settings when switching from incandescent to LED lights

[-bernard-]

Hi,

If you visit other forums, you may have seen this post... Just want to reach out here for additional exposure and suggestions.

This year I have eliminated all my incandescent lights and replaced them with Pro Grade LED lights from Creative Displays.

What adjustments (and how) should I make in Vixen 3 to accommodate how these new LED lights behave compare to the old incands? This question pertains particularly to dimming so I do not have to go back to each sequence and modified dimming effects , although there might be other reasons tweaking should be made. I currently do not have any special settings for my props and incands.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

 

[jeffu231]

I think it is overall going to depend on the lights you have and the look you desire. Pixels are not linear to the human eye like traditional incans so you will have to get used to that. You can accommodate for this with overall brightness and gamma with a dimming curve on the new pixel props. You can have a single dimming curve in front of color breakdown that controls the overall brightness and / or the gamma. This is the default when you add a dimming curve in the setup. I do this for all my props. I create a library curve specifically for that prop during the process so each pixel in the prop is controlled by the same dimming curve. There is a function generator in the dimming curve to create a gamma curve, or you can just leave it linear. Then you are free to experiment. If you want to adjust that prop, then just go into the library curve you created for that prop and adjust it. Then you can tweak them with relative ease and you have control over each prop independently. This works well to get the overall brightness / gamma to a baseline. Then you sequence with creative dimming for mood or flow of the music. Sequencing should not try to compensate for a prop that is overall too bright. That is too much work.

 

[RichieNorthcott]

As Jeff says, add dimming curves to your pixels in the controller display, link them to a curve library so you can update them globally. Personally I have one curve for all my LED props since they use the same LED type- I also use this to limit the max brightness to 40% which is plenty bright enough for my use case. Some pixel controllers offer this function onboard but I don't have this luxury! If you want your sequences to look more like the incans you might want to consider quick fades in/out in your sequences (again using curves) rather than simple on/off.

My function (based on the Vixen sample) is therefore Pow(x/100,2.2)*40 which gives more linear feeling dimming, and reduced max intensity.

Note (I think, unless this has been fixed) you need to restart VIxen to see the effect changing curves linked to pixel dimming curves.

Summary - most of the work can be done without touching sequences - but you might find some of the sequence effects a little harsh if you have hard on/offs. Depends on the feel you want.

 

[-bernard-]

Thanks Jeff and Richie for your input and interesting comments.
That gives me a starting point, and a better understanding on how to approach this.
I uploaded the formula suggested. I'll compare it with a straight 0 to 100 curve (or 0 to 40), and see if I can tell the difference.That's exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks again to both of you!

 

[RichieNorthcott]

That curve looks good. You should find the LEDs look very different dimming using this vs linear. BTW if ever get in a mess with dimming curves, the graphical view in the output configuration manual is a good way to check how everything is set up. Watch out for opening too many nodes at once though (tends to bog down the software).