How do I get ESA Pro to Cross Fade between Scenes.

[peteknobloch]

Hi all,

I am trying to figure out how the different modes and options work with fading between one scene to the other. What I want to happen is when a new scene is selected, that the new scene will come up before the old scene drops out. Currently I can only get the old scene to drop out to complete darkness then the new scene comes up. Problem is the lights for the show going dark during the change. Am I missing something here or does this type of operation not exist on ESA Pro?

I tried using the ESA2 software and I could get it to work in the Live mode. When I wrote it to the device and ran it is standalone mode, it switched between scenes instantaneously rather than doing the cross fade.

Pete

[peteknobloch]

Since my cross fade issue kind of worked on the ESA2 software, I started trying anything and everything to try to get it to work using ESA2 rather than ESA PRO. I found that if I execute the hardware.exe function and go down to the bottom, there are 3 Fade options. If I check the "Scene Fade" option and don't check the "Dimmer" option, the cross fading works the way I want when running in stand alone mode. I went back to ESA PRO with this knowledge but still couldn't get it to work. I think this all stems on how I am using the Drag and Drop options for creating the time line for the scene. I find it very confusing due to not knowing exactly what each feature does. And I can't find any detailed documentation about them either. I have spent days trying to understand them and I am getting better as time goes on but it is frustrating when it won't do what you want.

With this being my first introduction to the ESA2 software, I find that it is similar to the way our old lighting system worked that is being replaced. I might just use the ESA2 since it does almost all that we want to do. Just hope it supports configuring over the internet connection. Will give this a try in the future.

Pete

[Ben]

Hi Pete,

We have been looking into your fading problem and found that the Live Mode in ESA Pro is not always working the way it should be. We have passed on the details to the developers so they can come up with a fix.

Unfortunately in Stand Alone it's not possible to fade a new scene up and stop the original.

Kind Regards,

Ben