Artist Help:Under the Hood
An understanding of some of the internal workings of Artist is key to realising the full potential of the system. This section gives a description of the connections between the main DMX elements within Artist.
This is a simplified discussion in that it does not cover the layers of Automation on top.
Fixtures are the representation of your connected light devices and are the only means of your programmed cues controlling them. It is therefore very important that the Fixture matches the connected devices. In addition to defining the DMX channels required, the Fixture also defines values for colour, gobo, reset, lamp on and other key values.
Fixtures are contained within groups. Each group must contain fixtures of the same type. Groups are created to contain fixtures which will commonly be called upon to work together. This allows Artist to provide chases and effects without the need for programming.
The Fixture groups are controlled as a single entity by the Fixture Control Panel. You can select parameters within the group to be controlled directly by the Parameter Controls, assign a Chase or an Effect to any parameter within the fixtures. Effects provide built-in mirror/yoke movements, colour matrix patterns and many others.
A Static Scene is a collection of data for parameters, chases and effects. Scenes can be manually activated but in general they are used as building blocks for cues. Scenes can also access or call other scenes.
Scenes can contain steps, that is to say they can sequence through different collections of data as described for the Static Scenes. There are many methods of triggering steps, ordering steps and fading steps
These scenes provide a method for custom sequences such as mirror/yoke movements.
The Cue is the main object which can control all the other data objects discussed above. These are the main means of playing back programmed data for your show.
Cues are contained in user defined lists which can be linked together to provide interlocking of cues for mutual exclusivity amongst other special function.