ShowMagic AV, User Manual, Page: 181 / 233

System Triggers
Up to 2 PC joysticks or Joypads can be connected to the joystick port on the PC and any one of up
to 4 joystick buttons on each can be selected as the trigger by selecting the appropriate button.
Certain key presses can also be selected for triggering action buttons. There are a number of
external devices available that simulate joystick buttons or key presses and these can be used in the
same way.
Analogue Triggers
Analogue inputs can be used to trigger and control action buttons using a PISO813 analogue input
card. First, select the
Input
channel number; select the
Min. Voltage
that will trigger that action, select
the
Max. Voltage
that will be treated as 100%, select a
Percentage
of that voltage range to be treated
as an increment step and finally tick the
Master
option if you want the voltage level to control the
level of the event on that action button, rather than just triggering it.
Example:
Let us assume you want to use 3 physical analogue sliders to control the levels of the CMY
channels on a fixture. Let us further assume that you want to use an analogue joystick to move the
pan and tilt channels on that fixture. Let us also say that the sliders produce a stable 0 to 10V, but
the potentiometers on the joystick produce different voltage ranges and the voltage levels also
fluctuate - jumping up and down by about 0.2V. We need to compensate for this, otherwise the pan
and tilt will jitter as it receives fluctuating voltages.
1) Create three independent scenes; Cyan at Full, Magenta at Full, and Yellow at full, then drag
and drop those scenes onto three action buttons.
2) Create a scene in which pan is recorded at full, create another in which tilt is recorded at
full, then drag and drop these two scenes onto another two action buttons. Now we have 5
action buttons that we can control via analogue inputs.
3) Highlight the action button containing the Cyan scene, set it’s trigger to PISO-813, set the
appropriate
Input
channel, set
Min. Voltage
to
0V
, set
Max. Voltage
to
10V
, set the
Percentage
to
1
and tick
Master
. That slider will now control the amount of Cyan - 0 to the 100% level
recorded in the scene.
4) Do the above for the action buttons containing the Magenta and Yellow scenes and we can
now mix the CMY levels on the fixture using the three analogue sliders.
5) Let’s say the potentiometer for the horizontal (pan) axis of the joystick produces 2.5V when
pushed to the extreme left and 6.5V at extreme right. Highlight the action button containing
the pan scene, set the trigger to PISO-813,
set the appropriate
Input
channel, set
Min. Voltage
to
2.5V
, set
Max. Voltage
to
6.5V
and then tick
Master
. With the joystick in it’s static, centred
position you now need to keep increasing the
Percentage
value until it is great enough to
eliminate any jitter caused by any spurious fluctuations in voltage.
6) Do the above for the action button containing the tilt scene.
You can now use the analogue joystick to control the pan and tilt on the fixture.
Section 12 - Action Panel
169