In Conversation with Paul Reeves

JK: Paul, our readers who are active on the LightFactory user group will obviously be familiar with your name, but for those who don't go there, tell us about yourself a bit.
PR: I am currently active around my day job with a local volunteer venue that is a 250 seat receiving house. I light a variety of shows, from dance schools to panto throughout the year. We have over 100 channels of dimming, and I work with a variety of LED, Scrollers, Moving Head/Mirror, and DMX Video equipment.

As an amateur theatre practitioner, and previous professional work, I have around 15 years of experience.
LightFactory is the ideal solution for me, as it is very flexible for the different shows I am involved in. Group users will also be aware that I am also a Capture user, and I believe that Capture and LightFactory is a very powerful combination, for both pre-visualisation and programming work.

JK: How long have you been using LF?
PR: About 3 years. My initial purchase, was a 36 channel license from the Enttec Plasa stand, from Nicolas himself!

JK: What is your "day job"?
PR: I am a self employed IT Consultant. I architect system designs implementing mainly HP Server Hardware, and Microsoft Technologies.

JK: What made you decide to take upon your own shoulders these tasks?


PR: My initial idea, which I approached Martin about was actually for Show Transform but in a different guise. I wanted to look at a Strand (via ShowPort) and LightFactory conversion.

Show Copy was the first utility that I published, and was actually a by-product of me learning to program for the LightFactory files! It was much simpler, than the proposed Show Transform, and provided a solution for myself and several group members requesting the functionality.
Submaster Generator was a result of a specific user request on the groups.
As the format of the V2 files is totally different to V1, my original Show Transform for Strand was put on hold after a discussion with Martin. Rather than writing it twice, I started work on a V1 to V2 conversion.

JK: Your tool which converts V1 to V2 files is filling what I see as the largest niche of all the great utilities you've created, and that's the newest of the lot. What was it that you'd consider was the hardest in that project to overcome?


PR: As the format of the files is totally different, the hardest part was mapping the v1 information to v2, and checking formats etc. This mainly involved me creating the same test shows in both versions, and dissecting the results. Part of the challenge was due to possibly one of the greatest improvements in v2 in the fixture editor, as taking approx 48 fixed attributes in V1 files to the [unlimited?] attribute structure of v2.

JK: You made a non-LF utility that has to do with cameras. But it could easily be placed in service by a user wielding a LightFactory rig. Have you tried that yet?
PR: That's the intention, but ViscaDMX is still in the works... I have a couple of Serial control cameras, that are controlled via some rather functional but clunky software. As the main camera features very much map to a moving head fixture; pan, tilt and zoom the idea is that they can be controlled via LightFactory. LightFactory should be able to give me some nice camera effects such as a slow pan, as well as preset camera positions via 'focus groups'. ViscaDMX will literally receive DMX and transmit the appropriate serial commands.

JK: What about Clap-o-meter for LF Matrix Effects? Can they be patched together somehow? It seems like a thing you'd want to be able to do if you're having audience participation and you have LEDs in your set.
PR: I'll certainly have a think about that one.

JK: Can you tell us what might be next


PR: Currently in progress, and hopefully out next, will be the LF v2 backup utility. This will allow a show file, plus media and matrix files, and fixture files to be zipped into one backup file for archive or transfer to another LF PC. Ideal for Tracking Backups, or programming to Show PC transfers. This will all be fully user configurable. Hopefully I will give Show Transform its original intended purpose of reading Strand (via ShowPort and ASCII Light Cues) files. This may also include outputting various items to CSV for external reporting. Thanks to one patient tester, I am also working at updating all the utilities to work on 64bit OS.

JK: I've had a quick look at your LF Utilities website and there are some things on there I hadn't known about before, so you've obviously been busy.
PR: One day I will get around to sending website updates to all those that have kindly taken the time to register on my site for the updates! I am more than happy for users who have ideas or requests that they think I might be able to help with to get in touch with me to discuss them. I can be contacted via the website.