Nutcracker: Coming soon new effect class, chases

[smeighan]

a thread on DIYC will probably cause me to do a new effect class for chases.

The thread was here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

it was started by people who want to have a single string along their roofline and be able to get nutcracker effects.

I tried that, still got "division by zero".  Screenshot attached, am I doing something wrong?  Thanks.

DennyMo; you are right it gives an error.

I will look into this.

For now, a workaround is this,  if you want a 1x50 roofline, create this:
1 string x 200 pixels
in the effect set display window as 90 degrees

Now it generates 1 string with pixels 1-50 as you desire without giving a divide by zero
I created a rgb target in your account called LINE_SEAN
and an effect called meteors1_sean

here is the result

I was testing this some last night with a single strand (roof line element) with the butterfly effect and it worked great.  Didn't think about using the meteor effect for chasing sequences until Sean posted..   very cool!

yep, i think just meteor and butterfly would be good for a single string.



I will build the new effect class called chase and get a dozen or so options on it.
I am thinking

chase with 1,2,3 colors?
color1?
color2?
color3?
how many pixels per color (default 1)? ( I am thinking of things like grouping colors as 3 pixels each, 5 pixels .etc.)
direction? Allow chase to go left to right or right to left
speed?  (1=normal speed, .5 twice as slow, 3 = 3 times faster.)
sparkle percentage? (0-100, indicates random pixels set to white)
solid color fades? (Y or N, take color 1 and fade to color 2 over fade duration)
fade duration? (Enter seconds for fade, this is used with the above question)

well, that is just a start for chases

sean

[Steve Gase]

"single strings" now work?
we were discussing that for arches, and there were problems earlier.

thx

[thestig]

this is huge, exactly what I need as my entire house line will be lined with flex strips. Im also thinking about a few arches with the flex strips as well.

[mms]

This is great!  Thanks again for all your work.  This will make things a lot easier!

[smeighan]

"single strings" now work?
we were discussing that for arches, and there were problems earlier.

thx

to get a single string , use this workaround

build a string with 4 times the pixels
set folds to 4
on your effects select 90 degrees as a window.

when i finish the rch target i will fix it so this workaround will no longerbe needed

[smeighan]

Some more single string effects. Target is 1x200, 4 folds, 90 degree window. This will produce a 1x50 single string

GARLAND effect:
Effect Settings
username   dennymo
user_target   LINE_SEAN
effect_class   garlands
effect_name   GARLAND_SEAN
window_degrees   90
start_color   #FF0D05
end_color   #00FF00
frame_delay   30
sparkles   0
seq_duration   10
garland_gap   5
garland   0
show_frame   N
submit   Submit Form to create your effect
OBJECT_NAME   garlands


BUTTERFLY effect
Effect Settings
username   dennymo
user_target   LINE_SEAN
effect_class   butterfly
effect_name   BFLY_SEAN
window_degrees   90
frame_delay   50
sparkles   0
seq_duration   10
formula   1
radian_shift   0
start_color   #FF1303
end_color   #0FFF4F
background_chunk   2
background_skip   50
background_color   #FFFFFF
submit   Submit Form to create your effect
OBJECT_NAME   butterfly


and some more discussion

I few I think would be cool:

Double chase where the chase goes from both ends to the middle and then out to the ends.

Multiple chases where the string is divided up into sections with each section doing the same chase, or different if you like to add that as well. I'd like to specify the break points so they don't all have to be the same length but they stay in sync. This allows an effect on your eves but keeps the different sections of eves doing their own chase in sync with the rest.

double chase i was thinking about, i will add it.
multiple chase by dividing into sections sounds cool, ill look into it. shouldnt be hard.


i am thinking of something else.

a batch capablity. You have say 5 strings around your house. You want a different effect on each string (or maybe the same), fill in a table
Batch#    target    Effect
1            chase    garland1
2            chas2    garland1
3            chase3   garland3
4            chase5   fly


now press a button and i will generate 4 runs of nutcracker and then merge the 4 into one output file.
i am working on the target generator where u can change the starting pixel (right now it is always 1). This way if 30 pixels is one eave and 20 is the next you create two targets

chase1   string 1  pixels 1-30
chase2   string 1  pixels 31-50

now you can do things like the butterfly effect on the two and they will be exactly synced in color even though they have different pixel count

seems single string effects could get better and better.

oh well, now i think i need rgb on my eaves.

[pk]

Sean -  Are you considering having a background color for the chases? i.e. All green with a red chase(s).

[twooly]

I just tried to make a vix and vir file from the following and it doesn't seem to work.  The image shows fine but the vir/vix file contents are almost empty.

username   twooly
user_target   ARCH
effect_class   garlands
effect_name   ARCH_GAR
window_degrees   90
start_color   #3DFF1F
end_color   #FF8B17
frame_delay   30
sparkles   0
seq_duration   10
garland_gap   5
garland   0
show_frame   N
submit   Submit Form to create your effect
OBJECT_NAME   garlands


contents of a vix file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Program>
<Time>10000</Time>
<EventPeriodInMilliseconds>30</EventPeriodInMilliseconds>
<MinimumLevel>0</MinimumLevel>
<MaximumLevel>255</MaximumLevel>
<AudioDevice>-1</AudioDevice>
<AudioVolume>0</AudioVolume>
<PlugInData />
<Channels>
</Channels>
<SortOrders lastSort="-1" />
<EventValues></EventValues>
</Program>

[smeighan]

Sean -  Are you considering having a background color for the chases? i.e. All green with a red chase(s).

yes

[smeighan]

I just tried to make a vix and vir file from the following and it doesn't seem to work.  The image shows fine but the vir/vix file contents are almost empty.

username   twooly
user_target   ARCH
effect_class   garlands
effect_name   ARCH_GAR
window_degrees   90
start_color   #3DFF1F
end_color   #FF8B17
frame_delay   30
sparkles   0
seq_duration   10
garland_gap   5
garland   0
show_frame   N
submit   Submit Form to create your effect
OBJECT_NAME   garlands


contents of a vix file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Program>
<Time>10000</Time>
<EventPeriodInMilliseconds>30</EventPeriodInMilliseconds>
<MinimumLevel>0</MinimumLevel>
<MaximumLevel>255</MaximumLevel>
<AudioDevice>-1</AudioDevice>
<AudioVolume>0</AudioVolume>
<PlugInData />
<Channels>
</Channels>
<SortOrders lastSort="-1" />
<EventValues></EventValues>
</Program>

Twooly; you are right, it is producing a small empty set.

i will look into it

[jnealand]

This will probably work good for my window frames as well.  I have 75 pixels mounted on a pvc frame with 4 matching window frames.  I will have have hook them up and try it out.

[twooly]

Any luck on finding anything with this?

[smeighan]

Any luck on finding anything with this?

Just lots of ball sin the air

In the last 7 days
1) Fixed spirals effect class to have speed, fade3d,color palettes
2) added bars class
3) Fixed animated gifs
4) Created Pictures effect class
5) Fixed timing in lsp patterns
6) Released nutcracker projects


currently in the hopper
a) Horizontal target matrix
b) single strand effects (eaves, windows, arches)
c) ability for vixen vir files to have timing marks and allow a single load of an entire music song
d) create timing marks for lor lms files
e) fix snowflake effect class
f) addspeed and direction to the text class
g) allow projects to download a 10mbyte file for an entire song instead of the current 900mbyte
h) setup LSP pattern files to work effeciently with nc projects

just alot of stuff, ill get to it

[twooly]

Sorry I didn't mean it as pushy, I know you are busy.  Just curious that was all.  Keep up the great work.

[taybrynn]

What I particularly like here is how your really making the process of sequencing a lot more intuitive and creative,   The parameters you present for each effect make it a tweakers delight.    Thanks again for all you are doing here ... It's a dream come true for many of us and we thank you !!