Fanning and spread

Spreading one value across a selection, plus wings, blocks and randomise.

Fanning takes one value and spreads it across the selection, so five fixtures pointing at the same spot become a five-finger comb, or a row of identical intensities becomes a ramp.

It works on any attribute, not just pan and tilt: intensity, zoom, colour components, gobo rotation - anything with a number.

The command

<attribute> <centre> FAN <width> [RANDOM] [DIRECTION <NORMAL|REVERSE|IN|OUT>]
                                 [WINGS <n>] [BLOCKS <n>] [GLOBAL]

<centre> is the value the middle of the selection gets; <width> is the total span across the selection, so the ends land half a width either side.

1 THRU 5
PAN 0 FAN 40

gives, in selection order:

-20°   -10°   0°   +10°   +20°

Direction

With the same five fixtures and PAN 0 FAN 40:

`DIRECTION`	Result
`NORMAL` (default)	−20, −10, 0, +10, +20
`REVERSE`	+20, +10, 0, −10, −20
`IN`	+20, 0, −20, 0, +20
`OUT`	−20, 0, +20, 0, −20

NORMAL and REVERSE are ramps; IN and OUT are symmetrical about the middle of the selection - use them when the rig itself is symmetrical and you want a mirrored look rather than a sweep.

Wings and blocks

Two modifiers that change which fixture sits where along the spread. They are the same layout rule effects use, so WINGS 2 means the same thing in a fan and in an effect.

WINGS <n> splits the selection into n mirrored sections. Wing 1 runs the spread forwards, wing 2 runs it backwards, and so on - the classic symmetrical rig fan, from a single command, however many fixtures are in each half.

1 THRU 12
TILT -20 FAN 30 WINGS 2

BLOCKS <n> buddies adjacent fixtures together, so each block of n shares one value. A twelve-fixture bar with BLOCKS 3 fans as four positions of three lamps each.

1 THRU 12
INTENSITY 50 FAN 60 BLOCKS 3

They combine: WINGS 2 BLOCKS 3 gives two mirrored halves of blocked triples.

Random

RANDOM scatters the fixtures along the spread instead of stepping them in order. The scatter is seeded and repeatable - the same command on the same selection gives the same scatter, so a look you like can be stored and recalled.

INTENSITY 60 FAN 80 RANDOM

The fan panel

Under the pan/tilt controls in the programmer, in the Basic bank:

Control	Command it sends
Spread spinbox	`PAN <centre> FAN <spread> …`
Direction combo	`DIRECTION Normal\|Reverse\|In\|Out`
Random toggle	`RANDOM`
Wings spinbox	`WINGS <n>`
Blocks spinbox	`BLOCKS <n>`
Fan Global toggle	`GLOBAL` - see below

Tilt has its own set of the same controls. Changing any of them re-sends the whole fan, so the panel always describes one coherent state rather than a pile of increments.

Fan Global

Without it, a fan applied while several groups are selected fans within each group: two groups of six give two six-wide fans. Fan Global treats the whole selection as one line, so the same twelve fixtures give one twelve-wide fan across both groups.

Fans are stored as intent, not as numbers

When a fan is stored into a preset or a cue with a group selected, what gets recorded is the group’s centre value plus the fan intent - spread, direction, wings, blocks - not the twelve angles it produced. Recall re-expands it against the group’s membership at that moment.

That is why a generated or hand-programmed position look still fans correctly after you add two fixtures to the group. It also means the centre value has to live in the group value itself; the merge re-centres on it.

Fans stored against individual fixtures are just values, because there is no group to re-expand against.

Seeing a fan

SHOW PROGRAMMER

prints fanned capabilities as a FAN spread=… dir=… random=… line rather than as a list of numbers, so you can see the intent that produced them.