MA2 & MA3 plugins

Channel Duper

1.0

This MA2 plugin lets you duplicate channels in the fixture patch – which is otherwise a non-existent feature of native MA2 software. This is done by adding DUMMY channels to the fixture patch and having their mode set so that each DMX level is copied from another channel.
This function is very useful if you would like to control a multi-instance fixture as one instance without extra programming.

This plugin works only with 8 bit values. If you plan to copy 16 or 24 bit channels, the plugin will automatically reduce them to 8 bit mode (by removing fine and ultra patch addresses).
This is because the plugin creates a ChannelFunction line for each individual DMX value for each duplicated channel, in case of 8 bit this is 256 lines, 16 bit would need 65536 and 24 bit would need 16.7 million lines. Don't forget to edit the FixtureType and remove the channels you want to duplicate (probably in other instances)! This is not done automatically. You can not remove instances and modules of a FixtureType already in use!

How to turn multi instance fixtures into single instance

  1. Import the multi-instance FixtureType.
  2. Edit the FixtureType and remove any unnecessary instances.
  3. Create channels in the main module if needed.
  4. Close the Patch.
  5. Run the plugin.
  6. Choose the target FixtureType from the appearing list.
  7. Choose the module where the duplicate source channel is located from the next list.
  8. Choose the channel you wish to duplicate.
  9. If the channel is 16-bit the plugin will change it to 8-bit.
  10. Enter the target patch number. You can skip and manually edit the FixtureType later (patch is set to 999 by default).
  11. Repeat steps 4-6 if desired, or press X or Esc key.

For example if you want to modify Martin Quantum Wash Extended to have only one set of RGB instance:

  1. Remove instances other than the first one. Take note of the RGB channels:
    1. R (COLORRGB1): 19, 22, 25, 30
    2. G (COLORRGB2): 20, 23, 26, 31
    3. B (COLORRGB3): 21, 24, 27, 32
  2. Add R, G, B channels to base module. Patch them to their respective addresses (19, 20, 21)
  3. Run the plugin and select channels R, G, B three times, patching the duplicate targets from the list above.
  4. The nine dummy channels with mode set to COLORRGB1, COLORRGB2, COLORRGB3 should appear in the main module and the color channels should be duplicated now from only one source.

€15