Chameleon : Mac Lighting Software

A little while ago we were contacted by a theatre technician who thought the current visual patching system in Chameleon took up a lot of time if, like a theatre, you need to patch new shows on a frequent basis. Until then my own personal use for Chameleon has been part of the installation work I carry out in fixed venues. Hence its a patch once and most of the time use the same patch for different show files.

Admittedly I also found the GUI patching to be a little cumbersome. It is of course designed to be simple and easy to use, which a lot of first time users find very helpful. We are very keen to make Chameleon suitable for both the budding first time lighting designer, and the pro!

We have now, as of version RC8, added a powerful command line patching facility into Chameleon. It not only implements the features you will be already be familiar with, but some additional ones as well. The on screen keyboard does not have a [Patch] key, but you can simply hit the 'p' key on your keyboard. As with the GUI patching you will need to be in 'Record Mode' for any patch commands to be valid.

Basic Syntax

[PATCH] <channel> [@] <DMX Address> [ENTER]

This will patch a channel or a range of channels to a given DMX address. If a range of channels is specified (in the normal manner with the [+], [-] & [THRU] range specifiers) then the DMX address will be treated as the start of a range of DMX addresses, and so you will need to make sure there are enough free DMX channels (in a single contiguous block).

Multi-Patch Syntax

[PATCH] <channel> [@] [+] <DMX Address> [ENTER]

If you want patch a channel to more than one DMX address you can simply do this by adding the [+] key to the start of the DMX address. This will then add the DMX address to the existing channels patching. You can add multiple patching commands together by adding as many DMX address to the same command line (with the [+] key) as you wish.

This will work even if a channel is not yet patched (allowing a range of channels to be multi patched even if a channel in the range is not patched to anything yet)

DMX Addressing and Auto Patching

The full syntax for a DMX address is:

<Universe> [/] <Address>

But this can be shortened to just <Address>. In this case it will always use the last specified Universe (1 if not yet specified). Note that last specified Universe is remembered across multiple commands.

If you don't want to specify your own DMX Address you can let Chameleon find one for you that will be big enough to satisfy the range of channels you have specified. This is done by using the [NEXT] key instead of <Address>, again the <Universe> [/] part of the address is optionally :

[PATCH] <channel> [@] [NEXT] [ENTER]

You can also specify a minimum address for Chameleon to start searching from. To do this you simply specify the address then use the [NEXT] key :

[PATCH] <channel> [@] <Address> [NEXT] [ENTER]

DMX Range modification

In some instance you might want to patch to every other channel, or every 10th channel. This could be useful if for instance you wanted to patch all the intensity channels for a set of LED par cans to consecutive channels.

[PATCH] <channel> [@] <Address> [.] <spacer> [ENTER]

Un Patching and Re Patching

To Un patch a channel, or range of channels, you simply patch them to the special DMX address of 0 :

[PATCH] <channel> [@] 0 [ENTER]

You can also combine this with the Multi Patch syntax to effectively re patch channels:

[PATCH] <channel> [@] 0 + <DMX Address> [ENTER]

Examples

1 [@] 50 [ENTER]

Patches channel 1 to DMX address 50

1 [THRU] 5 [@] 50 [ENTER] 

Patches channels 1 to 5 to DMX addresses 50 to 54

1 [@] [+] 20 [ENTER]

Adds DMX address 20 to the patch on channel 1. 

1 [THRU] 5 [@] 50 [+] 100 [ENTER] 

Patches channel 1 to DMX address 50 and DMX Address 100, Patches channel 2 to DMX address 51 and DMX address 101 etc..

1 [THRU] 5  [@] [2] [/] [NEXT] [ENTER]

Will find the first block of DMX addresses on universe 2 and patch them to channels 1 to 5

1 THRU 5 [@] 100 [.] 5 [ENTER]

Patches channels 1 to 5 to DMX addresses 100, 105, 110, 115, 120

1 [@] 0 [ENTER]

Un Patches channel 1

1 [THRU] 20 @ 0 [+] 50 [ENTER]

Re patches channels 1 to 20 to Addresses 50 to 69