Help importing into xlights

[DILA]

I have finally jumped onto the xlights bandwagon and want to bring over parts of my old vixen sequences. My problem is that most of my props were 3 color, red white and blue. Megatree, wreaths, mini trees and arches. I thought I could use sub models to import the 3 colors, but I can't see a way to assign a default color to a submodel. Because of pixel costs I will still be running AC lights on renard and lynx boards connected to a kulp 16, but I really want to switch my wreaths and mini trees this year. Any ideas?

Bob

 

[TomL8345]

Go to the Xlights Zoom Room. Those guys are great and will walk you through the process while you share your screen.

 

[DILA]

That will work once I go to wallyworld and get a microphone and speakers.

thanks

Bob

 

[1pet2_9]

I got sold on to using States for default colors instead of Submodels. Now I use Face effects for props that are not even remotely faces, and check "Show Outline" and "Use State as Outline".

 

[DILA]

Click on your model and look for string properties bottom left.
View attachment 46103
The assign it the superstring property. You have click on the box to change it. That was confusing for me at first.
Once you have superstring, you can tell it how many colors your string has. Then you can tell it the colors of each superstring.

You could also make a single color model times 3 with slight offsets.

I tried superstrings and single color models, but I dont think it will work. It appears to let people use AC lights in xlights. As an example I have a pixel wreath, my old sequences contains a 3 channel led wreath of white, blue. red. I am trying to find a way to map those 3 colors onto a pixel wreath. I still want to be able to program the wreath with pixel colors and effects as well.

thanks

Bob

 

[1pet2_9]

Your pixel wreath might roughly resemble one of the predefined, downloadable models. In the Layout tab towards the right side, select "Create New Download", and create a Download element. It's going to ask you to select a model and there are a bunch of options, which you can select "Boscoyo Studios LLC->Christmas->Wreaths." None of those will perfectly map to your new pixel wreath, but once you've downloaded their model, you can edit it locally to your heart's content. If their wreath is 265 pixels and yours is only 50, no problem--just redo it. It'll take some work, but it'll get you there.

 

[1pet2_9]

I don't keep up with all the xLights news but I have not heard of a way to map discrete color sequences to pixels. I would think the best you could do is import into a "throwaway prop" and then replicate the scheme to your new pixel model. If you had red and blue on at the same time in your 3 channel wreath, what you would expect your pixel wreath to look like?

What mapping would you need? If your single-color line was blue, it would only turn on in Xlights if the effect was blue. If you move that same effect over to a pixel, the pixel would be blue. Your problem would be if you portrayed your blue line as, say, white in Xlights, but you didn't care that it was "wrong" (I do that sometimes). Then you would have to map all your white effects over to blue. Otherwise it's literally a matter of just hitting the up-and-down arrows in the Sequence tab and moving your effects over from your single-color props to your pixel props. I assume people who import other people's sequences do that often?

 

[DILA]

I don't keep up with all the xLights news but I have not heard of a way to map discrete color sequences to pixels. I would think the best you could do is import into a "throwaway prop" and then replicate the scheme to your new pixel model. If you had red and blue on at the same time in your 3 channel wreath, what you would expect your pixel wreath to look like?

Your question is my dilemma. In many of my sequences i have low level blue or red and overlay full on white to mark the beat, chase etc. As you suggest I am going to make approx 100 throwaway props so i can import and map. I will make 3 sub models each using a third of the pixels and use the submodels anywhere i have more than one color turned on at the same time. It wont be perfect but a good starting point.

thanks

Bob