DMX Updates for 4.26 and beyond…
The purpose of this thread is to address the upcoming changes to the DMX plugin in 4.26 and beyond until proper documentation can be written. Once in preview we will release as much info as we can here to discuss the changes to the patching system, updates to the example fixtures, how to use the new pixel mapper and any other DMX related topics.
We would also appreciate any feedback you may have. Please be as descriptive as possible and provide screenshots and video links where applicable. Thanks and we look forward to seeing what you all create!
Hey just wanted to say thank you, this is really awesome!
Loved the 4.25 edition, it was more than enough for me, very psyched for 4.26 which I’m trying soon…
Anyone tried using SoundSwitch with the DMX plugin? I can’t get the Unreal DMX plugin to show once Art-Net is enabled. If I use the Art-Net DMX Workshop tools it sees SoundSwitch no problem but it never sees the Unreal DMX plugin. It knows that SoundSwitch uses Universes 0 and 1 etc. The Unreal plugin doesn’t shows up in the node list if I either pick the NIC’s IP address or use 127.0.0.1 etc and run it. Tried Broadcast and Unicast. Tried setting the IP in the plugin settings to default, 127 and the 192 address there.
I fixed my issue in the end. I’m using SoundSwitch to control the DMX lights in Unreal. The fix is to also use another program called QLC+ which lets you choose the input and output. SoundSwitch sees QLC+ and then you just set the output on it to your NIC and then everything works fine.
I put it in the stickied post but it may not be obvious there was a change. Here’s a video on some of the updates and how to patch basic fixture types. Enjoy!
Tested it today with MagicQ, all was clear except when going into Play mode it is very slow responsive when I change settings (color, dimmer, pan,…) on MagicQ, could this be due to fact that I’m running both applications on the same computer (don’t have a second computer for the moment!)
Findings of the day, do keep in mind that I’m only use Unreal for the second day.
01- The position of the player has an impact on the color of the beams, the lights turn white when moving away from the lights (Got 150 beamys in project, but also happens with one frixture), then you need to go really close and it goes back to color selected on the Chamsys.
02- My lights have no impact on the floor (I saw the gobo pattern in the video on the floor Updates part 1 on YouTube - Unreal DMX 4.26 Updates Part 1 - YouTube)
This is also visible on my SDI monitor via the Cinecamera and Blackmagic output.
Fun fact: The Actor Playerstart is visible as a globe in my Cinecamera as a globe (I did checked the box actor hidden in game)
UPDATE 02: Reason that SpotLight has no imapct on world is due to the fact that is located in the head, move the SpotLight up just below the PointLight (see screenshots)
To fix this, go into Editor Preferences>General>Performance (I believe that’s the location) and uncheck the box that says “Use less CPU in background” and it should smooth out the playback when focused on the MagicQ window or any other window for that matter
Okay, so I’m having a lot of trouble with getting my DMX info into Unreal. I had it working great in 4.25 with dot2 via sACN protocol. I then started working in 4.26 and it took me hours to get it working and somehow I was able to get it working with dot2 via Art-Net. Well today Art-Net doesn’t want to work but I’m able to read signal out of sACN from sACNView but can’t get any signal to show up in Unreal again. All I did was turn off my computer and boot it back up and all of a sudden it doesn’t work. I can’t really blame Unreal here though because I can’t get Art-NetViewer to find any signal either. Am I setting any settings wrong?
Edit:
I just went back and checked my 4.25 project and it works fine with sACN set to 10.0.0.241
Then I tried setting 4.26 to 10.0.0.241 and I get nothing. When changing back and forth between projects I let dot2 run in the background unchanged.
The first picture is 4.26 and the second is 4.25 with the same dot2 running
It might help or not, but I don’t see your Controller settings in your DMXLibrary, it might be still on ARtNet there, Also thx for the CPU tip, that worked!
So I discovered 10.0.0.241 works best for ArtNet and I was able to get dot2 to connect to it by restarting my computer and crossing my fingers lol But I still haven’t been able to get sACN to work properly.
I have written in Blueprints a DMX Analysis project. The project was in v4.26 Preview 4 where it was working fine. Upgrading to preview 5 broke it. This happens on both macOS and Windows. In the level blueprint I bind to the On Protocol Received event and it appears that this event is no longer being triggered. I have tried just attaching a PrintString node to the execute pin of the event and it is not being triggered. Interestingly, the DMX Channel Monitor is showing received DMX correctly. Is anyone else seeing anything similar ?
I don’t know how to put that in the level blueprint but while I was testing this on a fixture blueprint I noticed I wasn’t able to receive any tilt data even though the Channel Monitor was seeing a change. The pan was working fine but it seems like most of the other inputs weren’t working at all. I just get 0 from them.
EDIT: Turns out if you use the wrong mode in the DMX Fixture Type it could throw off everything, even if they are the same channels. Worked once I set the mode correctly.
Who can help? Can’t find this info in any other sources… Is it possible to add a patch in DMX Library during runtime? For example I am choosing the right existing actor(created with GDTF file) from a drop down menu in UI. Then I placing it. And after that I should put universe and address values. After that, somehow record this info in DMX Library as a patched fixture… So the main question is how can I record it in patch in runtime thru BP?
