Q Light Controller Plus Documentation (2024)

This tutorial covers just the basic procedure of creating a fixture, a scene and abutton and how to make them work. The point is to give the user a quick yetcomplete here-hold-my-hand-experience on how the Q Light Controller Plus is plannedto work as a software for DMX lighting automation.

Before you start reading this tutorial, please familiarise yourself with theMain window and its parts.

Now we can really start!

Fixture Manager

Open the fixture manager panel now by clicking its icon.

The fixture manager is the heart of QLC+ fixture-oriented architecture. As itsname implies, you can manage (add, remove and edit) your lighting fixturesfrom the fixture manager. On the left hand side of the manager there is a list thatcontains all of the fixtures in the current workspace (at the moment it will be empty).On the right hand side you can see some information related to the currentlyselected fixture. On the top of the fixture manager there is again another toolbar,containing the following buttons (from left to right):

Add new fixtures
Remove selected fixtures
Configure the selected fixture
Group a fixture selection
Ungroup a fixture from a group
Import a previously saved list of fixtures
Export a list of fixtures

Adding a fixture

Add a fixture to the workspace by clicking the add button.

On the left side of the dialog you can see a list of available fixturemanufacturers. Each manufacturer's name is actually a folder containing a numberof different fixture models produced by that manufacturer. You can find, for example, a"DJScan250" under the "Futurelight" folder. As you click a fixture from thelist, you can see the Channels field on the right hand side change todisplay the number of DMX channels required by the selected fixture. There'salso a list of the fixture's channels just under the Channels box.

Go ahead and select Futurelight DJScan250 but don't click OK just yet.

You can edit the new fixture's name in the Name field or you can stickto the default that the application suggests. If the fixture has differentoperational modes (different sets of channels), you can select one from theMode box. The DJScan250 doesn't have more than one, so there's just"Mode 1" there. The fixture's DMX address can be set in the Addressfield and should be the same as the actual physical fixture's DMX address.The Universe field is used to assign the fixture to a physical DMXoutput universe. Usually each universe has its own cable coming from the PC.

If you wish to add multiple fixtures of the same type, you can increase thevalue in the Amount box. If you wish to leave some gaps between eachfixture's address space, you can change the value in the Address gapbox. Let's leave these be for now.

If you don't understand the DMX addressing principles, please consult yourlighting equipment manuals for more information. In short, a DMX address isthe first DMX channel of a particular fixture. In the case of a DJScan250 (which uses6 channels), assigning for example 1 as its DMX address, reserves channels1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for the fixture. The next fixture must then be assignedto DMX address 7 to prevent channel overlapping. Let's use address 1 now.

Back to the fixture manager

Click OK to close the dialog and add one Futurelight DJScan250 to theworkspace.

On the left side of the fixture manager you can now see the fixture that wejust added. On the right side, you can see the information about the fixture. You canedit the fixture's name, address and universe by clicking the Configure button.You can also change the fixture definition through the configuration dialog, butsince we're quite happy with the fixture's information, we are not going go there.

My first function

Open the function manager by clicking its button on the main toolbar

If the fixture manager was the heart, function manager must be the brain of QLC+.With it, you can add, remove and edit various functions that perform the actuallight automation for you. Let's look at the view first. There is, once again, a toolbarcontaining the following icons (from left to right):

Add a scene
Add a chaser
Add a sequence
Add an EFX
Add a collection
Add a RGB matrix
Add a script

Open the Functions wizard
Copy the selected functions
Destroy the selected functions

Below the toolbar, there is a list of functions within the current workspace.Since we haven't yet created any, it's still empty.

Scene editor

Add a new scene to the workspace by clicking the scene button

With the scene editor, you can create scene functions that basically containvalues for a number of channels that relate to certain fixtures. On the left handside of the editor there is a list of fixtures used in the scene, which isempty (but not for much longer). There are also some buttons to add/remove fixturesand enable/disable all the selected fixtures channels.
On the right hand side of the editor there is a list of channel groups used in thescene. Channel groups will not be used in this tutorial.

Add a fixture to the scene by clicking the add button. Select our oneand only fixture, the DJScan250 from the list that pops up and click the OKbutton.

Now the scene has one fixture to control. Notice also that now there is newtab just beside the General tab with our fixture name. Click the tabthat says DJScan250.

Now you can see a panel with 6 sliders & buttons, each of them representinga channel within the fixture, but all of the channels are disabled. Above eachof the buttons (the ones with icons) there is yet another box which, whenchecked, enables the corresponding channel in the scene. If a box is notchecked, that channel will not be touched by the scene at all. This is veryuseful when you wish to create for example a function that just sets thecolor of a scanner, without touching the gobo, intensity, pan, tilt and otherfeatures that you might wish to stay the way they are.

Set channels 3, 4 and 6 enabled by clicking on their check boxes.

You'll see that channels 3 and 4 changed their appearance and are no longergrayed out. You can also move their sliders and click their buttons. When youclick on a button, you get a list of available capabilities that the fixturecan do when a certain value is set to the channel. In the case of a DJScan250,channel 3 controls the color wheel, channel 4 controls gobo selection andchannel 6 controls the fixture's shutter.

If you click the button on channel 3, you get a list of available colors thatthe fixture supports. Since many of these capabilities are specified by themanufacturer as a value range rather than a single value, many of thesecapabilities contain yet another sub-menu. Let's try setting a color.

Click the color button onchannel 3, then move your cursor to "Orange" and select "80" from the sub-menuby clicking on that value.

Notice that the slider on channel 3 also moved up and the value above it nowshows 80. If you have already patched an output plugin to the first universe,you may already see some action going on with your DMX equipment, since thescene editor also sends real DMX data to your fixtures as you edit the values.If you haven't done any mappings, don't feel bad, we'll get to it.

Next, click the gobo buttonand choose "Gobo 7", value 126 and then click the intensity button and choose"Shutter open", value 255.

Now we have a scene function that sets the value of DJScan250's channel 3 to80, channel 4 to 126 and channel 6 to 255. Now all we need is a nicedescriptive name for the scene. Click the General tab to go to thegeneral page where we started with the scene editor.

You can set a nice name to the scene by writing it to the Scene nameedit box. Type: "DJScan250 Orange Gobo 7" there.

Now we're going to set a Fade In time to the Scene, so that when we play itit will fade to the values we set in a given amount of time.
Click on the icon from the SceneEditor toolbar. A tool will be displayed, allowing you to choose the Fade In andFade Out times of the Scene. Let's change Fade In to 5 seconds. Either use thespeed dial widget or manually write '5' on the second last text field where 0sis written.
Close the Fade tool by clicking again on .

Back in the function manager

You can now see that the function manager displays a function called "DJScan250Orange Gobo 7".
If you click the right mouse button over a function item, you get the same menufunctionalities that are available in the upper part of the function manager.You can add new functions or edit existing ones. But let's not edit this functionanymore.

Another function

Create another function just like the one you just made, but set the valuesfor channels 3, 4 and 6 to 0 and name the function "DJScan250 Zero".

Virtual Console

Speaking of vital organs, we have already covered the heart and brain of QLC+,and we're only missing the body with its limbs to make the whole pack work.Well, so much for ridiculous analogies, let's move on and make our"DJScan250" fixture and its "DJScan Orange Gobo 7" function dosome actual work for us.

You can close the function manager and the fixture manager now, if you want tomake some room but it's not necessary.

Click the virtualconsole button on the main window to show the virtual console tab.

Creating a button

At first, the virtual console is just an empty window without much to look at.There's a toolbar at the top of the panel, with icons to Add newwidgets, Edit for editing widget properties and Tools for varioustools to control the virtual console behaviour. You can also click the rightmouse button on any virtual console widget to access a menu that containsmost (but not all) of the options that are accessible through the menu bar.

Click the icon to add a new Button widget.

An empty button appears to the virtual console.

Attaching a function to the button

Double click on the button or on the iconto bring up the button's configuration dialog.

From this dialog you can edit the button's properties:

* Set the Button label that is displayed on the button
* Attach a Function to the button
* Bind a Key combination to act as button presses* Bind the button to an External Input source
* Set the Button press behaviour

Click the attach button toopen a function selection dialog. Double-click on the "DJScan250 OrangeGobo 7" function to attach it to this button.

We don't necessarily need a name for the button, but if you feel like givingit one, please do.

Click OK to accept these changes and close the dialog.

A little fine-tuning

If you gave the button some name, you'll notice that it doesn't quite fitand gets trimmed to a rather short version of the original (unless you gaveit a two-letter name). You can resize the button to any size you like bygrabbing it from the box on the button's lower-right-hand corner and draggingthe button a little bigger. But hey, let's change the button's color now.

Click on the button again, and then click on the icon. Select an orange-tinted color from this dialog and click OK.

Now the button should have an orange background color. Move the button a bitto the side so that the next button won't appear on top of it. Well, there's noharm in that, it's just an inconvenience - you want to be able to see bothbuttons, do you not?

Another button

Create another button just like the first one, but attach the function"DJScan250 Zero" to the second button and set the button backgroundcolor to black and foreground (text) color to white.

Seeing the results

Since we haven't covered DMX output patching at all, you probably have adummy output plugin assigned to all output universes and you can't get anyreal DMX output from your computer. This is OK for now. If you're interested inoutput mapping details, refer to the Outputmapping howto.

Click the monitor button onthe main application toolbar to bring up the DMX monitor window.

You should see a bunch of numbers, and the name of our fixture "DJScan250"inside a bar over numbers 001 - 006. These numbers represent DMX channels andthe values below them represent those channels' values. Since we're operatingon with a dummy output plugin, the monitor is all that we see for now.

Click the mode switch buttonon the right-hand corner of the main toolbar to switch to operate mode.

Hold your breath...

Pay close attention to the monitor while you click the buttons on the virtualconsole (you know, the one we just created). Do you see some running numbersthat gradually go towards 80 on channel 3, 126 on channel 4 and 255 on channel6? Nice.

Note that if you click both buttons simultaneously, the result is usually farfrom what is wanted. You need to stop the previous function by clicking itsbutton once more (so that the button flashes and stays up) to stop the functionand then start the other function.