Straight Line Spirals

[Viper2B]

I downloaded the latest version of xLights yesterday.  When I opened one of my sequences and tried to modify a spiral, it changed from a "barber pole" to something that looked more like the top half of a "fan".  After playing around with all the new adjustments, I got back to what looked like the old spiral except that the bands of color are straight (in the older version the bands curved).  I'd like to get the curve back because I think it makes the spiral motion look better.  Any suggestions?

[garyh]

Click on your spirals in the timeline, then check your Spiral Wraps setting in the Effects Settings window.  If it is 0 then it will be straight up and down, 2.3 looks nice to my eyes.

[Dave Nibeck]

Is there a backup prior to the change?

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[Viper2B]

Dave N. - No back-up for this particular song but other songs still retain the old (curved) version of the spiral.  As long as I don't try to modify them (as in changing the speed), they stay curved.

garyh - I upgraded to 2016.5 and in it, 2.3 is still nearly vertical.  I have to go all the way to 30.0 to get close to a barber pole look; the bands are straight at any point between 0 and 30. 

[Gilrock]

Post your xlights_rgbeffects.xml file and a sequence with the problem Spiral and there are a 100 people here that can fix it.

[Viper2B]

Okay, here are the files.  Thanks for looking into this.

[Gilrock]

The fseq file is not your sequence that's your raw data.  The xml file is the sequence.  But I used your xlights_rgbeffects.xml file and dropped a Spirals effect on Megatree1 and it looked normal.

[Viper2B]

Sorry, newbie mistake.  Here's the xml file

[Ebuechner]

I think I just ran into the same problem. I figured out how to fix my problem I deleted the spirals from my sequence that were acting up close down Xlights restarted it and then reapplied the spirals. In my case it looks like the spirals couldn't be mapped to the model correctly the colors were all out of place and almost vertical. If this happens again I'll try to be aware of what led up to it so maybe it can be recreated.

[Ebuechner]

Okay I think I got it.
I clicked on something that I had the layer setting set to per preview before I applied the spiral. So there you go folks I think that's what happened layer setting was set to per preview.

[Gilrock]

Viper I think the problem is you created a model group called "Mega Tree" and it only contains 1 model "Mega Tree1" and you are putting all your effects on the model group.  That is not a good way to sequence a mega tree.  It serves no purpose to put it in a model group by itself.  You should move all the effect directly onto the "Mega Tree1" model and delete that model group.

[Phrog30]

Gil, I've noticed that as well. I have a megatree and I noticed some effects render differently depending on if they are placed on the model or if that model is in a group. Sometimes they can be kinda cool looking.

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[Gilrock]

Well just think about how a model group is created.  Its basically a grid laid down on top of the model in the Layout screen and then you sample where the pixels land in the grid.  The size of the model group determines the sampling resolution.  So see the sketch I drew.  The top of that tree in a model group might only have 3 pixels because that's where the top pixels of the 5 strands would land.

[Gilrock]

A normal tree model would be represented internally as if all the columns are perfectly straight and then we just draw them tilted for the preview.

[Phrog30]

Thanks for the info Gil. I saw that behavior playing with the sub buffers and saw exactly what you described.

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