Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- personality:personality_types [2017/12/01 16:47] – created icke_siegen
+++ personality:personality_types [2020/01/05 11:31] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 As those old consoles could only store and read data from a disk drive, these files came in a huge number of disks (for the youngsters: disks, or floppies, could hold only 720 kB of data - later versions could hold 1.44 MB). The file format is plain text, each disk needed to contain the shape file as well (which was named sg.dat back in those days). In order to create such files, there was no software except your text editor. Also worth knowing: each DMX mode of a fixture required its own personality file.
-There were other limitations back in those days, like: in the beginning, filenames were limited to 8 characters plus extension. The consoles had 10 attribute banks (could be flipped to a second page) and two wheels. Thus the maximum number of attributes per fixture was 40. Operating such a fixture wasn't that easy - but then, common fixtures rarely had more than a dozen attributes. The [[http://personalities.avolites.com/Main.asp?ID=3891|High End Cyberlight]] (20 channels/ 18 attributes) was already one of the more consuming fixtures. Also, the horrible idea of combined channels (in particular: shutter and dimmer on one channel) was born in these days (see the [[http://personalities.avolites.com/Main.asp?ID=1809|Clay Paky Golden Scan 1]] as an example) - unbelievable that this is done by some stubborn fixture manufacturers until today. Virtual dimmers were simply not an issue, as were fixture cells.
+There were other limitations back in those days, like: in the beginning, filenames were limited to 8 characters plus extension. The consoles had 10 attribute banks (could be flipped to a second page) and two wheels. Additionally the second wheel of the 'Dimmer' attribute bank on the first page is not available.  Thus the maximum number of attributes per fixture was 39. Operating such a fixture wasn't that easy - but then, common fixtures rarely had more than a dozen attributes. The [[http://personalities.avolites.com/Main.asp?ID=3891|High End Cyberlight]] (20 channels/ 18 attributes) was already one of the more consuming fixtures. Also, the horrible idea of combined channels (in particular: shutter and dimmer on one channel) was born in these days (see the [[http://personalities.avolites.com/Main.asp?ID=1809|Clay Paky Golden Scan 1]] as an example) - unbelievable that this is done by some stubborn fixture manufacturers until today. Virtual dimmers were simply not an issue, as were fixture cells.
 Another little twist came with the next generation Pearls which were equipped with some internal cache. You could load your preferred fixtures into this cache, and could patch from this cache instead from disk. But the cache could hold only so many personalities. Hence, you needed to carefully select the fixtures which you deemed important enough for your cache. There was - and still is - a little program available at Avolites to select and compress personalities for your cache: [[https://www.avolites.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=vFs9HpyeJeY%3d&tabid=558&portalid=0&mid=2579|the cache builder]].
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 ===== R96 for Sapphire 96 =====
-That's essentially related to R20 files - in fact, R96 were the older ones, and R20 files are a little extended and derived from R96. Hence, the aforementioned limitations applay to R95 files even more.
+That's essentially related to R20 files - in fact, R96 were the older ones, and R20 files are a little extended and derived from R96. Hence, the aforementioned limitations applay to R96 files even more.
 ===== R20 for Pearl 2008/2010 and Pearl Tiger =====
-Essentially these are exactly the same R20 files like for the older Pearls, see above. The only difference is the folger structure: while it was a flat structure for the old disk-loaded consoles, now it was a more structured folder system: there were several subfolders, finally one per manufacturer. The consoles were now able to keep the whole library in an internal USB stick which you could update if required - however, updating this could take more than one hour - if everything went well.
+Essentially these are exactly the same R20 files like for the older Pearls, see above. The only difference is the folder structure: while it is a flat structure for the old disk-loaded consoles, these have a more structured folder system with folders for manufacturers and subfolders for each fixture type. The consoles are able to keep the whole library in an internal USB stick which you can update if required - however, updating this can take more than one hour - if everything goes well.
-However, R20 files have survived until almost today, as they make the connection from Titan to the old classic visualiser. Please know that R20 files are nowadays made only on request.
+However, R20 files have survived until almost today, as they make the connection from Titan to the old classic visualiser.
 ===== D2 for the Diamond II/III =====
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 Many years ago the visualiser was a separate program - hence, the personalities were separate as well. And as their approach is different from the console personalities - those need to to tell the console how to display and control attributes, these tell the visualiser how to behave when receiving certain DMX values. However, vis files are textfiles and could be edited with a text editor. Also, together with the visualiser came a program called VisWiz - the Visualiser Extension File Creator, which could convert R20 files into vis files (again, some manual tweaking might be required). The best thing about the VisWiz is the manual, as this contains rather good descriptions of the required fixture definitions.
-As like as R20 files vis files are nowadays created only on request - you only need them if you need the old (pre Titan v10) visualiser. It is worth trying the ''File -> Generate R20 Files... '' menu in the [[personality builder]].
+Vis files are no longer officially supported.  You only need them if you need the old (pre Titan v10) visualiser. It is worth trying the ''File -> Generate R20 Files... '' menu in the [[personality builder]].
+As the old visualiser is still interesting for some users, a detailed howto and some examples have been added here:
+  * [[personality:create_vis_from_d4|]]
+  * [[personality:visualiser_examples|]]
 ===== d4 files for Titan =====