Transistion to a shimer

[james campbell]

try this arnold and see if this is what you want,used Jeff's idea

Attached files arnold shimmer.las

[bob]

If I'm understanding the request correctly, there's no built-in way to do it today, but you might be able to get something like the effect you want by playing around with the following technique:

http://www.lightorama.com/bobpublic/SimulatedDualShimmer.swf

Basically, the idea is this:

(1) Use a very small timing grid (I used 0.02 seconds)

(2) Alternate cells on and off, to make a sort of simulated shimmer effect

(3) Use the Foreground Fade Down tool to turn that into a sort of simulated fading down shimmer

(4) Use the Background Custom Fade Up Shimmer tool to intersperse an actual fading up shimmer with that simulated fading down shimmer

If you're going to try this, I would suggest playing around with it while your actual lights are hooked up, so that you can really see what it will look like. Play around with the speed of the simulated shimmer, the slopes of both fades, et cetera, until you get something that you like.

[Arnoldc]

Jeff Millard wrote:

I tried all of these ideas... and spent about 4 hours making small changes to the one I made... and they all fail miserably. That's not to say it can't be done, just that I can't do it. Somewhere in this thread Arnold made a suggestion, and I tbelieve it equated to placing two strings of lights together on two channels... One full on and slowly fade, while the other ramps up a shimmer. TI tried it and it works. Getting the intensity of the two to fade up/down at the same time can be tweaked until it works pretty good. I like the whole effect now that I've actually tried it. It's kinda like someone strummed a guitar string. After viewing Dan's attempt, I added a shimmer fade at the end... It's a pretty neat effect.

My suggestion to the programming crew is twofold... First, there needs to be a selection in the fixed timing grid for 0.0166666666666667 or 1/60th of a second. (There's no possible way it would work unless the sequence was timed to synch to zero cross) You could get close but without z/c synch the blackout/flash would be more defined and would last longer. Rather than an uneven shimmer that randomly flashes, there would be long blackouts as the timing rolled by zero. It's sort of like a camera strobing slow moving thick black lines when you record a TV. The other, give the option to start a twinkle or shimmer fade from 0% or 100%. Much easier approach I think...

Jeff

I agree with Jeff. And I thank all of you for helping out with this.. It does give a pretty cool effect. The problem is I don't have more channels to spare this year.. Now next.. i will defiantly add this.. Or, I wonder how it will work with 2 different colors... hmmm yeah I will play with it this week!

Once again, Thanks to everyone for helping!

Arnold