Premove (move in black)

Premove is an automatic “get ready while dark” feature.

When you run a cue, LMX can look ahead a few cues and pre-position fixture attributes (pan/tilt/colour/gobo) only when the fixture is not visibly outputting. This reduces visible snap when the real move cue arrives.

What premove can move

Premove works per fixture and per attribute family:

• pan
• tilt
• colour wheel - glass or a virtual (macro) wheel
• gobo wheel, and animation wheels
• gobo rotation
• XYZ target capture for pan/tilt (resolved to pan + tilt)

In the GUI

Premove runs automatically - there is no live button to trigger it. You tune its behaviour rather than fire it, so its GUI presence is a setting, not a panel:

• Global tuning (lookahead depth, fade time) lives in the Config window (CONFIG PREMOVE …).
• Per-cue opt-out is set on a cue via the Cue Inspector / UPDATE CUE <n> PREMOVE OFF. SHOW CUE <n> reports the flag per part.

Which of a fixture’s controls belong to those families is read from the fixture’s own profile rather than from what the control is called, so every wheel a fixture carries is covered - including a second colour or gobo wheel, and the gobo rotation, whatever the manufacturer named them.

Configuration

• CONFIG PREMOVE LOOKAHEAD <count>
  • Number of upcoming cues to scan.
• CONFIG PREMOVE TIME <seconds>
  • Fade time used by the generated premove layer.
• UPDATE CUE <n> [PART <p>] PREMOVE ON|OFF
  • Per-cue-part opt-out. With PREMOVE OFF, the part’s SFX are not pre-started during the premove window, and the attribute families those SFX touch are not premoved. SHOW CUE <n> reports the flag per part.

Example:

CONFIG PREMOVE LOOKAHEAD 2
CONFIG PREMOVE TIME 1.5
UPDATE CUE 5 PREMOVE OFF

Safety rule (most important)

A fixture is safe to premove only if either:

• nothing on it is asking for light - every intensity capability at 0.0, not only the one called intensity, or
• its shutter is closed.

If the fixture is visible (something asking for light and the gate open), premove does nothing.

“Closed” means the shutter’s own Closed segment, not the number zero. A moving head encodes its gate as a range and rests open - a Rogue R3 Spot is shut across DMX 0-3, open across 4-7, and parks at 6 - so a fixture sitting at its resting shutter with the dimmer at zero is dark, and premoves.

And every dimmer counts, not just the fixture-level one: a multi-cell head’s cells are not gated behind its master, so a Rogue R2X Wash with intensity at zero and one cell up is lit, and is not premoved.

How LMX decides eligibility

Even when fixture safety is true, each attribute family is checked independently.

An attribute family is blocked if the current cue context is already driving it:

• direct pan/tilt blocks that family,
• XYZ target blocks both pan and tilt,
• currently running SFX that affects a family blocks that family.

So pan can be blocked while tilt is still eligible (and vice versa).

Lookahead behaviour

For each eligible family, LMX scans up to LOOKAHEAD future cues and picks the first qualifying source:

• direct values from future cue parts,
• XYZ target-resolved pan/tilt from future cue parts,
• future SFX only when the cue-part fade-in is zero.

Future SFX with non-zero fade-in are ignored as premove destinations.

An upcoming cue’s SFX is also pre-started so it is already running when the cue arrives - but only over the fixtures that are dark. A fixture that is visible keeps still and joins the effect when the cue actually runs.

Visibility guardrail

The scan stops for a fixture at the first future cue that lights it - and that cue is itself scanned, so a cue that moves a fixture and brings it up in one go still gets its dark move.

Nothing past that cue is a premove destination. A move premove cannot hide is a move premove must not make: the fixture would already be visible when the real move cue arrived, so the pre-position would have to be handed back in view - a journey the head would never have made with premove switched off.

Premove also only ever runs when the fixture is currently safe, so a fixture that is visible now is never pre-positioned whatever the future cues say.

Runtime precedence

Premove is a lowest-priority layer. It never overrides active cue layers, executors, or programmer values.

• While higher-priority layers are active, they win.
• If those layers release before the real move cue, premove can show through.
• When the real move cue arrives, normal cue precedence wins.

Lifecycle

• New premove values replace previous premove values for the same fixture/attribute family.
• If a real cue move for a family is triggered, that family is removed from premove.
• A family premove lets go of is handed back to the value the show tracks, never simply dropped - dropping it would leave the fixture on its channel’s home value, which is a head slamming to its pan end stop the moment a cue lights it.
• Programmer/fader edits do not remove premove values.
• Out-of-sequence GO clears the premove layers and rebuilds them for the cue it jumped to, so working a rehearsal from a point still gets dark moves.
• Empty premove layers are removed.

Practical examples

Example 1: basic dark move

• Cue 1: fixture intensity 0, pan/tilt at home
• Cue 2: fixture still dark, pan = 90
• LOOKAHEAD 1

After Cue 1 settles, premove sets pan toward Cue 2 value while dark.

Example 2: the lookahead stops where the fixture comes up

• Cue 1: fixture dark
• Cue 2: intensity 100
• Cue 3: colour changes
• LOOKAHEAD 2

Premove does not target Cue 3’s colour from Cue 1. Cue 2 lights the fixture, so Cue 3’s colour change is one the audience is meant to see, and the scan stops at Cue 2. Had Cue 2 moved the fixture as well as lighting it, that move would be premoved.

Example 3: asymmetry

• Cue 1 contains direct pan only, fixture dark
• Cue 2 contains tilt change

Pan is blocked by current cue context; tilt may still premove.

Example 4: future SFX

• Cue 2 starts SFX on pan with fade-in 0: eligible destination source.
• Cue 3 starts SFX on pan with fade-in 2.0: not eligible destination source.