Author Topic: New Vixen RGB AddIn  (Read 4573 times)

Offline CourtBard

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New Vixen RGB AddIn
« on: November 17, 2011, »
I have put together an addin for my own use because, although the currently available addin for Vixen is helpful, I found that it was taking too long for me to sequence the RGB portion of my show. I know that by now, most of you will already have most of your programming done (hopefully), but if you are like me and still trying to finish up your sequencing, this might help. I have not had time to write up any instructions, or create a video tutorial on how to use it, but I think it should be fairly straight forward. Try messing with it and you should be able to figure out how to use it. I have tested it a bunch myself, but I am sure there are still bugs to be worked out. It seems pretty stable for what I have been trying to do with it, so hopefully it will be helpful for you as well. If you find any bugs, PM me and I will see what I can do. I can't promise a quick resolution in all cases, because I too am trying to get my show put together for this Christmas.

If you find it helpful, please let me know.

Basic instructions follow:

1.    Unzip the dll into your Vixen AddIns folder. It was built using .Net 2.0 and for Vixen 2.1 as 2.5 is still considered Beta and not for actual show use. I have not tested it on 2.5 to know whether it works or not.
2. Start Vixen and you should see RGB Helper in your AddIns menu.
3. Click on the RGB Helper menu item to bring up the RGB Helper dialog.
4. Basically, you select the channel range you want to affect. Select the first channel of the first RGB channel you want to affect (in my case, I would select the Red channel as my channels are in the RGB order. Some strings are aranged differently. You can select another color order if yours is different, but by default, the RGB order is selected. ( currently there is no option for strings with RGB+White.)
5. Select the last channel you want to affect, you should be able to selecte any of the R, G, or B  channels of the last RGB channel, but I tend to always select the Red channel for both the starting and ending channel to affect.
6. Enter your starting time and the duration you want. You can either type it in manually, or use the individual min, sec and event controls.
7. Choose your starting and ending colors, or type in the values if you know what they are. (the starting and ending colors can be the same  ;) ) If you want to fade on or off your channel, simply choose black as either the starting or ending color. If you want a partially on color, just choose a darker version of that color (dark red instead of red, or grey instead of white).
8. Click the 'Apply to Selected Channels' button.

You should see your effect applied to the RGB channels within the range you selected.

If you re-open the dialog, all of your previous settings should still be there, which makes it easy to apply multiple effects quickly.

The 'Offset Start Time Per Channel By:' section allows you to offset when the effect is applied to each RGB channel (as the name implies). You can offset forward or backwards to get some interesting effects. You can also apply the offset every X number of channels. Play with it a bit and you should see what it does.  :)

Notes:

The swap button to the right of the channel selection area allows you to easily swap the first and last channels.
You can easily create a series of color changes by simply choosing the starting and ending colors and applying them. Open up the dialog a second time and set the starting color to be the previous end color by clicking the "Same as End Color" button. Then choose the next color you want to fade to.

By playing with the variou settings, you should be able to create some nice effects fairly quickly. There are still quite a few things I would like to add, but I just don't have time right now. I think that this AddIn works well for my needs, and I hope that it will speed up you RGB sequencing in Vixen.

Offline CourtBard

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2011, »
A couple of caviates:

Save often.
I have not tested whether undo will work or not. I have a feeling that it won't work right if it does at all.
When you click the apply button, it will apply the settings, overwriting anything that was there before.
Save often (for the reasons above) .

Have fun

Offline RDwizard

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2011, »
Excellent tool to get us through until the next Vixen update/overhaul.
This is exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks.

Offline rrowan

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2011, »
Thanks

Seems to work very well

Cheers

Rick R.
Light Animation Hobby - Having fun and Learning at the same time. (21st member of DLA)
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Offline Bogususer

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2011, »
Hi -
  I just downloaded and copied the dll to plugins\output and I don't see it in my add-ins.  I tried in 2.5.0.8 and then saw the info that it hadn't been tested, so I tried in 2.1 and I don't see any add-ins named RGB_Helper -- I do see on RGBLED - is that it?  it doesn't seem to have the options that were listed in the orginal post.

I'm scrambling this year, as we want to add RGB's, but not sure the best/easiest way to go about this... thanks!  I did look at LightShowPro, but it brought my sequences in a little odd, and too much manipulating...  I'd like to stick w/ Vixen if I can get RGB's setup and working.

any help appreciated
thanks!

Offline rrowan

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2011, »
put the dll in the add-ins folder

Rick R.
Light Animation Hobby - Having fun and Learning at the same time. (21st member of DLA)
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Offline Bogususer

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2011, »
Thanks!  That worked perfectly :-)

Offline chrisatpsu

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2012, »
i've had an issue while running this...

Windows 7- 64bit
Vixen 2.1

when i click on the RGB Helper add-in, then click on the "Pick Start Color"

if i click on anywhere in the square on the right half of that screen, my hue, sat, and lum numbers change, but my rgb values stay at 255

then...  if i click on the individual color squares on the left side, like picking red, then the number changes and i can go back to the right side and pick any of the colors in that large square...
To rule the entire tri-state area!  What's that? Perry the Platypus!!!

Offline Gary

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Re: New Vixen RGB AddIn
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2012, »
I just downloaded this as I'm building a new(er) laptop to get it ready for December 2012's show.

It would be great if you can highlight a start and stop time in the Vixen grid using the mouse, and when you open up the RGBHelper, there would be an option to "suck" the highlighted range into that window.
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