house image for preview

[jnealand]

I am having problems getting an image of my house into the preview window.  I edited a photo of my house to 1280 x 695 pixels and then set my preview image size to those numbers.  After selecting my jpg image I get nothing.  The screen does turn white and there is an entry in the rgb_effects.xml file, but nothing shows up.  I have played with the brightness settings and I get nothing happening.  I need some clues as to how we are supposed to do this.  I think it will be important to have that image and have my models placed relatively accurate in the preview since I suspect that if I do not and apply a pinwheel or circles or bar\spiral sweeps that things are not going to line up good with the actual lights if the preview is not fairly close to the real iive position in the yard. and on the house.

[JonB256]

Jim, I think it is snowing. That is why your house is white.

[jnealand]

Not in Atlanta!!!!  And even when it does snow it is usually gone in 24 hours.  Sure glad I don't live up in Chicago area anymore.

[sean]

can you attach the image you are using so i can try it?

[jnealand]

Here is the image file.  Does the image have to be in the xlights show directory because I did not have it in there when I tried it?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[sean]

it works fine in my xlights.
pictures can be anywhere. your picture was locate din my C:\Users\sean\Pictures





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[jnealand]

This is what I get


[attachment deleted by admin]

[sean]

Maybe save as a png instead of a jpg. I don't know why it doesn't work for u

[drlucas]

One thought is the size of the picture, maybe save it as a smaller size and see if that makes any difference.

[jnealand]

I have tried this on a Win7 desktop, a Win7 laptop, and an XP desktop.  I originally tried a smaller version, but it only filled about 1/3 of the preview so I went back to the original which is huge and scaled it down to fit the window.  Strange that Sean can do it, but I can't.  But then Sean is a magician and I am just a retired techy.  No biggie, just a little concerned about the relative placement of objects in my preview when applying moving effects to the whole house image (like curtain, pinwheel, circles, spirals and most other things LOL).  I'll find out once I turn the lights on later this week.

[drlucas]

I just today started playing with the two new features of xlights...whole house model and the papagayo. I was able to after about 5 hours or effort get Let it Go mapped out in papagayo (i had a false start) and then now I just spent the last 2 hours building my whole house model and while it looks 1/2 decent on my screen, 1/2 the lights outside are the wrong freaking color.....and i thought I had fixed that problem too. SOOOOO maddening when RGB=GRB=GBR=BRG and a few other subsets of lights. I swear R/G/B were ALL correct yesterday but now on whole house model, it's not respecting it. I may get Sean to look at my xml file and see if it looks right - he is a magician

[sean]

My suggestion is to always build nutcracker models as rgb, do the rgb,bgt,.rtc ordering in your controllers. If you want models to "look" correct in preview have all your models start on a channel that is a multiple of 3. Btw, the lactual lights will be the correct color, only the preview is wrong if u don't have models starting a multiple of 3.

So in summary
1) all models are rgb
2) if u want preview colors to match, model start channel a multiple of 3
3) turn on first channel of each model using TEST tab, first light should be red. If it is not, change your controller setup

[drlucas]

I really think that third point is what I've been missing and why I'm having so many problems. This week I'll work on correcting all my start channels. I think what happened to me this year is I have a mix of last year and this year Ray Wu flex strips in my display and he changed things up between them and it is causing havoc for me.

My suggestion is to always build nutcracker models as rgb, do the rgb,bgt,.rtc ordering in your controllers. If you want models to "look" correct in preview have all your models start on a channel that is a multiple of 3. Btw, the lactual lights will be the correct color, only the preview is wrong if u don't have models starting a multiple of 3.

So in summary
1) all models are rgb
2) if u want preview colors to match, model start channel a multiple of 3
3) turn on first channel of each model using TEST tab, first light should be red. If it is not, change your controller setup

[jnealand]

I've just gone thru my whole pixel config on paper and figured out a new channel layout.  Tomorrow I will begin the update process for all my models in nutcracker and then this coming weekend I will reconfig all my hardware channels.  I used 1 as R, 2 as B, 3 as G and then always take my last channel and see if it will divide by 3 evenly.  I hope all that works, but I saved a copy of my xlights directory and renamed it as ver 1 so I can always go back if need be.   Also got rid of all my hybrid setup.

[sean]

again, let me state:
The only reason you have to start channels on 1,3,7 .etc. (The start channel when divided by 3 will have a .33333 fraction) is if you care about the colors in your preview being correct.

NUTCRACKER has two previews (F3,F4). It doesnt matter what channel you start model, they will display correctly.
Physical lights will show colors correctly no matter the start channel of models
PREVIEW will shift drawn colors if your models dont start on channels like 1,4,7,...