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Electronic Theatre Controls Inc

Why do some color values on my LED fixtures change when I use the color picker, but others don't?

Symptoms

I am using the color picker to set colors on some LED fixtures. Most of the colors are responding (for example, Red, Green, Blue, White, etc), but others are not changing (for example, Violet, Cyan, Lime, UV, etc). Their value remains in grey text.  They also do not change when using Gel shortcuts or Pixel Maps.  These parameters to do not contribute to the rendered color of the light's beam in Augment3d. 

Explanation

Prior to Eos v3.2, Eos can only control “standard” color systems (RGB, RGBA, RGBW, HSIC etc) natively.  Fixtures that use those color systems use a generic calibration for the emitters unless the fixture manufacturer has provided specific color calibration data to the company creating the profile (ETC, Carallon, etc).

In Eos v3.2 and higher, Eos now will dynamically make gamuts out of the additive color parameters defined for a fixture profile. This will allow for any emitter combination to be used with the color tools, including white light chips.

Solution

Update to the latest version of Eos:

If updating to Eos v3.2 or higher is not possible

If a manufacturer had not provided calibration data for a particular color, there is no way for the Eos software to know how to adjust that color's value based on control from a color picker or display it in Augment3d. If the color picker guessed incorrectly, the color chosen wouldn't match the visible output of the fixture.

As a result, if there is not calibration data for some color parameters, control over those parameters is manual only. For example:

  • Channel 1 on the left is patched as Generic > RGBL 8B.  Channel 2 on the right is patched as ETC ColorSource PAR Direct.
  • In Live, Channel 1 and 2 are at full, and a purple color is picked via the color picker

Channel 1's Lime attribute remains at '100' in grey - it is not changed.  Channel 2's Lime attribute is changed to '45' in Red - it is changed.

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  • Channel 1 + 2 {Lime} at 75 Enter

Channel 1's Lime attribute is now Red - it is manually controlled.  Notice that Channel 2's beam color has changed since Lime is contributing to the Augment3d rendering.  Channel 1's beam color is not changed - Lime is not contributing to the Augment3d rendering.

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  • Channel 1+2 Red Green Blue At 0 Enter

Channel 1 now appears to have "no output".

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  • Channel 1+2 @ 3/106 Enter

This sets the channels to "Lee 106" color filter.  Channel 1's Lime attribute continues to be 75, not the Gel Reference.

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