• dot2 User Manual
  • dot2 Quick Start Guide
    • 1 - Introduction
    • 2 - Physical setup and layout
    • 3 - Create a new empty show
    • 4 - Adding and patching dimmers
    • 5 - Controlling dimmers
    • 6 - Fixture view
    • 7 - The programmer
    • 8 - Making and working with groups
    • 9 - Store a cue and play it back
    • 10 - Making more cues in the cue list
    • 11 - Adding LED fixtures
    • 12 - Working with colors
    • 13 - Creating presets
    • 14 - External screen
    • 15 - Adding moving lights
    • 16 - Controlling moving lights
    • 17 - Making more groups and Presets
    • 18 - More about cues and playback
    • 19 - A look at Blind, Preview and DMX tester
    • 20 - Fun with macros
    • 21 - Building chasers
    • 22 - Building dynamic effects
    • 23 - Connect to onPC, 3D, Wings and Nodes
    • 24 - Happy programming
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Version 1.5

Getting Started Guide - Fun with macros

MA dot2 comes with some build in Macros that can help you work better and faster.

Press the Macro key to see them. This is what it looks like:

Figure 1: Macro view.

You can't change the macros or add your own. If you run one of them you'll see that they are actually performing a command, or sometimes a series of commands, that you can also type your self. So there's no secret extra things in the macros, just a faster and often more convenient way to do some task. Some of the commands are only accessible using the macros or the command line and the keyboard.

You can also have the Macro view on one of your screens. If you tap the More... button on the lower right side of the screens then you can choose the Macro view.

Some of the functions available in the macro pool are unique to the macro pool. I'll demonstrate some of them for you, and I suggest you follow along and try stuff out.

Circular Copy and Shuffle

Let's have a look at something called Circular Copy.

Clear all you got in your programmer and turn off all running executors.

Now select all your X4's using the All X4 group. Turn them on and give them all a blue color. Now select one of them and give that fixture a white color.

Now reselect all your X4's. Press the Macro key and locate the Circular Copy > macro and tap it. Notice how the white color moves from one fixture to the other. Try to tap it multiple times. Also try the Circular Copy <.  So we move all the information in the fixture one step through our selection. This is a very nice and fast way to shift values. In the next chapter you'll see one of the major advantage with this feature.

Let's try and combine this with one of the other macros.  So you noticed that Circular Copy moves the value sets through our selection and you used the group, so your selection order is 31 to 36. But try to locate and tap the Shuffle Selection macro - you might have to scroll down in the Macro view. Noting much appeared to have happened, but now try the Circular Copy again. Notice that now it seems a bit random what fixture will be white the next time. This is because we have shuffled the selection order of our selected fixtures.

Try to select one of the blue fixtures and make it red. Then reselect them all again - fixture 31 thru 36. Now when you press Circular Copy, then the white an red will move in the expected direction. Now locate and tap the Shuffle Values macro. This moves the six different sets of values we have to one of the six fixtures we have in our selection.  

MAtricks and Invert

Now let's clear the programmer and try something else.

Select fixture 1 thru 10 in that order. And now locate and tap the macro called MAtricks Odd. Remember when we looked at the Next, Prev and Set keys and was able to step through the selected fixtures? This is kinda the same, we have just selected every other fixture in our selection. So right now we have selected fixtures 1 out of 2. Try to tap the MAtricks Even macro. This will select the other fixtures in our selection. This happens to be the fixtures with Odd and even fixture ID's. But this is only because of our initial selection order. Try to tap the Shuffle Selection macro. And then try the Odd and Even macros again. Notice that it has nothing to do with the fixtures ID number. That's why there's also two macros called MAtricks Odd ID and MAtricks Even ID. If you try to tap them now you'll see that they are applied on top of our current sub selections - yes, I know quite complicated, and not really what we wanted. First we need to make sure we don't have any sub-selections. This can be done by tapping the MAtricks RESET macro. Now try the MAtricks Odd ID and MAtrcks Even ID macros. Now we can select the fixtures with the odd or even ID even after we have done a shuffle selection.

Try to clear and reset fixture 1 to 10. Now tap the MAtricks 1/3 macro. This divides your selection into 3 groups and select the first sub group. You can use the Next and Prev keys to change what sub groups you have selected. There are also MAtricks with 4 and 5 sub group selections.

Try to clear and then reselect fixture 1 thru 10. Now locate and tap the Invert macro followed by a press on the Please key. Now we have selected all the other fixtures and not fixture 1 thru 10 anymore.

Try to clear again and then select fixtures 5 and 6. Now tap the Invert macro and then Group and then tap the first group All Dimmers. Now we have selected all the fixtures in the "All Dimmers" group except fixtures 5 and 6. So you can use invert to do some more complex fixture selection.

An little extra nice bonus info about invert. If you have by accident done a Shuffle Selected but would like to have selection back in numerical order then you can do two times Invert (remember to do a "Please" in between). Then you'll have you original selection in numerical order.

Knockout

The two knockout macros are really useful for removing fixtures and their values from the programmer. Select fixtures 1 thru 10 and put them to Full. Now only select fixtures 5 and 6. And then locate and tap the macro called Knockout Selection. This clears your selection and removes the programmer values for those two fixtures. Let's try the other one. Press Oops. Now you have the values of fixtures 5 and 6 back and they should be selected. now tap the Knockout Invert macro. We have thrown away all other programmer values than the ones for fixture 5 and 6. We have also cleared the selection. Two nice macros that help a lot during your programming.

More if's

There are two "If" macros that I would like to introduce. They are called "IfActive" and "IfProg". Together with our regular IfOutput from the If Key, we have a lot of nice options to select our fixtures.

Let's clear our programmer by using a nice tool. Press and hold the ma key while you press the Off key. This opens the Off.. window.  Here you can turn off running executors, clear the programmer, reset special masters or all of the above. We want to start from scratch so please tap where it says Everything Off. Now run cue 1 on the main executor.  

Now press the following keys If Please. This executes an IfOutput command. That means that you select all fixtures currently having an output above 0% will be selected. This is nice. If you now do an Invert, than you have all the fixtures that are currently not on.

Let's look at the two others. Try to tap IfActive. This doesn't do anything (well, it deselects the current selection). For them to work we have to have something in our programmer. Select fixtures 21 thru 24 and give then a nice color. Press Clear once. Now to reselect them you can tap the IfActive macro. That is because they have active values in your programmer (there's a red marker by the color preset bar - showing you active values). Now store this on an empty executor and press Clear one time only (this is important).  Now try the IfActive macro again. Now it doesn't work. The fixtures still have their values in the programmer, but they are no longer active! So try the IfProg macro instead. This reselects the fixtures. 

If you want to you can delete the executor we just stored - it was just for show and tell.

 

 

That was a look at some of the macros - there are others that are not described here. If you want to learn more about them then you should read the help file for the Macro view.

In the next chapter we are going to use some of them a little bit more.


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