Programming Pixel Based Candy Canes

[bob_moody]

I'm building 8 pixel based candy canes for 2013 and was hoping to get some suggestions on how to approach programming.

Each Candy Cane will have 16 pixels (Rectangular WS2811 based devices, w/3 RGB LED's per piece.)

I know I could manually create 16 RGB channels per CC (128 channels) and programming would be a bit tedious... but doable..

Has anyone else approached a pixel project outside the realm of pixel trees and pixel arches?

I thought using SuperStar I could trick it into thinking I was creating 8 16 pixel arches and approach it that way but I'm very open to other opinions and ideas.

thanks for reading and for any and all feedback...

Bob

[Ken Benedict]

Create a 16 pixel CC Device as a group for each candy cane; takes about 5 mouse clicks per candle and there they are, ready for programming.

I'd suggest copying then into four seperate Tracks; All RGB, Red only, Green only and Blue only.

That way you can get some same-color programming going on; get one color the way you like it, then copy and paste the sequence into another color. Or play with the All RGB track by itself.

Chases are easy with the

and color blends are easy with the

; online videos show how. Edited January 24, 2013 by Ken Benedict

[bob_moody]

Thanks Ken,

So, in this case I dont need SS at all... (one less thing to have to learn at the moment .. not to say I dont NEED to learn it.. LOL)

I'll do a quick setup and see how it works ..

Appreciate the quick reply!!

[BrianBruderer]

If you make a visualization of your candy canes, and make each candy cane a prop, when you import the visualization into SuperStar it will group the pixels of the candy canes together into a play on a sequencing row. You can then do scenes and morphs on the pixels of the candy canes.

As you say, you can sequence it completely with the Sequence Editor. But I think it would be easier to sequence them in SuperStar. There are video tutorials on sequencing using SuperStar. Go to the main lightorama page, click on Support, and then click on "Video Tutorials". The SuperStar tutorials are at the bottom. Look at the first 2 tutorials titled "SuperStar Basic Scenes" and "SuperStar Morphs" and you should get a feel for how to sequence using SuperStar.

[bob_moody]

Brian,

Off topic question (sort of) ...

Are the SS videos available for download?

My problem is I live in a rural area and my Internet connection is Sprint Data Card.

Needless to say YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix etc etc are almost worthless since I cant get enough bandwidth to stream.

However, from work, I could download the videos and watch them offline..

Bob

[BrianBruderer]

I of course have all the videos on my computer, but I do not have them on a server where you can download them.

[Ken Benedict]

Brian,

Off topic question (sort of) ...

Are the SS videos available for download?

My problem is I live in a rural area and my Internet connection is Sprint Data Card.

Needless to say YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix etc etc are almost worthless since I cant get enough bandwidth to stream.

However, from work, I could download the videos and watch them offline..

Bob

Checkout http://www.clipconverter.cc/

Works great, even with poor connections.

[bob_moody]

Ken,

Thank You!!

Works like a charm

I appreciate it

Bob

[bob_moody]

Brian,

 

I took the time this weekend to create the fixutres and props in Visualizer, then import into SuperStar and all I can is .."THIS IS AWESOME!!"

 

Now.. with that said.. I still have a lot to learn about Vis and SS...

 

I created a vis with 8 - 16 pixel candy canes.. 4 pointing right and 4 pointing left.

I imported into SS and all was right in the world..

 

The 8 canes all appear to segmented parts of the same "ribbon"

While morphs really look cool -- a head/tail chase basically, it would really be interesting if each of the 8 canes were presented as its own ribbon or as its own pixel block .. sorry I'm not versed on the terminology.. so I hope I'm getting it all across...

 

Bob

[BrianBruderer]

SuperStar does its best to organize the imported sequence onto the sequencing grid in a logical manner. But there are times you want it done differently. In your case there are two ways to make the candy canes map to the sequencing grid differently.

 

1) In the visualization, put the 8 candy canes each on their own row, that is, move them so the first one is at the top of the visualization and the second one a bit down from there etc. Then when you import it into SuperStar and the Import Visualization dialog pops up, set the Maximum Detection Lines to 8 and if you spaced the candy canes somewhat equally into 8 different rows, each candy cane will be on it's own sequencing row.

 

2) In the visualization, you should have each candy cane as its own prop. Bring up the Prop Properties dialog box and in the comment line of the first candy type in the following:

superstar row=1 column=1

 

In the comment line of the second candy cane prop type:

superstar row=1 column=2

 

In the remaining prop comment lines type:

superstar row=1 column=3

superstar row=1 column=4

superstar row=1 column=5

superstar row=1 column=6

superstar row=1 column=7

superstar row=1 column=8

 

The row and column terminology is confusing because I need it to be the same terminology regardless of if the sequencing row is vertical or horizontal, and I based it on being vertical, so when the sequencing grid is horizontal, row becomes column and column becomes row. Also, realize that in a horizontal sequencing grid, row 1 is on the bottom

 

But you don't need to understand all that, just do what I have typed above and see if it works. This is a new feature and you are one of the few to try it. And if you don't like the order, then assign the first candy cane to row=1 column=8 and so forth.

[bob_moody]

Thank you Sir.....

 

I will try that as soon as I get home this evening...

 

The little I have done so far was like tungsten arc search light going off in my head to the possibilities...

 

Even with everthing in the same grid, when I created a morph starting at pixel 1 and ending at pixel 384 the effect was incredible.

 

I will report back my results..

 

Bob

[bob_moody]

Brian,

 

I have tried both of your suggestions and several variations of both.

The first worked for the most part however equal spacing down the grid in visualizer did not pick up all props in seperate rows. I didnt work with it very long and moved on to option 2.

Option 2 works very well but I noticed it really didnt matter if I told it the Max detection Lines were at 1 or 8 or 16. It always gave me 8 seq grids (horiz or vert). The issue came about in how SS saw the candy cane.. If you start from the bottom of cane #1 for example, that would be programming grid (PG) 1. This worked really well as you move up the cane until you get high enough to intersect the hook of the candy cane.

 

Imagine if you will a candy cane with 16 pixels starting with number 1 at the bottom of the cane and going up sequentually until you reach pixel 16 at the tip of the hook.

As I clicked in each PG starting with #1 I could verify the correct pixel lighting up.. This went well up the cane until pixel 10. Instead of being the pixel on top of pixel 9 it was lighting up pixel 16 at the tip of the hook.

I attribute this to the position of the pixel. As you move from the bottom of the cane upwards, pixel 16 of the hook falls between pixel 9 and 10 in the stick.

 

The PG count continues this back and forth until the last two pixels at the top of the curve of the hook.

 

Needless to say, I dont think this was the intention.

 

I did finally (at this time) remove the "superstart row=x column=y" from the comment field in visualizer.

When I import into SS taking only the defaults, I get 3 PG's

CC7,CC8

CC4,CC5,CC6

CC1,CC2,CC3

 

The above refences the order the PG is presented.

 

However, If I change the max pixels during import from 50 to 100, what I get is two groups of 4 canes.

CC5,CC6,CC7,CC8

CC1,CC2,CC3,CC4

 

and all of the pixels stay in order as the go up the cane, over the top and to the tip of the hook...

 

I would be happy to discuss what I'm seeing with you either by phone or email

and I would also be happy to supply my VIZ files, SS files and any screen shots that may help...

 

I will add that I may not fully understand how this works and it may be doing exactly what you designed and intended for it to do..

 

Bob

Edited January 29, 2013 by bob_moody

[BrianBruderer]

I think I understand what you are saying, but it would be easier to understand if you email the visualization file to me, email it to brian@superstarlights.com

The visualization file will end with .lee and will be at:

 

c:\ <your lightorama folder> \ Visualizations \ Editor

[BrianBruderer]

I got your visualization and it dawned on me that if you just reduce the Sequencing grid "Max Length" to 25 then only one candy cane fits on a row and you get 8 sequencing rows and the pixels of each candy cane are in order. I tried it with the visualization you sent me and it worked. Try it and confirm it is working the way you expect.

[bob_moody]

Dang... I wish I would have seen this last night .. now I have to wait until after work to try it out .. LOL ..

 

Thank you Brian .. I will try it out and get back to you...

 

Bob

[bob_moody]

Brian,

 

I opened SS

Import Visualzation

In the Sequencing Grid - Max Length, I set the value to 25. It popped up a dialog box that I had to enter a value between 50 and 200.

 

I am in the right place??

 

Bob

[BrianBruderer]

The most recent version is 3.9.0.0. Sounds like you have a version older than that. Go to the lightorama software download page and download the most recent version and then you can set a sequencing row smaller than 25.

[bob_moody]

I'm at  3.8.0.0

I'll go get the update ... and report back ..

 

Thanks again for all your help Brian ... I REALLY do appreciate it

 

Bob

Edited January 30, 2013 by bob_moody

[bob_moody]

Brian,

 

Download and installed 3.9.0

Imported the Visualization using the Sequencing Grid at 25 (WORKED!)

Then reimported and set the Sequencing Grid to Horizontal...

One word ... A W S O M E !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That is exactly what I wanted.

The only thing I may do is go back into the Vizualizer and reorder the pixels so #1 is at the end of the hook instead of the bottom .. then the grid would be pixel 16 at the top and pixel 1 at the bottom.

 

Thank you so very much .. this is exactly what i wanted to do and see ...

 

Bob

[redsea300]

Brian,

 

Download and installed 3.9.0

Imported the Visualization using the Sequencing Grid at 25 (WORKED!)

Then reimported and set the Sequencing Grid to Horizontal...

One word ... A W S O M E !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That is exactly what I wanted.

The only thing I may do is go back into the Vizualizer and reorder the pixels so #1 is at the end of the hook instead of the bottom .. then the grid would be pixel 16 at the top and pixel 1 at the bottom.

 

Thank you so very much .. this is exactly what i wanted to do and see ...

 

Bob

Are you willing to share your vile for the Candy Canes. I was thinking about doing the same. I was going to do 32 of them although. Didn't know where to start or if iy was going to be a lot of work to program. Your file will definatley answer my questions.

Thanks in advance

Don C.

Edited February 1, 2013 by redsea300