Simple chase.

[jeffl]

Just a simple chase.  You choose maybe choose the effect to chase like a on, fade up, fade down. Then maybe have the ability to drag it back and forth to increase the time. I know there are other options that are very powerful but all I want is simple control.

Thanks

[RobertB]

+1 !
Last year in LOR I ended up making a type of "Dumb Strip" model (in LOR). From Xlights though I did use the copy and paste function that worked well. But the way I had it setup in LOR, it was so I could transfer over all of my incan light chases from my mega tree. Many I worked really hard on timing and just didn't care for any "effects" on the tree but a simple chase or such. Worked... but with several exceptions. Having a simple chase would DEFINITELY clean up parts of my sequences from last year!  Several that I really won't have time to "redo" with the xlights effects.
So chases would be great!

[jnealand]

What is wrong with single strand, spirals, and bars?  They all work fine for chases.

[Gilrock]

Yeah I really don't know what a simple chase means.  What should it chase across?  Are we talking groups of A/C channels?  Nodes in a single model?  Nothing is simple cause every one of you would probably want that simple chase to work different.  How wide, how tall, how much space in between, how many colors, which direction, what rate, fade in, fade out, fade in the middle.  And I think all of that can be accomplished with the SingleStrand effect.  Once you learn what it does I'd say its pretty simple.  And if you are talking about a chase across multiple models with the On effect you can already do that.  Just drag select a column of cells and hit the "o" key to drop On effects on every model then alt-grab the edge of the group and drag out a chase.  You just gotta hang out on our forum and facebook and you'll learn to be a pro at it.

[Lights On Fifth]

Yeah I really don't know what a simple chase means.  What should it chase across?  Are we talking groups of A/C channels?  Nodes in a single model?  Nothing is simple cause every one of you would probably want that simple chase to work different.  How wide, how tall, how much space in between, how many colors, which direction, what rate, fade in, fade out, fade in the middle.  And I think all of that can be accomplished with the SingleStrand effect.  Once you learn what it does I'd say its pretty simple.  And if you are talking about a chase across multiple models with the On effect you can already do that.  Just drag select a column of cells and hit the "o" key to drop On effects on every model then alt-grab the edge of the group and drag out a chase. You just gotta hang out on our forum and facebook and you'll learn to be a pro at it.

Where is the like button 

[RobertB]

Too many places to keep up with!!!! ;-)
Ok. Cool feature. But not quite doing what I would expect it to do. So I put some timing marks down at 1/2 sec increments. I selected all the columns in my 24 string model in 0.0 to .5 . Turned them on RED by hitting the "o" key (cool shortcut).  I went down to 24th string and grabbed the right grab bar. They shifted over (another cool feature). Took them out to 5 seconds.  This is where I would like to see something a little different.  It would shove the end string (24) past the 5 second mark. Yeah. I could go and delete it, but that kind of lessens the speed of it or the steepness of it (?).  In other words, in LOR I could tell it, do a chase between this timing mark and that one. It would adjust the chase or duration of that string being turned on to the timing parms. In other words, it may not be on for that whole timing mark. This is not the best video, but it is one I did before the pixel tree that had some pretty specific chases;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4rLjYsDCSU

Now with the above example, it left the first 6 strings in place and did not move them. Even when I tried to move them out to 10 seconds... it did not move them.

[flyinverted]

Robert B

I enjoyed watching your sequences  online last year.  There are 10+ ways to get similar effects with Nutcracker, each having their own pros and cons.

For your 24 column string model, I would create a "Model Group".   From there I would learn the Morph effect and apply the effect to the model group instead of each strand.   By using the stagger option in morph, you end up with a chase like look because the effect starts just a little bit "staggered" just as a chase does. Different term for the same output. With morph you'll be able to set skips. You can skip every other strand and have the strands light up in a chase like pattern left to right while at the same time, the chase is starting right to left on the opposite set of strands.

You can also apply the fan or pinwheel to that model group. I would move the Y point to the top (far end) of your model and see what effects you can get.

By apply these effects to the model group the simplicity becomes apparent once you test.

Cheers,
Steve

[RobertB]

Cool Steve,
I will have to give this a try.
Thanks!

[jeffl]

I think the confusion is how people maybe think with a model vs a single node.  I'm just wanting to select x number of nodes (cells) top to bottom, hit o for ramp down and then some other key for a chase.  I tried the morph and couldn't get it to work.  I watched a 20 minute video on how to use it and still didn't get it.  I also tried the alt drag but most times I couldn't get it to drag.  I'm going to keep trying though.  I have too many RGB nodes to leave them dark.

[Gilrock]

The main problem is everyone learned how to sequence using nodes and then now are trying to apply those same principles when they have 1000's of nodes and it's not realistic to sequence that way anymore.  If you sequence at the node level then your sequences will never scale as you make model changes in your display.  You really need to learn to sequence at the model level.

[danj]

Gil has hit the nail on the head.  I too have to "embrace" the models vs nodes thinking....
Thanks for that recommendation!!   I am currently trying to setup some little chases timed to specific pieces of music and this will help me in that quest.  I will back away from individual (on/off one color AC) mini trees and go "up to" model groups of mini trees....  We are ALL learning how to capitalize on the VAST amount of things XL/NC can do for us!!!

THANKS AGAIN to Gil, Dan, Sean for what you are doing with this AWESOME software!!

[Gilrock]

One thing that can be confusing is if you use model groups because the internal model defined to hold the group is usually larger than the group so effects don't always react the way you expect.  For instance if you make a group containing models that are all on the right side of the layout screen and then put a morph sweeping right you will not see the morph until it gets 50% of the way across because it's moving across the internal representation.  You can fix that by moving the starting X position over until it starts right away but you gotta understand how it works to know what to do.  I really don't like the way that's working so we've discussed having other options when creating the model groups.  As usual the issue is once we put something out there we usually have to maintain backwards compatibility.

[jeffl]

I think that was my issue.  I had a custom model of a candy cane with 25 single nodes and was trying to make the them chase up and down.

[Gilrock]

A custom model should be fine.  Just make sure you define the size so there's no extra blank space at the edges.

[danj]

Gil--would the method you described above work for a set of AC minitrees?   I have a model group of six minitrees and I have set the morph effect but not really getting any movement...    So I tried a pinwheel--varied a bunch of parameters and got what I wanted.   Is that the best way to go in this case?

Edit--I tried "twinkle"--even better than pinwheel for what I am trying to do.  Not a chase, but I am trying to "catch" really fast beats and the twinkle effect is even better than I was originally trying to do.

Thanks!!!!!