Yes if morphing to something without a dimmer initially this would be a lossy process. You may be better patching the new heads and using copy head programming.
Normally adding a vdim to elements would set master dimmer to full, but you can still control this by select the group and typing .0@@ to select element 0 (master dimmer).
It seems completely stupid that it doesn't just behave like this by default. Why would you ever want to be unable to adjust intensity for a fixture? Having them show up as a separate head, with the name "Generic Dimmer" and "unpatched" is unbelievably non-obvious and confusing. It feels like it should be part of the head type, so you'd select "with virtual intensity" when you select the mode (along with the number of DMX channels etc.)
Hi Robert, there is an option under setup > View Settings > Cue Storage, to 'hide vdims' so they are not seen in the patch. In the Patch window you'll also find an 'auto vdim's' option on one of your encoders, so when patching fixtures without dimmers it will add them by default and you'll not have to worry about them or see them. That said - note that vdims do count towards the channel count of your show, after all it is a control channel. There are situations (especially with lots of large pixel grids) where you don't need vdims on every single RGB, especially if pixel mapping as you have a dimmer on each pixel map layer. Of course the ideal would be if dimmer needed on the fixture, that it would have been built into the fixtures own head file!
I’ve needed this so bad omg
in a Tour situation when you have to morph from a fixture with dimmer to a Fixture without dimmer (adding Vdimm afterwards) do you loose dimmer data?
Yes if morphing to something without a dimmer initially this would be a lossy process. You may be better patching the new heads and using copy head programming.
I'd like to know how you can add vdim to a B-40 with built in master dimmer. It seems VDim deactivates the Master Dimmer for me.
Normally adding a vdim to elements would set master dimmer to full, but you can still control this by select the group and typing .0@@ to select element 0 (master dimmer).
It seems completely stupid that it doesn't just behave like this by default. Why would you ever want to be unable to adjust intensity for a fixture?
Having them show up as a separate head, with the name "Generic Dimmer" and "unpatched" is unbelievably non-obvious and confusing. It feels like it should be part of the head type, so you'd select "with virtual intensity" when you select the mode (along with the number of DMX channels etc.)
Hi Robert, there is an option under setup > View Settings > Cue Storage, to 'hide vdims' so they are not seen in the patch.
In the Patch window you'll also find an 'auto vdim's' option on one of your encoders, so when patching fixtures without dimmers it will add them by default and you'll not have to worry about them or see them.
That said - note that vdims do count towards the channel count of your show, after all it is a control channel.
There are situations (especially with lots of large pixel grids) where you don't need vdims on every single RGB, especially if pixel mapping as you have a dimmer on each pixel map layer.
Of course the ideal would be if dimmer needed on the fixture, that it would have been built into the fixtures own head file!