Calendar - two scenes at the same time?

[manuel]

Hello,

maybe someone can help me with this issue:
I'm programming a calendar for the lighting of a church on ESA Pro with Stick Controller. Over the year, there are periods with a certain color, but within these periods there a special days with another color, e.g.:

May the 1st to June the 24th = red
May the 15th = green
June the 1st= blue

I'd like to make period of red "every day" and then put the extra scenes for the extra days additionally. But what happens if I have 2 scenes on the same time (sunset)? May the 15th: red (as every day event) 9 am / green (as special scene) 9 am. Does anyone know? Is there a priority?
Programming the periods between the special days would be very very much work :(

Thank you, manuel

[davidm]

I would like to know as well. Is there a calendar specific best practices somewhere?

[nick]

Hi,

Triggering two scenes at the same time in the same area is not possible. Which scene the controller chooses to prioritise is unpredictable.

However, there is a solution. It is possible to trigger 2 different scenes in different areas and give priority using the Alphabetic mode.

1) Set your interface to Alphabetic mode using HardwareManage > Settings.
Stick-DE3 : Set 'X Alphab / LTP Mode' to 'Alphabetic' (Also accessible via the onscreen menu)
SLESA-UE7 & Stick-KE1: Set 'Page Priority' to 'Alphabetic A > B'
2) In ESA Pro, create a show which
- contains scenes in the Global area that you want to run most of the time.
- contains scenes in the custom area which you want to run on specific days. This custom area must include the fixtures that you want to override. See manual on areas patching https://www.nicolaudie.com/manuals/#/en ... reas-patch
3) Assign your scenes to the calendar. Scenes from the Global area and custom area can be triggered at the same time in the calendar because they are in different areas.
4) Assign the Global area scenes to Page B on the Standalone screen in ESA Pro.
5) Assign the custom area scenes to Page A. Page A has a higher priority that page B with Alphabetic mode set (see step 1).

Steps 4 and 5 ensure that scenes in the custom area (Page A) have priority over your standard / everyday scenes in the Global area (Page B).

See attached example show and page assignment image.

Kind Regards,

Nick.

[kurt]

I have a similar issue. I have a global scene (white) that I have set to trigger every day at sunset -2 minutes.
On the days when they want something special, like Pink in the month of October for Breast Cancer Awareness
I have a global scene (pink) that I schedule to run at Sunset from 10/1 to 10/31.
My assumption is that the white scene would launch 2 minutes before sunset, then if something else is scheduled at sunset
(Pink for Breast Cancer, Green for the week of St. Patrick's Day. etc.) it would come on and the white would shut off,
but it doesn't seem to work that way. All the scenes are on Page A in the Global area.
Does something scheduled for 'Every Day' take precedence over something scheduled on specific days?

[nick]

Hi Kurt,

Thank you for your message.

Your setup should work. It could be a bug with the negative value.

You could try setting up the white global scene to trigger at exactly sunset everyday (i.e. no negative value) and then then set the override scene to trigger at +1 minute. Does this fix it?

I would like to check it out:

- Which interface are you using? SLESA-UE7, Stick-KE1 or Stick-DE3?
- Which firmware version?
- Which software date?
- Could you attach a copy of your showfile?

Kind Regards,

Nick.

[kurt]

I'm using the Stick DE3, and I've attached the latest showfile.
After reading the original post and earlier replies, I followed the idea of setting the global area scenes on page B
and the override (special occasion) scenes on page A, and set the X Alphab/LTP to Alphabetic
and firing the scene(s) at Sunset instead of Sunset -2:00.

One thing not clear to me is if my Off scene at Sunrise should be in the global area or the override area.
If I have it set to only loop once does it matter? Does the "Stop" field need to be checked to make sure
the Off command releases control once it has run?

[nick]

Hi Kurt,

Thank you for your showfile.

> Does the "Stop" field need to be checked to make sure the Off command releases control once it has run?
Yes. Explanation below.

The showfile looks good except for one small error. On your Overrides layer, you must check the stop checkbox for your Off scene. If you fail to do this, the Off scene will pause once it has finished playing. It will continue to play the last dmx frame which will block any scenes playing on the Global area from being visible. By checking the stop checkbox, the scene will actually stop and anything playing in the Global Area will show through.

See attached image.

> if my Off scene at Sunrise should be in the global area or the override area.
- If you want to turn your blue (Global Area) scene off, you must use your OFF scene on the global area.
- If you want to turn your override scene off, you must use your OFF OV scene on the Overrides area.

> If I have it set to only loop once does it matter?
001 Loops is correct. You only want it to play once and then stop. You could have it play twice, or three times and stop, but there is no purpose in this. I often make my stop scenes only last for 0.04 of a second on the timeline. Then the scene will stop at a specific time instead of after 10 seconds, for example.

Kind Regards,

Nick.

[kurt]

Thank you! I couldn't find anything in the documentation about what the "Stop" checkbox did.

[nick]

Hi Kurt,

Thank you for pointing out the problem with our documentation. I have made a note to update it.

Kind Regards,

Nick.