Fading twinkle possible?

[DownTown]

Is there a way to fade a twinkle in S2? Been looking, and I can't find an easy way... the only thing I can think of is to SIMULATE a twinkle, and then do a forground fade... Am I missing a trick, or is it just not there yet?

Thanks a lot.

D.T.

[Anthony in Houston]

You can do a fadding twinkle by setting up a long fade and turning off every other cell. If you increase the time segments the twinkle will be better.

Anthony

[LightORamaDan]

DownTown wrote:

Is there a way to fade a twinkle in S2? Been looking, and I can't find an easy way... the only thing I can think of is to SIMULATE a twinkle, and then do a forground fade... Am I missing a trick, or is it just not there yet?

Thanks a lot.

D.T.

It will be an enhancement that will be out for this season but it is not in the current version.

[DownTown]

Thanks Dan. I was hoping that I was missing something, but expected that I would not find what I was looking for...

D.T.

[DanglinModifiers]

LightORamaDan wrote:

It will be an enhancement that will be out for this season but it is not in the current version.

Dan,

Is this part of the aforementioned protocol upgrade, or simply a software enhancement?

-Steve

[LightORamaDan]

DanglinModifiers wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

It will be an enhancement that will be out for this season but it is not in the current version.

Dan,

Is this part of the aforementioned protocol upgrade, or simply a software enhancement?

-Steve

Hi Steve,

This will require changes both in the controller firmware and in the software. It may or may not be attached to a protocol upgrade depending on scheduling. Some new features do not require a significant protocol change and these lighting effects fall into that catagory.

Dan

[DanglinModifiers]

Sounds like an exciting summer ahead!!

[Guest wbottomley]

Anthony in Houston wrote:

You can do a fadding twinkle by setting up a long fade and turning off every other cell. If you increase the time segments the twinkle will be better.

Anthony

This method works well until there's a fix. I've been doing it for the past two years.

[DownTown]

Mountainwxman wrote:

Anthony in Houston wrote:

You can do a fadding twinkle by setting up a long fade and turning off every other cell. If you increase the time segments the twinkle will be better.

Anthony

This method works well until there's a fix. I've been doing it for the past two years.

The "turning off every other cell" method is far too regular for my kind of twinkle. Thanks for the suggestion though.



D.T.

[bob]

The "turning off every other cell" method is far too regular for my kind of twinkle. Thanks for the suggestion though.

You could turn on the toggle tool and randomly toggle a bunch of groups of cells. Not just a cell at a time - click-drag the mouse over a whole range of cells, then another, then another, sometimes overlapping with other ranges that you toggled before. Just go wild - click-drag click-drag click-drag, really fast.

The result of that will be a bunch of cells that are pretty randomly on or off. Next, click on "Foreground Effects", and "Fade Up" (or "Fade Down"), and select the entire range.

That will result in a bunch of cells that are, overall, fading up or down, but randomly turning off at various points while doing so. That is, something like a fading twinkle.

[DownTown]

Thanks Bob, that's what I ended up doing, though is exactly what I was trying to avoid, and posed the question in the first place.. It was a lot of channels (176) at the end of a song, with .05 timing and a 4.3 second fade. 20x176x4.3=15136 boxes to "randomly" click on and off...

Thanks for the suggestion though.

D.T.

[DownTown]

Sorry -Double post

[bob]

Thanks Bob, that's what I ended up doing, though is exactly what I was trying to avoid, and posed the question in the first place.. It was a lot of channels (176) at the end of a song, with .05 timing and a 4.3 second fade. 20x176x4.3=15136 boxes to "randomly" click on and off...

After randomizing a fair number of them using the method described, you could copy a large block, and paste it a bunch of times to a bunch of potentially overlapping places. Then copy another large block (containing portions of several of the areas that you just posted), and paste that a bunch of times to a bunch of potentially overlapping places. Maybe do the toggle thing some more to randomize a bit more, then back to copying and pasting large blocks to random spots. Rinse and repeat.

I bet it would go significantly faster this way, and would look just as random (as long as you didn't paste in a very methodical way).

[DownTown]

bob wrote:

Thanks Bob, that's what I ended up doing, though is exactly what I was trying to avoid, and posed the question in the first place.. It was a lot of channels (176) at the end of a song, with .05 timing and a 4.3 second fade. 20x176x4.3=15136 boxes to "randomly" click on and off...

After randomizing a fair number of them using the method described, you could copy a large block, and paste it a bunch of times to a bunch of potentially overlapping places. Then copy another large block (containing portions of several of the areas that you just posted), and paste that a bunch of times to a bunch of potentially overlapping places. Maybe do the toggle thing some more to randomize a bit more, then back to copying and pasting large blocks to random spots. Rinse and repeat.

I bet it would go significantly faster this way, and would look just as random (as long as you didn't paste in a very methodical way).

Bob - great idea, especially the use of the toggle. Are you privy to the algorithm used to determine the on-off cycles of the twinkle function? I would be interested in knowing how the frequency/duration of those cycles are determined.

Thanks a lot.

D.T.

[bob]

Sorry, I don't know twinkle's on/off algorithm. I'll ask around.