Fanning the focus of lighting devices

The Focus Lighting Devices command spreads, or “fans,” the focus of a selection of lighting devices. Multiple fan types are available. You can independently fan the tilt and pan angles using slider controls, or enter angle values to make fine adjustments. These changes apply to the lighting devices’ starting pan and tilt angles. If needed, click Pick Focus to set a shared focus for all of the lights prior to fanning. To restore each device to its default focus position (with no pan or tilt applied), click Home Lighting Device.

A dynamic preview of the beam angle and centerline shows how each light will be focused when the dialog box closes. You can automatically create a focus point object for each lighting device.

Parameter	Description
Lighting device list	Displays the selected lighting devices, sorted by channel number. If the channel numbers are equal (or unspecified), the list is sorted by device location, from left to right, in the drawing. The devices can also be sorted by Instrument Type, Position, or Purpose; click a column heading to sort in ascending or descending order. To re-order the devices manually, click in the # column and drag items to the desired location.
Tilt/Pan	Controls the fanning of tilt or pan values across the lighting devices. Select the Fan Type, and then use the slider and edit controls to adjust the angle. The slider range is -180 to 180 degrees, starting in the center at (0) zero degrees.
Fan Type	Controls the fanning of tilt or pan angles across the lighting devices. The fanning depends on the Lighting device list order. ● None: No fanning is applied. ● Center Fan: Starting from the middle, values fan out in opposite directions. ● Linear Fan from End: Starting from the last device, values fan in the same direction. ● Linear Fan from Start: Starting from the first device, values fan in the same direction. ● Fan To Center: Starting from the first and last devices, values fan towards the center in the same direction. ● Inverted Center Fan: Starting from the first and last devices, values fan towards the center in opposite directions. ● Fan out from Center: Starting from the middle, values fan to the ends in the same direction.
Throw Distance	Sets the distance from each lighting device to its focus. This value is used to calculate the beam size; larger values produce larger beams.
Create focus points	Creates a focus point object with the specified Prefix for each lighting device
Prefix	When Create focus points is selected, enter a prefix for the focus points
Home Lighting Device	Returns the lighting devices to their default focus positions where tilt and pan are 0 (zero)
Pick Focus	Activates a temporary tool to define the focus of the lighting devices. Click in the drawing to set the starting focus location; the devices point at this location, and you are returned to the dialog box.

● To focus all of the lights at the same point, click Pick Focus, and click in the drawing to define the shared focus.

5.Use the slider to interactively change the tilt, or enter an angle value in the field.

7.Click OK to close the dialog box and apply the fanning, as previewed. Each lighting device’s Pan, Tilt, and Throw Distance values are updated on the Object Info palette; see Lighting device properties. If Create focus points was selected, a focus point object is created for each device.