Problem Defining Matrix with 3 Pixie controllers

[stevehoyt]

@k6ccc @MattBrown And others

I am trying to repurpose 3 controllers and 2600 square pixels into one large matrix. I finally got it built yesterday and am having some problems. 

The first issue is defining it. The matrix itself is 1 inch spacing. It is 65 pixels wide by 40 pixels high.

I built it and defined / was contained by  what I had...2 5 volt pixie 16's and 1 12 volt pixie 8.

It is comprised of / defined

on the left side  2 pixie 16's with 50 nodes per port top is 1 going down for 32 strings  i.e. 50 x 32

on the right side I have 15 additional pixels wide by 40 pixels down. This built using 150 nodes on 4 ports each string folded 9 times. i.e. 15 x 10  times 4

finally to fill the  empty 8 rows on the bottom left  I have an additional 4 strings of 100 each folded 1 time i.e. 50 x 8

In the preview I defined 3 matrixes

1 32 X50  1 15 X 40

1 8 x 50. 

So far so good. I then created a group to merge them into one. All are defined with arrangement "use preview"

During construction and basic testing, I saw issues with rows and columns being a bit off. No amount of moving the 3 matrixes, around in the preview fixed it.  

Now that it is built, I can see the effects more markedly. Pictures and shapes are off a bit, at the seams where the matrixes meet. Not physically they are all 1 inch, but rather when placed on top of the Prop group. None of the arrangements on the individual matrix fixes it

I am at the point where I feel the only way to get it right is to build a "custom matrix"

So Questions are:

1) would you agree I need a custom matrix. Can anyone suggest a better way to define it. 

2) I started to try and build a custom prop this morning, and am confused. I sort of get the idea of the advanced layout but putting in 2600 pixels by hand is scary and I am not sure how to setup the controllers. I vaguely remember seeing something about it can be done on a spreadsheet and imported. Is this possible?

3) The help info is a bit lacking on this for me. Can anyone outline or steer me to a place that tells me how to build this.

Thanks

PS 

The different white colors of the LEDS has also turned out to be more significant than expected. All the primary colors are fine. On to that after getting the effects to look right.

 

[MattBrown]

This will require 2 groups.

1) Create a group "Matrix left" that contains the 32x50 and 8x50 matrices - arrangement should be vertical stack. Group size should be 40x50.

2) Create a group "Matrix full" that contains "Matrix left" and the 15x40 matrix - arrangement should be horizontal stack. Group size should be 40x65.

 

[stevehoyt]

@MattBrown

Thanks for the tip. I just did some testing and it fixed the problem on the actual displays outside.

AND it was an easy fix.

The rendering in the preview window did not change however. It is still skewed. I can live with it but was wondering if there was an easy way to fix that.

I have moved the props around a bit in the preview but not too much.

Thanks

Steve

[MattBrown]

It should look ok in the preview if you get the 3 matrices aligned and sized so they look like a 40x65 matrix. Zooming in can help with this. Format > Align is also helpful. Because the 3 matrices are each different sizes it will take some trial and error.

[Box on Rails]

I have done this but I did not use Vertical Stack arrangement in my Group. I selected the Use Preview Arrangement in the group with the Resolution on High. That worked with out any skew issues. 

[MattBrown]

4 hours ago, Box on Rails said:

I have done this but I did not use Vertical Stack arrangement in my Group. I selected the Use Preview Arrangement in the group with the Resolution on High. That worked with out any skew issues. 

Not sure why you wouldn't use Vertical Stack. The Preview arrangement takes longer to calculate, especially with Resolution on high, and it is less precise.

[Box on Rails]

3 hours ago, MattBrown said:

Not sure why you wouldn't use Vertical Stack. The Preview arrangement takes longer to calculate, especially with Resolution on high, and it is less precise.

So how exactly does the vertical stack arrangement, differ from Preview arrangement? When I have used the vertical or horizontal stack on certain props and groups some of the horizonal and vertical Motion effects don't out put as they do in a Preview arrangement.  Like With the LOR RGB plus preview. The 8 arches side by side. they have a horizontal stack arrangement. when I use the Bar effect left or right it works great. Then I want an effect with the bars going up or down and I don't get the bar effect going up or down. Most of the time I get nothing. When I sequence the 8 arch group I can not get the effects I want that are up or down to work. One effect I like to use is the Curtain effect of up or down and even chase up or Chase down. These effects do not work in the 8 arch group unless I change the Horizontal stack arrangement to preview arrangement. I have not tried any other arrangement other then Use Preview because it works for what I want. Since you stated that the Use Preview arrangement take longer to calculate I am wondering if some of my lag is due to the use of the Use Preview arrangement on high res in all my prop groups. your thoughts would be very welcome. In the meantime I'm gonna try changing one of my previews to have vertical stack on the matrix group and see what happens.

Thanks Matt

Kenny Jure

 

[Jeremiah Ackermann]

Not to bring up the past, but this thread sounded way too familiar to these past threads. At that time I also recommended to use the stack options and not "Use Preview" option. The Use Preview option is best reserved for whole house effects or other areas where stacking wont work (Ex: Icicles on a roof gable and you want to do a curtain effect on those). The "Use Preview" option is going to create a lot of dead space in that gable example, so its less efficient but to my knowledge is the only way to setup a group that lets me do a curtain from bottom to top or vice versa based on the physical location of the icicles. 

With matrices, you are always dealing with square/rectangle boxes which are very ideal for the stack options. You get the exact dimensions needed, no extra dead space. And then you can line them up as need in the group definition when combining multiple together. However, in the first thread, I did notice an issue with the effect not being rendered on the motion effect row as I would expect (at least in the effect generator, I didn't thoroughly test out preview and other effects). The is issue is likely because the one matrix had used a custom top placement in the group definition. I haven't checked the 6.2.16 version to see if it works any better.
 

 

[Jeremiah Ackermann]

17 hours ago, Box on Rails said:

The 8 arches side by side. they have a horizontal stack arrangement. when I use the Bar effect left or right it works great. Then I want an effect with the bars going up or down and I don't get the bar effect going up or down. Most of the time I get nothing

This can be a good reason to "Use Preview". I think the main problem is understanding how a "prop" is rendered with effects (some may call this the prop's buffer) and its physical shape. The two can be very different, and an arch is an example of that.

With an arch, the software models it as if its a single line (easy to see that when you open the motion effect row editor). Because its a line with height of 1, up/down effects don't work well but left/right works great when the arches are put in a group. When the arch is sequenced by itself, I believe it accommodates for this automatically.  But when its part of a group, its not and thus you can end up needing the "Use Preview" option. This arch example is similar to my roof gable icicles example in my previous post.

But let's say you wanted to chase each of the 8 arches, doing a vertical stack arrangement lets you achieve that easily.

[Box on Rails]

20 hours ago, Jeremiah Ackermann said:

This can be a good reason to "Use Preview". I think the main problem is understanding how a "prop" is rendered with effects (some may call this the prop's buffer) and its physical shape. The two can be very different, and an arch is an example of that.

With an arch, the software models it as if its a single line (easy to see that when you open the motion effect row editor). Because its a line with height of 1, up/down effects don't work well but left/right works great when the arches are put in a group. When the arch is sequenced by itself, I believe it accommodates for this automatically.  But when its part of a group, its not and thus you can end up needing the "Use Preview" option. This arch example is similar to my roof gable icicles example in my previous post.

But let's say you wanted to chase each of the 8 arches, doing a vertical stack arrangement lets you achieve that easily.

This is true.

I did some tests on my matrix groups and the vertical stack seem to work the same as Use preview arrangement. So for 2024 I will be editing some of my Large groups into using a vertical or horizontal stack arrangement to see if the effects are adequate and if lower processing time helps with lag. I'm sure there is more to be reveled here.