Nutcracker: new effect, butterfly wing

[smeighan]

I came across this equation that simulates the color on a butterfly wing.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ButterflyFunction.html



So , you now have a new effect. I am going to fix the shift going from maximum strands to strand 1. This causes the break in the pattern.
The RADIAN_SHIFT parameter is how much each frame the colors are shifted. I found values between .05 and .1 are good. The higher the number the fater the shift across the tree.


username f
user_target ZZ_ZZ
effect_class butterfly
effect_name FLY1
window_degrees 180
start_color #FFFFFF
end_color #FFFFFF
frame_delay 50
sparkles
seq_duration 5
radian_shift .05
submit Submit Form to create your effect

[jimswinder]

WOW!!!!

It's the 60's all over again...

LED

the drug of choice for the 2012 hippies...

peace out!!


Attached files

[jimswinder]

where's the "Peace Sign" effect?!?!?! lol

[smeighan]

jimswinder wrote:

where's the "Peace Sign" effect?!?!?!  lol

Lol, Jim;

here are a couple of examples of how the radian shift effects the speed of the animation


If you increase the radian shift, you get faster color movement

_POST
username f
user_target ZZ_ZZ
effect_class butterfly
effect_name BUTTERFLY2
window_degrees 180
frame_delay 50
sparkles
seq_duration 5
radian_shift .3
submit Submit Form to create your effect



And if your show has heavy metal, try a radian shift of 1.0

[dougd]

Well this effect is the final straw. I am ordering my pixels tommorow. Your killing me smeighan

I want to keep the tree within 4 universes, ie.. 1 681 board. Which configuration do you think would work best. 32 pixels high using 20 strings or 24 pixels high using 24 strings? I might even use it just as halh a tree to give more dense pixel coverage.

Anyone else know what there RGB mega tree configuraion is looking like. I am really not concerned how high the tree is, my favorite tree this past year was 6 foot tall.

[smeighan]

dougd wrote:

Well this effect is the final straw. I am ordering my pixels tommorow. Your killing me smeighan

I want to keep the tree within 4 universes, ie.. 1 681 board. Which configuration do you think would work best. 32 pixels high using 20 strings or 24 pixels high using 24 strings? I might even use it just as halh a tree to give more dense pixel coverage.

Anyone else know what there RGB mega tree configuraion is looking like. I am really not concerned how high the tree is, my favorite tree this past year was 6 foot tall.

I plan on making a half mega tree so i can maximize the strand density.

The idea of the target modeler was to try a half dozen configurations and see what looks best.

The more strings, the higher the tree.

I am thinking of 8 strings, 100 pixels each. 3" spacing between pixels and a UP/DOWN NEXT configuration and a half mega tree means.

In the traget modeler, select 16 strings of 100 pixels (Always give the total to fill a tree, later you select the window size of 180 degrees and it only activates half of the strings). Topology UP/DOWN NEXT

So each strand is 50 pixels or 150". The height of the tree is there around 13'. I will have 16 strands on the front of the tree.

[jimswinder]

I wish I knew more about pixels and what I need to buy...

so far I am leaning toward the CCB's...

since I am "pixel challenged"...

[smeighan]

jimswinder wrote:

I wish I knew more about pixels and what I need to buy...

so far I am leaning toward the CCB's...

since I am "pixel challenged"...   
 

I am building a little tool for myself that will be a configurator for megatrees. Maybe I will release it

[ItsMeBobO]

This effect is great and more like the kind I am looking for.
The output of it is fixed mixed colors. Are you able to capture and output the fade values?

[smeighan]

Sean - - I don't think you truly realize what your tool means to everyone even "sort of" thinking of getting pixels - you've not only made it mind numbingly simple but also free. Even a basic Madrix license costs $500 and one to get to a good number of pixels is closer to $1500. I knew Madrix was out so I for one was resigned to generating simple chases' date=' etc with my new tree - but now that has completely changed.

I'm sure quite a few of us would be more (and I mean MORE) than happy to kick in a few bucks to support you - better/faster web hosts, better PC, etc[/quote']

Thanks for the support. I will put a pay pal donate if anyone wants to kick in a few bucks to offset some of my costs. It is NOT needed and the tool will stay free.

I have released a new verdsion of the butterfly effect.

Now you can define the color range that the butterfly wing will have.

Set START and END color to #FFFFFF and you will get the entire color spectrum.

Here are some examples of using a smaller color band.

_POST
username f
user_target ZZ_ZZ
effect_class butterfly
effect_name BUTTERFLY4
window_degrees 180
frame_delay 50
sparkles 0
seq_duration 5
radian_shift .1
start_color #FF0313
end_color #0505FF
submit Submit Form to create your effect




_POST
username f
user_target ZZ_ZZ
effect_class butterfly
effect_name BUTTERFLY5
window_degrees 180
frame_delay 50
sparkles 0
seq_duration 5
radian_shift .1
start_color #3D3D3D
end_color #D6FFE0
submit Submit Form to create your effect


Be aware that my animated gif's only use 256 colors. This causes banding on the animations, that should not be true on our actual trees.

thanks

[smeighan]

ItsMeBobO wrote:

This effect is great and more like the kind I am looking for.
The output of it is fixed mixed colors. Are you able to capture and output the fade values?

I am not sue what u mean by fade values?
Each pixel in this sequence has a certain HSV value, the next frame that HSV changes slightly. But in LOR terms during the 50ms , for example, time quantum a pixel starts and ends with the same HSV. The next frame it then has another 50ms chunk.



A place where i was thinking of using fade was on the Meteor effect class. In that, a Pixel starts at one intensity and then the next pixel is 15% less. I think it would be smoother if I start a Pixel at 100% intensity and end at 85%, start next pixel at 85 and end at 70% and so on. In other words, build a smooth ramp.

I will be making these kind of tweaks throught the summer as i crisp up the effects.

Some of my effects are not going all the way to the last strand. This causes a one strand blank band. Those are also on the list of cleaning up. I wanted to get effects close enough for people to play with them , try them. I still expect by June we will have a stable Beta release.

[Donny M. Carter]

Sean, will the effects generated for S2 work in S3?

[smeighan]

Donny M. Carter wrote:

Sean, will the effects generated for S2 work in S3?

The question should be does S3 load an S2 LMS file?

If S3 has its own format file, then i need to create a make_lors3.php module.

If , you are asking about the effects i generate, they are in a generic form that is good for every sequencer as long as I have a make_xxx.php module.

This is the flow of the nutcracker.

1) Answer questions in a form and create a target model ASCII file. For example, MTREE.dat
2) Answer questions in an effect class and apply it to a target. If I am doing a butterfly and I call it FLY22 then the output will be called MTREE+FLY22.dat. This file is the ultimate output from the Nutcracker. It is generic , in that the pixels and strands have been normalized.
3) Animation is applied, now the file names get a frame number MTREE+FLY22_f1.dat, MTREE+FLY22_f1.dat ...
MTREE+FLY22_f80.dat for the butterfly effect since i make 80 frames.

3) The make_lor.php code reads these 80 dat frames, and transpose Nutcracker normalized strand and pixels back into your physical strings and pixels. It now can produce output to whatever sequencer i have written.

Maybe, more to the point is can LOR S3 read an LOR S2 lcb file? I think that is where we probably want to go.

[Donny M. Carter]

I guess what I wanted to know is can I use the effects generated for S2 in S3 since the S3 generator is not yet complete. For some reason, I'm still having trouble getting the effects to show up in a sequence. No doubt it's me! I will figure it out soon enough!! Thanks Sean!
Donny

[doug petschke]

Well you might as well have posted this in chineese because I have no frickin clue on what the heck a formula has to do with lor ...... or even how you seem to program this in.. but it is a kick butt effect.

[ItsMeBobO]

smeighan wrote:

ItsMeBobO wrote:

This effect is great and more like the kind I am looking for.
The output of it is fixed mixed colors. Are you able to capture and output the fade values?

I am not sue what u mean by fade values?
Each pixel in this sequence has a certain HSV value, the next frame that HSV changes slightly. But in LOR terms during the 50ms , for example, time quantum a pixel starts and ends with the same HSV. The next frame it then has another 50ms chunk.



A place where i was thinking of using fade was on the Meteor effect class. In that, a Pixel starts at one intensity and then the next pixel is 15% less. I think it would be smoother if I start a Pixel at 100% intensity and end at 85%, start next pixel at 85 and end at 70% and so on. In other words, build a smooth ramp.

I will be making these kind of tweaks throught the summer as i crisp up the effects.

Some of my effects are not going all the way to the last strand. This causes a one strand blank band. Those are also on the list of cleaning up. I wanted to get effects close enough for people to play with them , try them. I still expect by June we will have a stable Beta release.

The LOR fade or ramp xml looks like this.

It would be preferable from a network perspective to send a single command instead of 7.

Single intensity 100 85 70 55 or fade 100-85 85-70 70-55 could both be replaced with 100-55 presuming the movement is linear.
The fade ability of sequencers is valuable for smoothness. NC generated effects can be slowed down to sync with beats in SE so will become choppy if only time cell static values are used.

[Donny M. Carter]

When I try and open a saved lms file it says "the channel group is already in the RGB channel" and then it's just blank. What in the world am I doing wrong? Thanks!
Donny

[llewis]

That's so gorgeous!! Love the effect.

[jimswinder]

smeighan wrote:

SOOOOOOOOOOOO many great 60's rock songs I can use with this!!!!

And ONE in particular!!!! :cool:


Attached files

[jimswinder]

smeighan wrote:

SOOOOOOOOOOOO many great 60's rock songs I can use with this!!!!

And ONE in particular!!!! :cool:


Attached files