Merge multiple DMX Lights to one big picture

Beginners
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1

Hey Folks,

I have a question for DMX Lights and DMXout CHOP with ArtNet…
I cannot find anything about the complexity to route the DMX lights, merge them or use them separately. (Why separately is a bit easier for me, with multiDMXout CHOPS and still use the manual adjustments)

But what I want:
In my example I use a selfmade LEDpanel, which runs great.
If I wanna use a second panel, I have problems to get the one big picture connection with the first one.
Tested in Resolume Arena all works great. But I wanna go deeper to the rabbithole of Touchdesigner and try to figure this out there.

My build is:

Panel 1 Universe 1-7 / Channels 1-3582
Panel 2 Universe 8-14 / Channels 3583-7166
Panel 3 Universe 15-21 (Subnet1 Uni4) / Channels 7167-10750
Panel 4 Universe 22-28 (Subnet1 Uni11) / Channels 10751-14334

Than I have 2 - DMX Lights simple RGBA - 4 Channels

Light 1 - Universe 29 (Subnet1 Uni12) - Channels 14335-14338
Light 2 - Universe 29 (Subnet1 Uni12) - Channels 14339-14342

So my question:

If I wanna them connect to a big picture, for example a ramp, which flows from left to right over all DMX Lights one after the other like in the video, how would this be done?

I hope somebody could help me out with that complexity :slight_smile:

In the attached file, I use the smiley, who runs left to right.

greetings

MultipleArtnet-DMXout.toe (7.5 KB)

2

You already have a good starting point, you just need to add more SOPs that represent every RGB “pixel” in your whole stage “composition” and then arrange them all in SOP space. The last step - the “transform_normalize” SOP, will shrink the entire layout of SOPs down to fit withing the 0-1 UV space that the TOPto CHOP expects. Then you assign DMX universes with the attached routing DAT to correspond to each incoming CHOP channel and you can do all of it with one single DMXout CHOP.

There are a couple relatively advanced concepts you need to grasp before this will be easy to do - IE:

  • dealing with SOPs and point order of SOPs so that they match the serialized order of all DMX universes / addresses that will be going out of the DMXout CHOP
  • splitting and shuffling of CHOPs to get your RGB values to line up with the DMX patch of your lighting system (including possibly skipping some DMX addresses and keeping output of those at zero so as not to turn on lights or attributes of lights that you do not wish to affect)
  • the networking and routing to make sure the data actually gets from TouchDesigner to the lights in question - possibly through a lighting console or via DMX merge on a node / multiple nodes.
1 Like
3

Hey @Peeet,

thank you so much for your reply. I appreciate it a lot :slight_smile:

That sounds great, that I am on the right way.

With SOPs I would say, I am good now, after the great help on the folks here and tutorial videos. But where I struggle is, on the CHOPs and the DMX “routing”.
I cannot find anything else, about skipping some DMX adresses or routing the seperated SOPs to the right adresses.

I followed your suggestions and I got some result for displaying the graphic on 2 Panels. But, I think, without knowing, the technical part with DMX and skipping DMX adresses, I will struggle a lot.

I saw on my Merge CHOP that some Channels get a double signal. For example, Universe 0 till 6 runs the light. After reaching universe 4 the second panel lights up in universe 7 till 13, what should be normally happen in the flowing order from 0 till 13. So there is some glitch there I cannot figure out.

I saw a lot of tutorials about DMX, but most of the videos and documentaries about that, are very simple and do not explain, how to combine multiple DMX adressed Lights together with a great running order.

So my question is, is anything out there, a great simple project or maybe a explanation, how to sync multiple DMX Lights together for better understanding, how all the “technical” signals flow and how they become to my result?

I would appreciate it a lot, especially a small detailed documentary or a small project, where I could see the following struggles I have or where to find similar documentaries how DMX work in Touchdesigner for multiple lights not only 1 Light and get results.

DMX, VJ and the network points are not strange for me. I only have struggles especially with the great world of Touchdesigner, to get the same or greater results, as in xLights or QLC+ which are very familiar for me.

4

Hey Folks, hey @Peeet ,

I followed the instructions, but I get only a mirror of the first panel to the second panel. In the viewer there is also the same. In the project file below you can see in the background, what happens on my panel.

I would so much appreciate, if somebody could help me out, to merge the 2 panels together.

  • Panel 1 is DMX universe 1 to 7
  • Panel 2 DMX universe 8 to 14

MultipleArtnet-DMXout_2.toe (8.2 KB)