With DMXIS, Show Buddy Active, and D-PRO, if you don’t see your fixture in the patch/fixture library section, you have the ability to create your own! The best part is you don’t have to wait to hear back from the company to go ahead and add your fixture files to the library.
In this tutorial, we will walk through on how to set up and create your own fixture.
Register
Before getting started you’ll need to register to create an account. Just visit http://fixtures.dmxis.com/ to get started.
Once you create an account you will be able to log in to get started with creating and adding your own fixture files.
Finding/Adding Your Own Fixture
Once you’re logged in you will see a long list of manufacturers. The first thing you’ll want to do is search the list to see if your fixture brand and type is on the list.
If it’s not on the list you will be able to create your own. On the left sidebar, under My Fixtures, just click Create New.
This will take you to a new screen where you can either select the Manufacturer from the drop-down or just type in the Manufacture’s Name. Then, you can name the fixture and even include a description for any additional information. Usually, I don’t have anything to place in that box, but it’s a good place for any notes you may have.
Setting Up the New Fixture
Once you have the new fixture added you will see where you can set up the Fixture Modes. You will need to do this whether your fixture has just one mode or multiple Modes.
Click “Create New” and then name the Mode.
Next, you will click the Mode to access the Channels. You will see a screen where you can then add, change, and organize the channels. As you add the New Channel you’ll have the drop down to select either Blank Channel, Dimmer, Pan/Tilt 8 bit, Pan/Tilt 16 bit, or RGB. If your fixture is specifically a Dimmer, Pan/Tilt, or RGB be sure to use the pre-created Channel Types. For everything else just select Blank Channel.
If your channel is one of the pre-defined types, please be sure to use the pre-defined category, and NOT “Blank Channel”. This will ensure that the fixture works perfectly in any of the 3 programs that it is compatible with.
When creating a Blank Channel, you’ll name it, add a short name, set the Default, Highlight, Category, and Subcategory.
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“Highlight” is when a lighting console brings up a light to full and “opens” it to white. When you’re creating fixtures, it’s important to set the Highlight value to bring the intensity to full, and to open up any other parts of the light to white – such as colors, gobos, prizm, etc.
While for these particular fixture files, highlight is only going to apply to D-Pro, it only takes a minute to set, and then D-Pro users can get the full experience from your fixture.
Learn more about highlight here.
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Channel Ranges
Once you create and organize the channels as needed you can then set the Channel Ranges. I mostly use this option when working with a color wheel or a Gobo. This is a great way to organize the channels for different colors. You can set the range from 0 to 15 for a color, then click add and automatically the range will be set to 16 – 31. The website automatically guesses what the next range will be based on the previous.
Installing Your New Fixture
Once you have the fixtures, modes, and channels set up you will first click Share with Others, located on the bottom right of the screen. Then, you can either “Export for DMXIS” (if you are using DMXIS or Show Buddy Active) or just click Done if you are using D-Pro.
For D-Pro, you’ll actually download the fixture from inside of the “Patch” window of the D-Pro software. My video on patching in D-Pro is here.
DMXIS
DMXIS fixtures need to be installed manually by copying them to a specific folder.
When you download the fixture file, you will see that it is nested in some folders called “DMXLibrary/manufacturerName/fixturefile.dmx”. Extract the zipped files out, and navigate all the way in until you get to the “.dmx” file.
Copy that file to the DMXIS fixture folder, under your manufacturer, which is:
Windows: C:/Program Files (x86)/ENTTEC/DMXIS/DmxLibrary/
Mac OSX :/Library/Application Support/ENTTEC/DMXIS/DmxLibrary/
On either platform, you’ll need to place the fixture file into the folder of the manufacturer and then re-start DMXIS. You also can create your own folder, and place your fixtures into there for easy access – for example, you could call it “My Lights”, and when you go to patch in DMXIS, you’d just then go to the manufacturer of “My Lights”, and only have to choose from the lights you’ve brought in!
Show Buddy Active
In Show Buddy Active, the process is similar, but the file needs to end up in a different spot.
Windows: C:/Users/Public/Public Documents/db-audioware/Show Buddy Active/DmxLibrary/
Mac OSX: /Library/Application Support/db audioware/Show Buddy Active/DmxLibrary/
Want More?
My complete guides to DMXIS and D-Pro can be found inside of Learn Stage Lighting Labs. Plus, inside of our forums, I can help answer your questions as you apply what you learn in the complete video guides and make your best lighting ever!
