ETC announced the release of Hog 4 version 4.0 software. Enhancements include improvements to colour handling and Hog 4’s Color Picker, a new ‘Record Defaults’ function, and Fixture Builder upgrades.
Senior Product Manager Sarah Clausen commented, “Ultimately, the new colour system relieves programmers and designers from the challenges in controlling rigs with multiple colour engines. By providing multiple colour input languages through the colour pickers, virtual colour functions and the gels library, and full ‘physical’ function controls linked to the virtual controls at all times, colour control becomes seamless.”
For colour handling, v4.0. represents a overhaul of the colour mixing system used in Hog 4 OS. Substantial changes have been made to the fixture library, colour picker, gels, palettes, effects, plots, pixel mapping, and the playback of colour. All colour mixing systems including native HS, xyY, CMY, and all additive colour engines are now fully integrated and supported by the colour system.
Additionally, Hog 4 OS v4.0 features a new Color Picker window with a tabbed interface that features a wide variety of controls for mixing colour across all fixture types. A new “Colour Mix” preview column has been added to the output window and editor windows, indicating the colour being output by colour mixing fixtures.
In addition to the colour system rework, v4.0 includes a number of other improvements. Record Defaults provides operators with a quick and simple way to establish default function values for fixtures by using modified values in the programmer. The Fixture builder has a few minor upgrades in v4.0, including additional basic mode templates for modeling additive colour modeling fixtures, automatic application of virtual intensity to fixtures with colour mixing systems, and the inclusion of more user editable fields such as mode and product.
Version 4.0 is compatible with all generations of Hog 4 hardware. This release introduced improvements to the OS, resulting in a show file compatibility break. Users should update to v4.0 only when they are ready to start a fresh show file and become familiar with the new workflows. In a future release, the capability to export data from a v3.x show file and import it into a v4.x show file will be available.
“Version 4.0 software is a major step forward for the Hog 4 OS, bringing best in class colour controls to the platform and including optimisations that give us a solid base for our future development,” remarked Market Manager Tania Lesage.
v3.x show files and archives will not open directly into v4.0 – there will be a pair of releases (v3.21/v4.1) that will add export/import capability to bring v3.x show files including fixture data into v4.1 and beyond.
