Fingerplay and DMXControl
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Fingerplay and DMXControl
This Articel was translated from German version [1] by help of http://www.online-translator.com
Introduction
Considering the supported OSC interface by DMXControl it has been shown that some potential is provided by the OpenSource Fingerplay Apps for Android.
You can find information to this Apps and to the download on: Fingerplay homepage.
The graphical user interface (still) is not so adaptable as with the TouchOSC Apps for iPhone, because the supported controls cannot merged within one screen, as it is also intended for the softpult in DMXControl 3.0. Presently you have 3 separated views between you can change:
* XY control panel * Slider * Button-Pad
However, it is possible to adapt the views by a XML Configuration file (e.g. modify number of the elements).
This is a screenshot from the Eclipse SDK for Android of that Configuration file.
Installation and Configuration
You need the free Fingerplay Apps (from the homepage or the Market) to be installed on your Android. In the preference menu of course you have to set "OSC server" (not: Fingerplay server) and the IP address of the computer where the OSC server runs. In our case this is the OSC receiver plug-in of Markus download which must be installed of course as DMXControl plugin.
The use and in particular the Configuration of the OSC plugin incl. learning phase is described in the plug-in article: OSC Receiver plug-in ([2] currently in German available only), but the usage is self-explaining.
By means of the learning window you can fastly recognise the OSC messages which are sent from Fingerplay (and that are defined in the XML Configuration file). Indeed, the expression possibilities provided by OSC are not exhausted at all, because all elements independent on their type are simply named and numbered as "control", e.g.:
/fingerplay/control/1
First test
In the first test we simply use the demo project of DMXControl. Exemplarily we want to set following 3 use cases in the plug-in Configuration:
* a) controllings of pan/tilt of the first Moving Light Fixture TS-255 by a XY-Pad * b) controllings of the brightness of the first PAR lamp by the first slider * c) set a light mood by a pad button
In the learning phase one sees that always a "zero" value is sent by the Apps after end of an operation (end of the touch of a control element). We ignore this message currently.
In the OSC plugin Configuration we assign the DMX Device channel directly to the received messages. The concrete value is not evaluated by the plugin, but directly "looped" into DMXControl. Hence, as in the plugin article described, we select "any" as a corresponding value. A DMXControl Effect (Effect -> start/stop) is simply assigned to the first pad of the pad button to trigger a certain light mood.
During the operation the plugin window must be activated.
Which values finally are received by DMXControl, can be seen in the Channel overview or in the graphic view. While looking the scanner the fun is especially big because the dot moves in the the context view of fixtures virtually without delay synchronically to the finger (touch point) on the display of the smartphones (see lower XYpad in picture below).
Indeed the graphic display of the slider level hangs at my Android Device sometimes small a little behind, but the value in itself is transmitted synchronically. In the picture below one recognises that the slider of the upper left par can be controled by the Android phone.
How to continue?
We hope that a small team will be established which extends this Apps and develops an Android application according to the example of PDA-2-DMXC [3]with us. Andreas (the author of Fingerplay) would like to support this activity.
