Author Topic: Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?  (Read 2542 times)

Offline Arvin

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Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?
« on: July 14, 2012, »
I have no RGB smart strings and probably won't in the foreseeable future. Retired, limited budget, all the usual reasons.

I did build a standard spiral tree last year. It's great. Everyone was excited by it....BUT creating spiral effects with vixen is a time consuming task.

What I need is Nutcracker for standard spiral trees!

Any suggestions?

Offline Jeffl

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Re: Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2012, »
This is a great idea. 

Offline Steve Gase

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Re: Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2012, »
hmmm.

maybe you can use existing controllers, and existing strings as if you had RGB.  Maybe you have white, red, green strings -- but you bundle them into a fake RGB bungle.   When 'R' goes off, your fist string color will light, when 'G' goes off your second color, etc.  Obviously a nutcracker purple will look like a COMPLETELY different thing...  maybe a 'melon color' for all I know.  but the effects might still be cool.

When you set up controllers, you'd assign color in a consistant order:    {Co1=Ch1, Co2=Ch2, Co3=Ch3}, {Co1=Ch4, Co2=Ch5, Co3=Ch6}, ...

When you create your nutcracker target model, you'd try defining these like dumb strings....   let's say you have 48 strings, of 3 colors, 16 whites, 16 reds, 16 greens...  so in nutcracker you'd define this as 16 strings, and each string would have 1 pixel.

I tried this in nutcracker and had a problem with the animated gif...  it didn't like a length of one pixel --- BUT maybe the sequence might still work. 


How will this look?  it won't look anything like the megapixel trees -- but it might be interesting and as a hobby you might have fun playing around with it to see what you get.
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Offline smeighan

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Re: Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2012, »
I'll take aloof.

I am in the target generator now. I hope to finish the horizon matrix in the next few days.

I will think about non rgb targets and how I can create effects for them.

I might just make a weber tree target model so you can see what they would look like.

Also thinking of making arches in the target library.

Also going to finish Steve gases request for having ability to edit what pixel number a string starts with
Sean
Littleton, CO
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Offline Steve Gase

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Re: Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2012, »
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I'll take aloof.

I am in the target generator now. I hope to finish the horizon matrix in the next few days.

I will think about non rgb targets and how I can create effects for them.

I might just make a weber tree target model so you can see what they would look like.

Also thinking of making arches in the target library.

Also going to finish Steve gases request for having ability to edit what pixel number a string starts with
Non-RGB is interesting -- as Arvin suggests.

But in think RGB dumb strings might be a good stepping stone, and something that other a lot of others might have interst in.

With the new DSCs, the existing 3-channel controllers from Ray Wu, the MR16s, ... and the easy and cheap availability of dumb RGB strings it might be nice to have nutcracker effects available.  getting a single-pixel per string to work might open the door for all of this.

thanks!
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Offline jnealand

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Re: Nutcracker for standard spiral tree?
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2012, »
I'm confused.  A normal spiral is just a simple chase with the strings being physically put up in a spiral.  I would not think that it would be hard to do in vixen.  I've done chases with my non spiral tree.  I suppose if you wanted to do multiple colors with multiple strands it could be a little tricky, but nothing like trying to make a spiral using RGB, that boggles my mind.
Jim Nealand
Kennesaw, GA