My son and I have been running and growing a Christmas light show for 9 years using Vixen. We currently have a large display with >500 universes. In 2018, the show had some issues best described as wrong data being sent as if Vixen was lying about the start addresses. Neither of us could resolve the issue. In 2019, the show had become more unstable with wrong data being sent but all the addresses seem to check in Vixen. For example, images displayed in 2018 correctly on large P10 panel array were now upside down and displaced from the expected top left corner. I am looking to reprogram the show for the 2020 season and investigating using X-lights.
The display is a mixture of Renard 16 or 24 controllers, E682 San devices, and DMX lighting driven from a Raspberry Pie. I have looked at some of the tutorials and have a few questions. The use of pixel controllers and P10 panels arrays seems straightforward. I have started describing the pixel components in X-lights. However, when the LED light strings are connected to the Renard controllers, there are two issues I have and would appreciated guidance. First issue, the location of a specific LED light string is not always in the same position, season to season, within the controller. When I use Vixen, I had to map the locations of a specific object to a specific channel in the controller. How would I do this in X-lights?
In the tutorials, I see the use of the candy cane function creating a 24 output and then reduce to one dot to represent each light string. Second issue, in my current display, there would be >300 dots representing the LED light strings. Is there a text function or other means to label each dot as an object (tree1-1,tree1-2, ground light 1, wireframe 1, etc.) to give a more visual result, location or other representation for each dot? Without some identifier, it will be difficult to sort out the 300+ outputs of the 14 Renard controllers.
Any guidance or suggestions would be appreciated.
