Ai with Magic Panels

Hello,

I'm going to be using Ai with 36 Magic Panel 602s. This will be my first time using the lighting fixture option within Ai.

The Magic Panels will be arranged in a 6x6 fixture square. Within Ai should my fixture quantity match real world and be 6x6? or should I treat each LED on the Magic Panels as it's on fixture and make the fixture quantity within Ai be 36x36?

Thanks!

DC

Following up on this, would it actually be better to use the Modular LED Fixture? All I want to do is have Ai map video to the Magic Panels. Console will control intensity, movement, etc.

Thanks,

DC

Having used the magic panels, albeit without a media server, I believe you need to map 36 fixtures per head to gain control of each led segment individually.

In Ai I think a LED pixel map would be your best bet, but there are others here that will be able to answer the Ai side better than I.

I am following this thread as I am also interested in the answer.

Here is one way I would approach your task.

Using the Modular LED fixture I would place 3 sample regions per universe and then carry on to place my grid of 6x6 sample grid regions for each real world lighting fixture until I had placed 3 regions into each of the required 12 universes (this is only 1 Modular LED Fixture in Ai by the way).  I have uploaded a screen grab of a 2 universe example I just put together having looked at the Magic Panel manual in relation to how the artnet needs patching.  The first 16 channels per universe have been left free so that control values can be merged from a desk.  The main thing to remember when using the modular LED fixture is that the canvas res needs to be set as a multiple of 16 and as a 1:1 aspect (ie 128 x 128) otherwise the sample points will be not be accurate. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B26XxmgUuGNCS29oN0RtWTZ5OTQ/view?usp=sharing

The ArtNet adaptor in the screen grab has been set to DMX output by the way so if sending ArtNet this would need to be changed in system settings

There are other patching solutions that could be implemented based on the effects you want to achieve but this is one approach.  The Output Page tutorial has more on the subject.
http://www.avolitesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/10-Output-Page.pdf

SimonMPH wrote: The first 16 channels per universe have been left free so that control values can be merged from a desk.

**NOTE** I believe you will need to leave the first 16 channels for each fixture blank, allowing you to control only the LED arrays on the fixture. Not only the first 16 in the universe.

With full control you will only be able to fit 3 magic panels per universe I believe.

Well spotted thanks for correcting my written explanation to match my screen grab.

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful!