Icicle Sequencing

[laserman]

I am adding icicles to my display this year.  I am going to have a 16 node icicle every 3 inches along all front eaves and gables. Each gable or eave section is run from a separate Falcon output and universe.  I can't seem to figure out how to "connect" all of these universes together so text will scroll all the way from one side of the house to the other.  I have them all in a group but all that does is make each section start the text at the same time. I am sure this is an easy problem to solve but so far I am failing.  By the way, I also want to be able to treat each section independently too so I can apply effects to one section at a time.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Brightlights]

I do not have icicles from my eves they are small panels with 4 rows of pixel lights but this is what Keith told me to try. It worked for me.
If you create a group and use stacked horizontal as the buffer style I think it will give you what you are looking for.


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[jnealand]

Laserman
How long are those 16 node icicles?  I bought 7 node icicles last year and they hang down so low that they can interfere with effects on other props on the house or in my case they were also way to low over the garage door area.

[Gilrock]

Need more info.  Post a pic of your icicle models.  You can do the entire house of icicles with a single PolyLine model.

[jnealand]

Brightlights you are poaching on lasermans post.  You need to start your own thread.

[laserman]

My icicles will be 22”long.  I am making them myself from 12V, 30 pixels/meter, RGB led strips which means the leds are 1.25” apart. I am comfortable with the length because I want the icicles to be a prominent feature, not just an accent.  As I said in my initial post, I want to scroll text across the icicles.  You can’t do that with 4 pixel icicles.
I am using the built-in XLights icicle model.  I have eleven defined icicles, each covering an eave or gable, running left to right across the front of my house.  Each icicle model is defined with 1 string, a drop pattern of 16, and assorted nodes/string (i.e., 160, 640, 640, 160,  480, 416, 320, 320, 160, 240, 240) for a total of  3776 nodes/pixels (236 icicles).  The 11 icicle models are placed in a single group.  The group has the layout mode set to “horizontal stack”.  I have the “Max Grid Size” set to its maximum value of 2000, but I have no idea what this setting is for so I would appreciate an explanation on that.  The start channel of each icicle is correctly linked to the last channel of the previous icicle model.
When I assign an effect to individual icicles they each work fine, including scrolling text.  However, when I apply the text effect to the Group folder, I get random, meaningless, flickers across all of the icicles with no hint of scrolling.
Hopefully this additional information will help you experts figure out what I am doing wrong because I am certainly stumped.

[Gilrock]

Groups don't work well for Text.  Like I said you could have drawn all your Icicles with the PolyLine model using the drop pattern parameter.  I added that feature so that you didn't need to break Icicles into multiple models when it turned a corner.  See how I have this entire roof line done with a single PolyLine model using icicle drops in the attached photo.

[laserman]

Gilrock...Thank You! You were right (of course).  The polygon model solved the problem.  I didn't realize the model has those "embedded" features.  That is one of the problems (good problem) with such a feature rich program like Xlights. It can do everything except walk the dog but it is difficult to know those features exist.

On a related note.  There are certain things the polygon model can't do that the icicle model can.  Is there a way to assign nodes to two separate models if only one model is used at a given time in the sequence?

[Gilrock]

On a related note.  There are certain things the polygon model can't do that the icicle model can. Is there a way to assign nodes to two separate models if only one model is used at a given time in the sequence?

Well clue me in.  What can the icicle model do that the PolyLine model can't?

You can assign nodes however you like so I really don't get the question.  With the PolyLine you can sequence any "segment" of the PolyLine at the strand level or you can create sub-models with any node ordering you want.  I don't think you can find something the Icicle model can do that PolyLine can't unless there is a render style available in one and not the other but there is still a way to work around that also.