Scenes

A Scene refers to a combination of level settings for a selection of Lighting Groups.

Scenes represent brightness settings for a selection of lights. Often these are lights are all in a common area, but Scenes are also commonly used simply to control a large number of groups at once, such as an “All Off” scene which turns everything off and might be triggered when leaving the house.

Example, a meeting room which has two lighting groups. One group above the meeting table and one group along the end wall above the projector screen. In this room, a “Meeting" Scene might set all the lights to 100%, whereas a “Presentation” Scene might set the lights over the meeting table to a lower level such as 50% and turn off the lights adjacent to the projector screen to make it easier to see the screen. Finally, there might be an “All Off” scene to turn everything off.

The Next Generation Saturn and Saturn Zen wall plates support up to 8 Scenes, with storage for a total of up to 64 Scene Items, which can be shared freely amongst the desired number of Scenes. For larger scenes, or where it may be desirable for the end user to edit the scene contents, we recommend defining the scenes in an Automation Controller, and simply using the Key Unit to send the Scene Trigger.

Unlike the old key units, the Next Generation Saturn and Saturn Zen wall plates can have:

Multiple Lighting Applications per Scene.
Ramp rates specified per Scene Item.
Multiple Trigger Groups per key unit.
Scene Toggle and Scene Dim Key Functions.

NOTE: These Key Functions only work on Scenes which are contained in the unit in which the scene is defined.

Triggering Scenes

A Scene can be triggered by a keypress on a Scene key, and/or by a message received on the “Trigger Control” Application. This message consists of two variables:

Trigger Group
Action Selector

This combination of Trigger Group and Action Selector are used to uniquely identify a Scene, and when used with a Scene, the message that sets them is referred to as a “Scene Trigger”.

When a Scene is triggered locally by a keypress, all the Lighting Application messages are sent to set the groups in the scene to the levels defined by the scene, as well as the Scene Trigger message. The inclusion of the Scene Trigger message allows any other units on the network to show the status of the Scene, as well as allowing a Scene to be split across multiple units.

When a Scene is triggered by an incoming Scene Trigger message, the Lighting Application messages are sent, but the Scene Trigger does not need to be sent as well.

A Scene in another unit is called a “Remote Scene”, and may be triggered by simply sending the Scene Trigger message with the Trigger Group and Action Selector that identifies that Scene.

NOTE: The Scene Toggle, Scene Off, and Scene Dimming functions do not work for Remote Scenes.

Scene Status

A Scene becomes active when it is set by a keypress on a Scene Key, or when a Trigger Control message with matching Trigger Group and Action Selector is received.

A Scene becomes inactive, or “broken”, when the level of one of the groups in the scene is changed to a different value, or if a Trigger Control message is received for the same Trigger Group but with a different Action Selector, or finally, if an Indicator Kill message is received for that Trigger Group.

NOTE: Using the Scene Dimming actions in the Scene On/Up or Scene Off/Down Key Functions changes all the levels in the Scene without breaking the scene.

In the Meeting Room example above, the three scenes are referred to as “Mutually Exclusive”, because they all set the same groups to different levels, so only one can be active at any one time.

Mutually Exclusive Scenes should all be given the same Trigger Group, with different Action Selectors. This allows the Scene Indication to accurately reflect the Scene Status to show the currently active scene.

Scenes which are not Mutually Exclusive are therefore, by definition, unrelated, and independent, and therefore should be given different Trigger Groups.

In addition, if the “Scene Repair” option is set for the Scene Widget, the Scene can also become active if the levels of all the groups in the scene are set by some other means to the levels defined by the scene.

NOTE: If a Scene becomes active via the Scene Repair process, no messages are emitted from the unit containing the scene.

Scene Execution

Scenes execute in the order that the scene items are added. If using multiple Lighting Applications in one Scene, when the Scene is executed, each change in Application will result in the unit starting a new message. For most efficient Scene execution, it is recommended that all Groups for each separate Application are entered consecutively.