singing face with pixel strings

[steelth]

I am new to xlights this year as I have been using vixen 3 the past 2 years.
I have a singing monster face made up of 4 pixel strings each 89 pixels in length.
What is the best way to create a model and sequence the face? I have watched the tutorials on the coro faces and matrix faces but neither applies to my situation.

Thanks

[flyinverted]

Page 55 on the latest user manual covers this.

The manual is at the top of the releases page.

http://nutcracker123.com/nutcracker/releases/

[steelth]

Please forgive my ignorance.  I have gone through the manual and videos and I still stuck.

The coro face is for single 'dumb' strips for each facial position.
My face is made up of individual pixels, some of which are used in multiple mouth position.
So i figure the best way to create the model is with a custom model and then use the node ranges on the faces menu.  I have defined which pixels turn on for each mouth movement.
Here is where I get stuck.
When I go to sequence and and the face model and expand it all I get listed is node 1-356
How do i group the nodes in the 'names' panel to open eyes, closed eyes ect.

thanks

[steelth]

I understand I could have the bottom eyes node 1, top eyes as node 2
etc. as outlined by the coro face tutorial but then i lose the ability to control the individual pixels.
Is there a way to group node 1-18 in to the bottom eyes.  Therefore I would be able to apply an effect to the bottom eyes i could do this instead of controlling all the bottom eye pixels as a single node?

[Gilrock]

The problem is you sound like you want to sequence the face manually.  The video and user manual are trying to teach you how to sequence them in a more automatic way.  The idea is you drop down the phrases and break them down into words and phonemes and then when you create your face definitions you drop the faces effect and map it to a timing track with the phonemes and it will automatically control your face. You use the multi-node option for control groups of pixels with this method.  If you want to manually activate the face then the face definitions you found I believe can only be used by manually selecting the phoneme each time you place the faces effect.

[babybear]

Ok I understand what you are trying to do. Let me ask this is the face just an outline or is it filled in with pixels as mine is, see pix below. Because mine is filled in and I'm using the same nodes for mouth positions and face color in different emotions I have had to create several models and then make preset effects for each emotion. Then you start to learn preset effects you cannot save any effect bigger than you can grab with in one screen. For me that's 34 expanded nodes.

[babybear]

Gil if you look at my moose the face option will only let you do one color per emotions. like the mouth O shape I would light white but the rest of the mouth shapes would need to be green.  I have a total of 31 nodes for all mouth positions.  O uses 3 so the rest need to green to fill in the face.

[Gilrock]

All I can do is tell you to learn what tools we have in the xLights toolbox then you can get creative with how to use them.  If you want to separate those different parts into different colors then why not just use multiple layers with multiple faces effects and each layer can point to a different face configuration.

[steelth]

Work smarter not harder is my motto and I understand automating phonemes.
If there is a particularly long or strenuous 'O' phoneme that I wanted to twinkle or shimmer the longer the note is held is there a way to do this?  If the 'O' phoneme is controlled as a single node i could change colors which would affect the entire 'O' mouth as a whole but I would not be able to apply the twinkle effect to individual pixels.
I was wondering if there was a way to group pixels 1-20 ,for example, under the 'O'mouth and then on the sequencer I would be able to apply the twinkle effect to these pixels 1-20 (channels 1-60).

[dkulp]

Hmmm...  If we flip the rendering to render the "outline" first and then the mouth movements, then you could put all the mouth nodes into the outline range.   They would be "green" with the rest of the background and then the mouth movement would change the appropriate nodes to whatever color they should be.   

[babybear]

so what you're saying what is rendered last will over write all others. this  is nothing I can change or see where I can.   the other thing I see there are 13 face expressions, 1 main face color, 2 for eyes the rest for the mouths. would be nice for user defined ones. I have 5 states just for the eyes.  I guess I could steal some mouths for eyes. But the whole thing is based on the rendering order. 

[babybear]

let me ask, am I the odd one out, back lighting coro? I will have 2 candles, 3 snow flakes, 2 faces, 12 gift boxes plus my Tune to sign.

[babybear]

Ok I think I get what you saying. Do 2 models, 1 for the head proper and second for the mouth movements. Setup the Mouth model using faces option and set all the movements. Then put the 2 models in the proper order for rendering. that way the head proper goes first (drawn) and the mouth papagayo will go over (over write) the head colors where needed. For what I want I would just have to do 3 models because I want a minimum of 5 eye options, now only three.   This way I can use the lyric track. The head proper model would go below the Mouth model. If I'm getting it right. Rendering starts at the bottom and goes up.

[Gilrock]

Layers within a model render bottom to top.  Models on the grid render top to bottom in the order you have them defined in the sequence (a.k.a. the Master view).

[logandc99]

let me ask, am I the odd one out, back lighting coro? I will have 2 candles, 3 snow flakes, 2 faces, 12 gift boxes plus my Tune to sign.

People are backlighting coro for things like candy canes, bells, stars etc, it's just that not many are doing singing faces that way. When I made Olaf two years ago using the backlit method (and then my singing tree later) I first had him singing in LSP. Last year I converted Olaf over to xlights but I didn't use the automated Phonemes method as I never quite got around to working how to do it that way.
Anyway, Olaf is made using one long continuous string of rectangular pixels making up the parts of the head, mouth, eyes, nose etc.
In Xlights, I made models for the eyes, nose, body, feet and head. In the head, as the pixels were one long joined up continuous string, they snaked in and out of various parts of Olaf's head. So whilst it was easy to make one model for each eye and one for the nose, the head was made up of various sections that were separated by the eyes and nose and mouth  -  called "lower head", "upper head", "head between eyes" and "rest of head". Those individual sections of the head could be combined into one model group called "head".
For the mouth I divided the mouth parts into sections O, W, E, Ah to mimic the mouth movements. However, because of the backlighting, when the mouth was fully open (Ah sound) I needed all the parts of the mouth to turn from white to blue to make it look like he opened his mouth. So  I made a model group called Olaf Ah which contained all the other mouth models. The E group was made up of models O, W and E. The W group consisted of O and W and the O group just O.(see pic below models expanded).
I then arranged the mouth groups so that the AH group was at the top and O group at the bottom. Whatever mouth sound I wanted showing up as blue, I would turn on blue. So since xlights renders from top down, if I wanted an O sound, then O would be on blue and AH would be white. If I wanted the W sound I would turn W onto blue and the Ah on white. If I wanted the Ah sound, then just turn Ah blue as it contains all the mouth parts.
See pic models collapsed)
Hope this makes sense.