Patching means telling Lightjams about the configuration of your fixtures and how to talk to them. In the DMX 512 world, you have to give each fixture an address ranging from 1 to 512. A fixture uses a predefined number of DMX channels depending on its capabilities. For example, a simple dimmer only needs one channel and an average moving head may need more than ten to control things like pan, tilt and focus. Usually, you don't want fixture addresses to overlap in order to allow all fixtures to be controlled individually.
All fixtures connected to the same DMX cable are on the same DMX universe. When you need more than 512 addresses, you have to use more DMX universes. In this case, using ArtNET or sACN to output DMX data may be a good choice since Lightjams allows up to 64 universes.
This is what you'll see when accessing the patch window for the first time (View/Patch menu). On the left, you have a list of your defined fixture templates. If you have many, use the search box to narrow the list. Double-click a fixture template to use it.
If your fixture isn't in the list, you can use the fixture template editor to create it. Don't be afraid, you should be done in a few minutes. Click the new button to go to the template editor. You can also tweak an existing fixture template by clicking the edit button.
Once you've selected a fixture template, you're ready to add it to your patch:
When you're ready, click the Add Fixtures button or cancel to select another fixture template.
A real time saver! You can patch a matrix of fixtures in a few clicks. The corresponding grids are automatically created for you, letting you start building effects in a few seconds.
Once patched, your fixtures will appear in the list at the right. You can sort them in many ways by clicking the column headers, narrow down the list by using the search box and change many settings by using the controls directly in the list.
At any time you can: Change fixture mode and group, change DMX universe and DMX address.
Select multiple fixtures to apply changes to many fixtures at once. For example: If you want to offset the DMX addresses of multiple fixtures by 10, select your fixtures and in one of the DMX address box, set the new address. All other DMX addresses will follow.
Select one or multiple fixtures in the list to execute an action. You can see these actions by selecting your fixtures and looking at the actions box at the top. If it is disabled, this means there is no action available for the selected fixtures.
There are four typical actions:
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