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What is Tracking

Tracking is the principle to store only the changes in the cues.

If a fixture is turned On in blue color, it will stay like this until it is told to change. It does not matter how many cues there are between being told to turn On and the cue where it is told to turn Off.

Instead of each cue between turning On and Off having the information that the fixture should be On in blue color, it is only needed to store it once - from there it is tracked.

Quite simply, tracking is the idea that once a parameter is set to a level, it stays there until it is told to go somewhere else.

Example

Fixture number 1 is stored in blue color, at 100 percent dimmer value in cue number 1. If there are 6 cues and fixture number 1 does not get any new information, then it will stay at 100% in blue color in all 6 cues.

The best way to see this information is by turning the Sequence Sheet into tracking sheet mode. This can be done by tapping Track Sheet in the title bar.

Notice the difference in text color between the values in cue 1 and the others. The magenta text color indicates that the values are not actually stored in the cues, but it is a tracked value from a previous cue.

Now change the color of the fixture to red and set the dimmer to 100% again.

Store this in cue 4 and 5 (using the Merge option), now it looks like this:

The text color of the dimmer value is now white in cue 4 and 5. All the color values are also white in cue 5 and the green attribute is also white in cue 4. This indicates that the values are stored here, but it is the same value as the tracked value. This is called "Blocked" values. This means that if any value is changed in any previous cue, then it would still be 100% in cue number 4. It is currently blocking the tracked value from cue 1 (the same value) and the value stored in cue 5 is tracking to the end.

Values can be edited directly in the tracking sheet. Edit the dimmer value in cue 3 by right-clicking with a mouse or the two-finger edit gesture on a touchscreen. This opens the calculator.

Select Channel Sets and tap Closed.

This closes the calculator and changes the dimmer value to 0 in cue 3 in the sequence.

The dimmer value is now green in cue 3. This indicates that the dimmer value is now stored with a lower value than the previous cue. It is only dimmer values that show this green indication for a lower value.

The deep-sea green background color on the color values indicates a move in black (MIB) prepositioning of the color values. Read more about this in the Move In Black topic.

The dimmer value in cue 4 is now cyan indicating a higher value than the previous cue.

The redundantly stored values in cue 5 can be removed from the cue by removing the stored values - this is also called "unblocking".

There are several ways to do this.

One option is to have the values for fixture number 1 as active values in the programmer (it does not matter what the values are) and store cue 5 with the "Remove" option. This would remove the values from the cue.

A second option is using a command like this:

This removes all redundant blocked values from the entire sequence number 2. Notice that unblocking the entire sequence also unblock the green color value of 0. This might not be the desired result.

A third option is to unblock cue 5. This can be done by adding "cue 5" to the command above or by editing a value in cue 5. It does not matter what value all that is needed is the calculator opened with a value from cue 5.

On the left side of the calculator change the Destination Attributes(s) value to All Fixtures and the Apply to to Selected Part(s). Now tap Specials and then Unblock. This unblocks all attributes for all fixtures in the selected cue parts. The selection here is the selected cue when the calculator was opened.

Tracking Distance

Tracking values can have a distance. This can be changed in the Tracking Distance column.

There are two types of tracking distances: Track a number of cues (delta) or track until a specific cue.

Both types release the attribute when the tracking distance ends. This will return the attribute to a previous tracked value or it will release it from the sequence. See the examples below.

The attributes affected and the number of cues the tracking distance is valid is displayed by a vertical white line next to the value.

Examples

This is an example of a sequence with fixture 1 at 100% intensity and in blue color in cue 1. The dimmer is set to 0 in cue 3. In cue 4 the color is changed to red and the tracking distance is set to Δ+1 by editing the cell.

As a result, the red color is tracking from the stored cue and one more whole cue number. Then the fixtures return to the previous tracked values. MIB is active for cue 4, so the color prepositions in cue 3.

The same result can be achieved by setting an absolute number. The number indicates what specific cue number the tracking values track to.

In this example, the tracking distance is set to cue number 5 in cue number 4.

The result is the same as the delta example. The difference is that delta will look at the whole cue number and track the amount of whole cue numbers based on the delta value. Decimal cues numbers are ignored by delta tracking distance. The specific tracking distance cue number will track until that cue.

If for instance, cue 4.5 and 4.6 are added then the tracking distance will still stop the tracking in cue 5 with both delta +1 and the specific number. Delta does not count cue 4.5 and 4.6 since they are part of the same whole number as cue 4.

The values are released after the tracking distance. The result is that the fixture goes back to the values it had in the cue before the tracking distance. It is indicated as tracked values.

In the example, it gets the color tracked from cue 1 and the dimmer value from cue 3.

If there are no other values from previous cues, then the result is that the fixture is released from the sequence until it gets some values from a cue

Cue Zero

Cue Zero is an automatically created empty cue. Cue Zero can be modified or stored into using the cue name.

Off Cue

The Off cue has timing information that is used then the sequence is turned Off.

Release

The sequence sheet has a Release column. Editing a field in this column changes the cell to Yes. This means that tracked values will be released from this cue and forward.

 It makes a white horizontal line above the released cue. This indicates that tracked values are stopped and if there are not any other values in the sequence, then the attribute is released from the sequence - empty black cells. 

When an attribute is released in the sequence, then it is the same as the sequence no longer sending any information to the attribute.

If a different sequence is sending values to the attribute, then these values are used.  Sequence priority can be important in this case - read about priorities in the Play back Cues topic. 

If the attributes do not receive values from any sequence or the programmer, then values go back to the default values for the attributes.

It is also possible to store values using the Release option. This empties the relevant fields in the sequence tracking sheet.

Turning Tracking On or Off

In the sequence settings, there is the option to turn On or Off the tracking function.

When tracking is Off, the tracked values are gone, and where the value was tracked it will be released instead.

Looking at the sequence used in the example above, it would look like this without tracking:

Fixtures 1 would only be On in cue 1 in blue. In cue 2 it would return the default values. In cue 4 it would turn On in red. In cue 5 the color returns to the default. The zero value stored in cue 3 is possibly redundant since it is often the default dimmer value.

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