How to use Sidus Link's Magic Program
By: Justin Rypma
Tags: Lighting, Filmmaking, Cinematography, Sidus Link, Magic Program

SET UP A SEQUENCE

Let’s run through an example of a workflow to get to grips with how these three functions interact when setting up a sequence.

By tapping on the Flash icon in the fixture controls area, we will be prompted with the following control options. CCT (Correlated Color Temperature), HSI (Hue Saturation Intensity), GM (Green / Magenta shift), FRQ (A measure of time *1 second divided by the Hz value), and Times (How many times the light will flash).

ABOVE: Notice next to Times adjustment is 1(1.0s). The first number tells us how long the command will last, the second number shows how many times the light will flash during that time)

Here we’ve set the light to a 5600K daylight balance and adjusted the frequency and time to flash once a second, for 1 occurrence.

Lastly, we will select the “Set as Default” icon in the top right-hand corner. If you forget this step your adjustments won’t be saved!

Now that we have our default settings, we can start animating lights.

With the Flash icon still selected (highlighted green), every time we tap on a fixture tile whether it is All,1–4, or an Array, those corresponding fixture(s) will be programmed to flash at that point on the timeline.

Here’s the sequence in action below…

ABOVE: iPad display: Every time an individual fixture is selected, it flashes, and a node is generated with its corresponding number and color on the timeline. (Note that we must drag the cursor farther along the timeline to allow an even spacing of 1 second between each light before assigning the next node in the sequence)

When we tap each individual tile, a corresponding node is created on the timeline with a grey tail stretching 1 second. Its tail represents how long that node’s action will last. Note that the cursor defaults to one space after the node created, and must be dragged further to the second marker if we are to prevent overlapping.

Tapping the next number tile will create a new node and assign a command for the next corresponding light. The empty circles represent unfilled nodes that do not currently contain a command. They are considered “Blank”.

LEFT: Loop icon set to play through the sequence 1 time // RIGHT: Play button

Now with our 4 lights programmed with 1 command each, we push the Play button to start the sequence.

Notice the adjacent gray circle is used to either loop the sequence or allow it to play out just once.

ABOVE: Final flash sequence looped. Each light is set to 1 flash per second and each command is separated by 1 second so no lights overlap.

Adjusting Nodes:

If you want to make adjustments to an individual node after it is set, you can tap it in the timeline and the controls for that node will appear. Be sure to hit confirm after you make changes.

Alternatively, you can return to a fixture control menu and change the default setting each time before assigning a new command to a fixture.

Other notes to follow

The timeline’s programmable space is a maximum of 10 minutes long. (But can be used as a continuous loop) The shortest amount of time between each node is 200ms. Commands can overlap, but only one command can be set per node. You can control multiple lights per command, but they must be in an Array or by selecting All.

ABOVE: Each node has a command that lasts for 1 second, and each light is triggered every 0.2 seconds.

Visually we can see by the light gray tails how long the effect of each command lasts by moving the cursor position to cover that specific node. In this example, multiple lights are being activated at the same time, but notice only one command per node is used.

These tails also match the color of the effect and tell users when that light is “safe” to perform a new action when its previous action has been completed.

These tail visuals are only available in the iPad version of Sidus Link.

Additional Function Buttons