Simulating Strobes in Preview

[joco]

I am using strobes in my display this year. However, I am wondering how I can simulate the strobe effect in preview?

Anyone ever done anything like this?

[jimswinder]

If you are speaking about having it show up in the visualizer, I just use a single pixel...

[-klb-]

I draw them in some color I never use, like pink, so it is really clear that strobes are on.

[joco]

Yes I understand how you draw them. What I meant is how do you simulate them flashing at random in the visualizer?

[jimswinder]

joco wrote:

Yes I understand how you draw them. What I meant is how do you simulate them flashing at random in the visualizer?

you would have to add that "randomness" within the sequencer yourself

[joco]

Yea thats what I thought... which if you add the randomness then that would ne different then how you would need to program that string.

I was hoping there was a better way.

Joe

[George Simmons]

I have about 70 "ghost" channels I use for visualizing strobes. I call them ghost channels because they appear in my sequences but have no controllers/circuits assigned to them - they exist for no other purpose than to help me visualize the strobes. In my case, I use a four-pixel square to simulate a strobe - I found that one pixel didn't stand out enough for my taste.

Programming those channels is actually pretty simple - I use the twinkle command for the length of time the strobes are supposed to fire. Looks just fine...

[Surfing4Dough]

I would make sure you are going to use "ghost" channels if you end up twinkling them (rather than the actual strobe channels) since I would worry about accidentally forgetting to change them back to 100% on at some point and then damaging the actual strobes.

[-klb-]

I don't personally expect the visualizer to be more than an approximation, even when I do detailed drawings of the basic lights. I personally prefer to have pink side bars show up when the actual strobe circuits are on, rather than wonder if I actually put twinkle in phantom channels everywhere the strobe circuits are on and of course the reverse.

And there are other things, like 5 channel DMX LED light bars that even the RGB channels won't fully cover. For example, you can have RGB all at 255, and if that 4th channel is zero, you get zero light... Or if that 5th channel is more than 10, you get a strobe effect... So those are other examples beyond strobes that the visualizer still does not do well. So I still use 5 different channels in the visualizer, and mentally map to the actual effect that will be displayed.