Use the LightShark? These are my favorite tips and shortcuts when I’m using the LightShark.
Favorite Features
When it comes to Lightshark there are a ton of new features to discuss and get up to date on, but first let’s talk about and make everyone aware of the amazing features that are already available to you to use with Lightshark.
Knockout
One really cool feature available to use with Lightshark is “knockout”. When you’re going through all of the bits and pieces that are part of your show and trying to get everything organized and properly programmed, you might find yourself looking at a lot of things that you do not necessarily want or need to use in your show.
If you have some things that you don’t want to record into your next que you could always just clear everything and then bring back only the attributes that you want to use, or you could decide to simply use “knockout”. This allows you to press any column, individual cell, or any row and delete them without having to delete everything and start back over with adding attributes.
These leaves you with only the things that you want to use and you can go ahead and record.
Update
Another really useful feature is the “update” function. Whether you are using a pallet or a que you can update those if you need to and add any new information that you need to work with.
If you are making a very small change you will simply go to your que list window, find your que, and tab over to the cell you need to change and simply change it. This will show up for you in a spreadsheet setup to make alterations super simple.
If you’re needing to do a bit more than a simple change on a couple lights then you might need to use another method to speed your process up a bit. In such a case you will press “edit”, press your que number, allow it to load into the spreadsheet style programmer, use any of the tools you want to make your necessary changes, and simply press update.
Whichever method of “update” suits your needs should then show up as desired in your display.
Executer Mode
By default when in Lightshark everything vertical overrides each other and everything horizontal can be played together. However, if you want, you can find in the main menu of the settings the “executer mode” option. With this option you have either “exclusive” or “normal” to choose from. The “normal” option is the option to leave everything set as is with the vertical and horizontal override and playback.
“Exclusive” mode gives a different and really beneficial option for a lot of fixed installations. This makes it so that only one executer at a time is active out of the whole grid of buttons. This allows you to build different looks into your grid and simply press the buttons you want to use and you are ready to go. Only one at a time will play back and when a new one is played, the last used one will fade out for a smooth transition.
Closing
Knowing the ins and outs of the options available to you in Lightshark will make your life programming so much easier! It also gives you the opportunity to use everything at your disposal fully so that you can put on the best show possible every time.
