Creating, Editing and Deleting a Cue

A Cue stores several pieces of information. Most importantly it stores the moves for axes, so they can be run during a show. But it also stores other information such as playback assignments and cue notes.

Creating a Cue

To create a new cue:

First, you need to clear any currently loaded information from the software.
Tap the Clear button in the bottom left of the screen.
Now we can add information to the cue.
Tap the Edit button at the top of the Layout to switch into edit mode. The Cue Information screen will appear.

Cue Information Screen

Enter the cue information.

Cue

Enter the cue number here. The cue number is used to determine the order the cues are displayed on the desk and it must be unique.

You can use decimal places if you need to insert a cue between two existing cues with consecutive numbers.

This value is required.

Name

Enter a name for a cue here. We suggest the show cue number and a simple description of what is does. For example:

“Auto Q1 - Front Cloth Out”

This value is required.

Description

You can enter more description here if required. It may help you find cues more easily when navigating around the cue list. We suggest that you use a scene name or similar here. For example:

“Scene 1 - Jamie’s School”

Colour

You can enter a cue colour using the colour picker next to the cue number. It may help you navigate the cue list more easily. For example, you could have a different colour for each act or to define a sequence in a show.

Once you’ve added these details, add the empty cue to the cue list.
Tap the Add button to add the cue to the cue list.
The cue will be stored. The cue will also be loaded.
To continue editing the cue, locate the newly created cue in the cue list.
Tap on the cue to load the cue information and continue editing.

You will see that the Add button is now displaying as an Update button, to indicate that any changes we make will be updating an existing cue.

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If you want, you can skip adding the cue at this point and add it once you have created all your moves and other cue information. This is just a way of breaking things down into easily manageable chunks.

Adding an Axis to a Cue

Before you can start entering move information for an axis, you need to add it to the cue.

To add an axis to a cue:

Select the required axis from the dropdown axis list.
Tap Add Axis to add the axis to the cue.

The Dropdown Axis List

When an axis has been added to the cue, it will display in Axis Information section. Here you can adjust all of the information associated with an axis that is stored in the cue.

An Axis as shown in Axis Information

By default, some information like Speed, Accel and Decel are already filled in. (These values are taken from the default settings that can be changed in System Settings.)

To program your first move, simply give the axis a target.

In the Target box, enter the desired target using the units show (in this case mm).
Tap Update to save the changes.

Now your cue is ready to run:

Tap the Show button to switch back into show mode.
Locate the cue in the Cue List.
Tap on the cue it to load it.
Run the cue as described in “Running a Cue”.

Editing a Move

To edit a move, you need to load the cue information into the editor.

To load the cue information into the editor:

Tap Edit to switch into Edit Mode.
Locate the correct cue in the cue list.
Tap on the cue to load the cue information.

For the rest of this chapter we will be working with a basic move type called “absolute” move. This is the most common type of move and the default when creating a move.

An absolute move consists of four parts:

Target where the axis is going to. Speed how fast we want it to go there. Accel the rate of acceleration. Decel the rate of deceleration.

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If we are going to the same target in multiple different cues, it might make sense to save that target as a Dead (which you can do in the “Deads” chapter)

Target

This is programmed in the units displayed. Most often this will be millimetres, but it may also be in degrees.

The reason it is called an absolute move is that the target is programmed as a fixed position. If you imagine a measuring tape, there can only one 1000mm mark on it.

If you measuring tape starts at 0mm (centre stage) and goes into the wing 6000mm away, your target position can only be somewhere on that line between 0-6000mm.

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It is possible to program a target that is outside the soft limits. This move will immediately fault when run.

Speed

This is programmed in the units displays. Most often this will be in millimetres per second (mm/s), but it may also be in degrees per second (deg/s).

This works exactly the same as miles per hour in a car, but using different units. (1 mile per hour would be 447.1 mm/s on our system!)

Acceleration and Deceleration

These are both programmed as a rate, millimetres per second per second (mm/s/s).

It’s value describes the amount you want to increase the speed by, every second until you reach the target speed.

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For example, if your target speed was 500mm/s and your acceleration rate was 250mm/s/s, it would take two seconds to reach the top speed.

To work out how many seconds it will take to accelerate or decelerate take the target speed and divide it by the accel/decel rate:

500mm/s (target speed) ➗ 250mm/s/s (rate) 🟰 2 seconds

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It’s often easier to think of acceleration and deceleration in the number of seconds it takes to reach top speed. To get the rate, the calculation is similar:

500mm/s (target speed) ➗ 2 seconds 🟰 250mm/s/s (rate) A good rule of thumb is to always divide the target speed by at least 2, which will give you an acceleration rate that will take 2 seconds to reach the target speed.

Depending on the weight of the scenery (and for artistic reasons) you may want to accelerate or decelerate over a longer time.

Delay

This is programmed in seconds and delays the start of the move being run.

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If you stop and restart a move, the delay will start counting again from zero. Make sure you understand how this delay might affect a move before running it.

Now the cue information is loaded in to the editor, you can make changes:

Locate the desired axis in the Axis Information section.
Make adjustments to the values (as detailed above).
Continue to make any other adjustments to other axes in the same way, if needed.
When you are happy with your changes tap the Update button.

Playback Assignent

If you are using a desk with multiple playbacks, you can assign an axis and its moves to any of the playbacks. If you have a console with only 1 playback, playback 1 will be automatically selected.

The Playback Assignment Dropdown

To change the playback assignment:

Load the cue information you want to adjust into the editor.
Locate the desired axis in the Axis Information section.
Select the desired playback number using the Playback dropdown.
Continue to change any other playback assignments in the same way, if needed.
When you are happy with your changes tap the Update button.
The cue will be re-loaded.

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You should try and use playbacks to group axes together in a way that makes sense for the show. For example, you might want to group axes that are flying out together and axes flying in together. In a show, it is likely you will want to stop either one or the other, but not necessarily both. Similarly, you might want to group axes that move together in a group, so if you need to stop them you will stop the whole group together.

Removing an Axis from a Cue

To remove an axis from a cue:

Tap the Delete button in the top right hand corner of the axis you want to remove.
You will be asked to confirm that you want to remove the axis from the cue. If you’re sure tap Ok.

Removing an axis from a cue

Deleting a Cue

To remove a cue from the cue list:

Locate the cue you want to delete in the Cue List and tap on the cue to load it.
If you aren’t in Edit mode already, tap the Edit button at the top of the Main Screen to switch into edit mode. The Cue Information screen will appear.

Cue Information in Edit Mode

Tap the Delete button to delete the cue.
You will be asked to confirm that you want to permanently delete the cue.
Tap Ok to confirm.

Up Next:

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Move Timing