Sean Meighan
Welcome => Do You Need Help? Post it here => Topic started by: Grillhappy on June 30, 2015, 04:31:53 PM
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I am auditioning light Effects in Nutcracker 4 and have made some really cool ones for my Matrixes. Within each of the Effects, I am amazed by what I can do with just a few clicks of the mouse. How do I save these special Effects so I can use them in succeeding sequences?
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Highlight the cells of the effects you wish to save. Then right click>Effect Presets>NewPreset and give it a name that's meaningful to you. I like to use names that describe the effect like GarlandFillsButterly GRW(green red white)
Tutorial here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdi8MRSsufk&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdi8MRSsufk&feature=youtu.be)
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Just what I was looking for. Thanks.
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Are there any Effect Galleries that others have made, so we can share our coolest Effects Presets?
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We can use the Show Assets sub-forum here. That would be a good place. You can just post all or part of your xlights_rgbeffects.xml file.
http://nutcracker123.com/forum/index.php?board=20.0 (http://nutcracker123.com/forum/index.php?board=20.0)
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So...I added some Effect Presets and hit Save. Then, after I closed XLights 4 and reopened the software, my Effects were not there. How do I save them so there are available to me time after time?
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Can you make a video of you saving an effect, closing NC and opening NC and have the effect gone?
Use a cell phone if you have to. Screencast-o-matic is free.
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Looking closer, I guess the only SAVING buttons I see in XLights 4 are to used to save the Sequence or the Perspective. How do you keep from losing your Effect Settings when you exit and enter XLights 4? I'd anticipated that when you selected OK on the Effect Presets button, the Effect would be saved.
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You can look at the xlights_rgbeffects.xml file for the "<Effects>" section and see if you see any presets in there. It should have save that file immediately. With have like 15 actions that save that file in the program without you knowing about it. I found that if the save crashes it trashes that file so the last release I started saving a copy as xlight_rgbeffects_backup.xml before we save any modifications.
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Grill, as I go back and create an effect, it becomes apparent there isn't a SAVE button for the effect, but when you hit OK after giving the effect a name that is what writes the effect to the rgbeffects.xml file, essentially saving it.
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Thanks, guys. Yep, the effects I previously saved are indeed in the .xml file.
How do I go about retrieving them if they don't appear in the Effect Presets box in XLights4? I hope you are all at the Christmas Expo in two weeks so I can shake your hand and meet you personally. Within the past couple of months I've become acquainted to both LOR and XLights/Nutcracker and all the other programs. The learning curve is steep but I've made great progress. This year, I'm graduating from the Mr. Christmas stuff and off the shelf animated lights to LOR sequencing and XLights RGB sequencing this Christmas. It's been a great ride so far!
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I went to the .xml file directory and tried to import the rgbeffects.xml file I needed, and hit OPEN, but nothing happened. If the files are in the .xml directory, how did I lose them from my xlights program in the first place?
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Can you attach your xlights_rgbeffects.xml? We only need the <effects> section like shown below if you want to trim it down and not reveal your secret models.
<effects version="0004">
<effectGroup name="Favorites">
<effect name="Twinkle Pastels" settings="XYZ" version="0004"/>
</effectGroup>
</effects>
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Sure.
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As you can tell, I do not have many of these. I want to make sure I can recover them before I really go to work making more Effects to save.
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I am still not retrieving my Effects settings and I'm still looking for help on this. Thanks to you all who have responded.
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So apparently the preset code isn't working right if you don't have the presets inside a group. You created all of yours at the top level. I edited your XML to create a group and now they show up. So always add them inside a group until we get that fixed.
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Thanks so much, Gil. I downloaded your file and now I see my effects in xLights. I am just learning about .XML files, so I will study your model and use your group idea. I'm sure that in the upcoming weeks I'll learn much more about this. Now I can begin saving my Effects. I hope to see you at Christmas Expo.
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Well, this Newbie is stumped again. Now that I can see the Effects I saved, how do I incorporate them into my Sequence? I have the morph on the sequence screen, but how do I then apply one of my morph presets to it?
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Gil, I dug around and found this Post you wrote earlier in June and I was able to make it work for me. I just had to set the destination, NOT add a Morph first. Highlighting the Effect preset, then selecting APPLY PRESET brought my saved Preset to life. And your UPDATE an existing Preset (in this case, a Morph) works also. Thanks again, Gil, for all your help!
FROM A POST GIL WROTE EARLIER: I wrote the Effect Preset code while on vacation so there is no training video. Any old 3.6 videos won't help much because it works different now. To create a Preset you select the effects you want in your preset the exact same way as you would to do a Copy. Then click New Preset and name it. To use a Preset click in the grid to set a destination just like you would to do a Paste and then hit Apply Preset. If you select some effects and hit Update Preset it will modify the currently selected Preset. Think of it like this. Presets use the Copy/Paste logic underneath so you are basically doing a Copy/Paste but have the ability to save it for later.
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Thanks so much, Gil. I downloaded your file and now I see my effects in xLights. I am just learning about .XML files, so I will study your model and use your group idea. I'm sure that in the upcoming weeks I'll learn much more about this. Now I can begin saving my Effects. I hope to see you at Christmas Expo.
You don't need to do manual editing to create groups. There's a button for it.
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I saw that.