[Marquee] How to specify order of models/pixels in a group?

[Henry]

Can someone help me understand what configuration I need to change to get expected results?

The lights and models are all setup, and test correctly.  But, when grouped, having trouble getting marquee effect to work across the group correctly.

Simplified setup for question:

Imagine a roofline split into four adjacent 50-pixel lines.

• L2 is the far left model
• L1 is center-left model
• R1 is center-right model
• R2 is on the far right model
• Controller LC controls L1 & L2 (in that order, single output)
• Controller RC controls R1 & R2 (in that order, single output)
• Controller LC is universe 1, channels 1-300.
• Controller RC is universe 2, channels 1-300.
• Group "roofline" contains all four groups

In other words, the controllers are in the center, each controlling a single output of 100 pixels, which is split into multiple models each (the roofline has gaps).

I can get the "Marquee" effect to mostly work as expected, by setting the render mode to "single strand mode" for the group (or explicitly on the effect instance).  The colors lights chase at the specified size, etc. and smoothly transition between models L1 & L2, and between models R1 & R2.

The only trouble is, the illusion of movement is either converging on the controllers, or starting at the controllers.  Essentially, "single strand" mode results in ordering of U1 channels 1-300, followed by U2 channels 1-300.

However, the expectation / desired result is a single seamless marquee effect; Essentially, I want the group to be defined as U1 channels 300 decreasing to channel 1, followed by U2 channels 1..300.

I can specify the order of the models in the group, but without the ability to reverse the order of one controller's pixels (in single strand rendering), just ordering the models makes the problem worse.

I would think this would be simple, but am having trouble finding the right configuration options.  I can't easily change the physical layout of the pixels, but am happy to reconfigure the models / groups as needed.

Can you help me understand my options here?

(happy to provide additional info, examples, pictures, etc. ... please just ask)

Thanks!

[keithsw1111]

Short of playing with reverse options in the controller options on the strings which are causing you issues I dont think there is a way to do this with groups.

Have you considered building a shadow model which should work if you just want all the channels in order?

[Henry]

Short of playing with reverse options in the controller options on the strings which are causing you issues I dont think there is a way to do this with groups.

That's unfortunate, as ESPixelStick firmware doesn't appear to expose the ability to reverse the string in firmware.  Even if it exposed the option, I'm not entirely sure it has the extra CPU overhead to reverse the bytes.  Still I am grateful for the answer.

Have you considered building a shadow model which should work if you just want all the channels in order?

I would prefer as much processing occur on the PC during creation, so this sounds like a good possibility.  Can you help me understand how I'd setup the shadow model?  Is there a way to adjust the definition of the models directly?  Even if I have to write a macro to re-create the four models directly in XML and outside xLights, such that they will always be "backwards" (running {N, N-1, N-2, ... 1}), this would be OK.

Thanks again!

[keithsw1111]

Shadow models are just models mapped onto the same channels. With custom models you can put the nodes in any order and you can cut and paste from excel.

[Henry]

Shadow models are just models mapped onto the same channels. With custom models you can put the nodes in any order and you can cut and paste from excel.

Awesome!  I will look for information on custom models in the docs.  Excel will make generating the sequences easy.  Thank you for the pointer ... I will dig into custom models to see if they'll work for me here.  Again, thanks for the helpful pointer.

[Henry]

With custom models you can put the nodes in any order and you can cut and paste from excel.

Keithsw1111, thank you again.  Creating custom models (one per distinct count of pixels for now) worked to allow the effects to smoothly play out in a single direction.   

Might not have found this before 2021 without your help, so thank you again for the pointer.