Effects

QuickQ has a powerful effects engine for animating fixtures. Effects make it easy to animate positions, colours, intensities and other attributes of fixtures. Fixtures can move together or separately in the effect. QuickQ offers extensive control over the size, speed and other parameters allowing a range of exciting and dynamic looks to be created.

Palette based effects have the same control parameters as normal effects but use palettes to set their endpoints. This makes it easy to create effects that cycle between 3 colours, 2 iris sizes, or 4 different positions.

Creating Effects

Add an Effect to Fixtures

Select the fixtures you would like to apply the effect to.
Select the attribute group for the effect.
Select the Effects tab.

QuickQ will display all the applicable effects for the attribute group, each has it’s own unique effects.
Click on an effect to start it.

Add a 2 Colour Palette Based Effect

Palette effects have names that start with a number, for example 4 colour, 2 Beam or 3 Position.

Select the fixtures you would like to apply the effect to.
Select the Colour Window.
Select the Effects tab.

QuickQ will display all the colour effects.
Click on 2 Colour.

QuickQ will ask you to select the first palette.
Click on the Red Palette.

QuickQ will ask you to select the second palette.
Click on the Yellow Palette.

The selected fixtures will cycle between red and yellow.

The 2 palettes will appear at the bottom of the window. Click on one to change it to a different colour.

The Damped Position effects apply damping to the movements to create smoother effects. This can be very effective with small, light fixtures.

Effect Parameters

Once on the effects tab the encoders will change to reflect the settings for those effects, and you will see a Tap Time button appear on the middle right edge of the screen. Once you choose the effect you will be able to manipulate the settings for that effect with the encoders and the buttons in the bottom section.

The options are:

Speed: Sets the rate of the effect from beginning to end and is displayed in BPM (Beats per Minute) and can be set via the speed encoder, or using the tap to time on the middle right edge of the screen.
Size: Sets the amplitude of the effect, this is relative to the starting value of the attributes when you applied the effect. For example: if your fixtures are at 50% intensity, and you put a 100% size on your dimmer effect the lights will chase from 0%-100%, where a 50% size will chase them from 25% to 75%.* Effects will start from the current value on an attribute, the size will increase from that starting point based on the size given to that effect.
Parts: Control whether all the fixtures do the same thing. Setting parts to Spread will cause each fixture to act differently, setting it to All same will cause them all to act the same. Setting it to 2 causes odd and even fixtures to do the same.
X Fade: Alters the fade between each step of the effect. Setting it to 0% will cause the fixtures to snap between steps, while 100% will cause them to fade smoothly and never stop changing.

The buttons along the bottom control the direction of the effect over the fixtures. These options include: forwards, backwards, centre in/out (in/out toggled by forwards/backwards buttons) and random. If all direction options are deselected the random direction is applied.

Experimenting with the effect parameters and the order in which you select fixtures can show up many different possibilities from the same basic effect.

Recording Effects to Cues

Once you have added an effect and have the desired look on stage you can record the effect to a cue stack the same as any other cue. A cue can contain any number of attributes and an effect, or it can contain just an effect and NO attributes. The advantage of recording an effect with no attribute values in it is that it can be used at any time and it will get it’s starting value for the effect from the output on stage at that time, this would allow an effect like a circle position effect to change where it is pointing from cue to cue, without having to record multiple circle effects

Effects on Dimmer Channels

Adding effects to dimmer channels is a little different than other attributes, as dimmers are treated as HTP or Highest Takes Precedence channels. This means that the highest value will always be what shows on stage. This needs to be taken into consideration when writing effects on dimmer channels, if the dimmers is at 100% and you try to put a dimmer chase on them the effect will not show, as the channel is already at 100% and HTP will not allow the effect to set a level less than that honouring the channel as HTP.

Other attributes are treated as LTP or Latest Takes Precedence channels. This means that last value they are sent is what will show on stage, allowing these channels to go below the current value when adding effects. LTP channels will use the current value as the starting point for the effect. For example: a circle effect on pan and tilt, will use the current position of the fixture as the centre of the circle movement relative to the size value of the effect.

It is possible to “oversize” an effect, this will flatten out the curve or "clip" the effect at the top and bottom of the attributes range. The larger the size the longer it will be at those extremes.