hand, and all I can do are a bunch of quantized frames. I'm much more limited in what I can realistically do.

Plus, the visualizer/preview window doesn't really portray the DMX lights that well. I can model the moving head itself, or a floodlight, or an area that's washed in light. Cones of light aren't really modelled. I guess people don't haze their outdoor displays nearly as much as they do indoor, but in the end I have to just visualize the moving beams in my head. The visualizer only shows me the heads themselves move.

This is where I begin to use the term "DMX Fixture". DMX is a protocol on a wire. A DMX fixture (Light, moving head etc.) has special needs. They use groups of DMX Channels to achieve a goal. Vixen is in the process of adding support for some DMX Fixtures. I do not know the level of support available for DMX Fixtures in xLights.

[JCB]

Vixen has high level support for DMX fixtures. Many of the basic lighting effects (Set Level, Pulse) are going to apply to the DMX fixtures. There are also some intelligent fixture specific effects that help control common features of moving heads. The following thread has links to how-to videos. The intelligent fixture support was completed late last season so it is in our development builds.

http://doityourselfchristmas.com/for...igent+Fixtures

One of the posts mentioned: "RGBAW"
Vixen supports RGB or RGBW color for the intelligent fixtures. Vixen does not currently have logic to handle an amber component. I am assuming that is what the "A" stands for.

Controlling the Pan and Tilt motion is done by a 'Set Position' effect in Vixen. In this effect the pan and tilt are controlled by curves. Creating a figure 8 might take a little work/experimentation.

For moving heads the beam is visualized in the Vixen preview in 3-D on top of the 2-D background image. The user can configure the spread of the beam in the preview settings. The preview beam will reflect the color of the active effect and will reflect the intensity of the color (dimming).

[1pet2_9]

Thanks for that info. It sounds like Vixen is a little further along in DMX support, but not by leaps and bounds. Xlights claims to have some integration, too, but to give one example of why that is hit-and-miss at best: one of my light types has a Strobe line, which you have to set to 255 for always-on. 0 is always-off. So for a continuous on, both Intensity and Strobe have to be 255. Xlights supports fade-in/fade-out for all its effects. But what happens if you fade-out this? It strobes. A different light has a Cycle DMX line, which the correct way to fade-in-fade-out that fixture is to set Cycle to a particular value, and then flat-line it. Except that I'm usually cross-fading--not fading. A third fixture, it's like a sign that has 34 channels--it should be an entire custom model unto itself. If you want to use the macros, you just have to set that DMX channel to an integer manually, and there is no hope of it appearing in the visualizer.

[RichieNorthcott]

I think you're getting into the realms of 'professional' (expensive) systems here i.e. advanced support for fixtures, previews etc. Vixen covered off some common use cases in a recent release. But both XLights and Vixen are aimed at the hobbyist communities and built/maintained by people who give their time / expertise FOC. i.e. there is a need to be realistic in expectations. Your question isn't really about DMX, it's about fully fledged support for more complex fixtures. DMX as a protocol absolutely is supported however.

The primary focus of both platforms is pixel layouts and associated effects.

[1pet2_9]

Yeah, I started this thread quite awhile ago. I made that decision: I'm sticking with Xlights.

The same could be said about moving heads: those are advanced fixtures. Lots of hobbyists delve into DMX solely to get the moving heads and nothing else. At this point, they decided to support moving heads and RGB. Adding RGBWA support and strobe support should be relatively easy enhancements to make, and several low-end DMX fixtures support those.

Also, while the history of Xlights/Vixen freeware may have been directed toward only the hobby, the potential is absolutely there to apply it on the live stage. Even as it is now, Xlights is far easier to sequence light shows for the stage than QLC+ is, and that's using DMX alone. When you add pixels, it's no contest. If someone sunk the time into it, a custom Falcon plugin could be done which supports dimmers or an all-out Virtual Console, which could support pixels--and would be free. Thinking forward; not behind.