GeniusPro/Lightpalette Operator's Manual - Strand Lighting

Tracker Software
This section introduces the concept of attributes and how they are used with Tracker.
The following topics are covered in this section:
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What Are Attributes?
Using Attributes
Trackerball Keys
Rotary Controls
Mouse Control Features
Refer to Product Specification for information on maximum attribute channels.
What Are Attributes?
Today’ s moving fixtures have a much greater control requirement than varying the lamp intensity.
They typically now have movement control (pan and tilt), focus, iris, colour wheel, cyan-magentayellow
colour mixing, gobos - and often more.
A traditional control console will allocate one control channel (and hence one DMX address) to each of
these fixture parameters, and each channel has to be individually set or wheeled to a level to achieve
the required position and look. Quite a laborious process, and quite a job for the operator to keep track
of all those channel numbers.
The Tracker approach is radically different: instead of upwards of a dozen channels per fixture, only
one is required - with all the fixture parameters as attributes of the main control channel. For example,
a moving fixture patched to control channel 1 has its colour wheel controlled as attribute 2, pan as
attribute 3, tilt as attribute 4 - and so on. These attributes are referred to as channel 1.2, channel 1.3,
channel 1.4 etc. The fixture’ s lamp is always attribute 1, or channel 1.1. In this way, with one channel
per fixture, the complexities of a rig full of fixtures become much more manageable, without limiting
functionality.
Using Attributes
Attributes can be accessed directly using the decimal channel notation, e.g.:
[1] [@] [5] [*]
Sets intensity ‘ attribute’ to 50%
[1] [.] [2] [@] [8] [*]
Sets colour attribute to frame 8
Each of these places the named attribute on the wheel for fine control. However, the real ease of use
comes with the rotary controls:
[1] [*]
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