ETC EOS and OSC control from Multiplay

[Coral25]

Hey everyone!

Firstly I want to thank you David for the time you are putting into the development of MultiPlay which has been incredibly helpful during this pandemic since I had no way to access my University lab!

I wanted to ask you for some help on a query with concerns the use of the OSC commands. I use to program LX shows that are timed to music and was often forced to use QLab to time them to perfection, but I really want to make the full switch to Multiplay. I am pretty sure that the OSC target (IP address, UDP port...) is set correctly in both EOS and MultiPlay (there are also no error messages on the network cue). I guess the issue I'm facing is to get MultiPlay to talk directly to EOS. EOS has a function which is called "OSC Cue Recv String" which works as a sort of "translator" by receiving a string from another OSC enabled program and converts it into a string that EOS can read and utilize. At this moment in time I am not sure what string is being sent out by multiplay (or even if multiplay can send OSC commands or can only receive them).

This is what the ETC support says in regards to OSC (and QLab) but if you scroll toward the bottom it highlights the use of the OSC Cue Recv String for other software supporting OSC
https://support.etcconnect.com/ETC/Consoles/Eos_Family/Software_and_Programming/Triggering_Eos_from_QLab_using_OSC

I hope someone within the community can help me! Thanks in advance

[David]

MultiPlay can send whatever OSC commands you want in a network cue.

For the network patch, set the IP address and port of the EOS and make sure the encoding is set to OSC.

In the network cue, insert an ASCII message formatted with whatever OSC command you want. Leave the CR and LF boxes unticked.

[jim10705]

Are you aware of the OSCRouter app written by ETC and user community described as "Simple UDP/TCP packet router for Mac and Windows, with optional OSC specific options".

https://github.com/ETCLabs/OSCRouter

It is useful for:
-Diagnosing/troubleshooting OSC message contents between server/host and client. Log received and sent messages.
-Routing OSC messages.  Including duplicating (broadcast-like) to multiple destinations.
-Rewrite the OSC arguments to account for different manufacturer format requirements.

My theater used it to coordinate OSC messaging between ETC Element and PCs. Mostly had ETC Element send a notification message (i.e. Cue X just fired) to OSCRouter and then OSCRouter, based on simple pattern matching, would send a message to appropriate PC (i.e. PC 1 start playing video a).

You can use it alone with MultiPlay to see what MultiPlay is sending out.

-Jim

[David]

Nice find Jim.