Like many, I love the idea of using Blackout for the really challenging locations instead of my full Eos setup.  There were two main things preventing me:

1. Time to recreate patch between the two platforms
2. Needing to recreate all my references.

One of those problems is solved thanks to Blackout 2.3.4 supporting patch import.  (And the other problem is coming in a future release that will allow recording of DMX input- not sure how far out.). 

Through no fault of Blackout, the process of transferring patch from Eos isn’t simple because of some (I suspect) outdated code in Eos.  What am I talking about?  When you export to CSV, Eos takes the first entry in any fixture and notates the address in that field.  Let me give you two examples of why that isn’t helpful.

1. Vortex 8 fixtures in mode 35 have 8 pixels.  Attached to the master are two attributes- (129 and 130) which are fan and control.  Eos exports this as Vortex 8 with a starting address of 129, even though the first pixel starts at address 1.  
2. Titan tubes in mode 126 have 8 pixels as well.  Eos (helpfully) creates a virtual master intensity.  But since it’s virtual, there is no DMX address, so Eos exports this as Titan Tube…with no address listed.

Both of these things cause importing from Eos into Blackout (or anything else) to fail.  But I’ve figured out the workaround.  In brief- export your patch from Eos, open it in a spreadsheet app (I tested Numbers and Excel), correct the starting addresses, save, then import into Blackout.  If you’re not sure how to do this for yourself, read on.

Start in Eos with your show file open.  Go to File>Export>CSV and choose an easy-to-find location to export to.  I’m choosing my Desktop. 

The Export dialogue box pops up and by default will choose all data in the show file.  We only want Patch, so hit Deselect All, then just touch Patch.

Now, open the CSV file in Numbers or Excel (Numbers is easier since it doesn’t try to convert all your addressing into dates).  Notice my Vortex 8 channel 71 starting address and the Hydrapanels and Titan fixtures (amongst others) that have no address listed at all. 

I always use Lightwright on my shows, so at this point I open LW and copy all the addressing for my lights and paste it into the spreadsheet.  If you don’t have an updated LW file, just enter each address manually.  BE AWARE when working in Excel that it will try to “help” interpret your universe/address data as a date.  It’s maddening.  Select your cells and go to Format>Cells and choose Text. 

When finished, it looks like this:

Now you can save this to a flash drive (as a CSV- no other file format) and go to Blackout.  Open a new show file, go to Patch, then touch Import Patch.  

Navigate to the right folder and file and touch it to start the process.

Here, a dialogue window pops up.  You need to tell Blackout which each kind of fixture is.  I have mostly custom fixture profiles, so I have confused BO way too much. 

Simply touch an item under “Blackout Fixture” to the right of the right facing arrow for each fixture type and you can select the BO profile you want.  Touch any item you want to correct under Blackout Fixture ad choose between Show Fixtures or Fixture Database.  Use the familiar patch navigation window to select the right profile and touch Patch to the right of the correct profile to match it.

If you’re like me and you make your fixture profile names too long, don’t worry.  See at the top left?  The full length original fixture type is listed there.

Now just repeat this process to make BO aware of what fixture profiles it should use for each of your lights.  Then touch Finish Import at the bottom right of the screen.  A helpful warning- BO takes a minute or two here.  I imported about 200 fixtures on an M2 iPad Air and it took either two or three minutes to finish the process.  Be patient.

I’m really happy that Blackout has added this feature.  It’ll make a big time savings during truck prep, when there is never enough time.  I’m truly looking forward to being able to record DMX input for all my color and CCT palettes!  

Anyone else stoked to have tools to make using Blackout as a secondary console easier?  Hit me in the comments.

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Mark LaPierre is a programmer in film and television based out of Albuquerque.  He grew up in live entertainment and has been a designer/programmer for musicals, concert dance, live music, circus and corporate.  Mark is a proud member of IATSE, an ETC Eos trainer and an enthusiastic trainer of many other platforms and subjects.  If you enjoy his content, please consider commenting on his posts on the website to appease the Algorithm.