• State Suggested Answer
  • Date
    aaronfessler
  • Date
  • Replies 6 replies
  • Answers 1 answer
  • Subscribers 185 subscribers
  • Views 3722 views
  • Users 0 members are here

How to design a "flashbulb" effect

I am trying to figure out how to do a particular effect. I have a bank of LED strip lights. When I add the effect to a cue, I want random selected fixtures to do whatever they were doing, PLUS briefly strobe white.

I tried just writing an effect using the strobe parameter, but when I do that the fixtures are either randomly off or strobing white. But I don't want them OFF at all when the underlying cue is running; I want them always inherit color and intensity from whatever the underlying cue is.

Put another way, if they are all in blue 50%, when I turn the effect on I want them to alternate randomly between cue color and intensity and strobe white. So it sort of looks like flashbulbs.

Any ideas?

Parents
  • 0

    Make an absolute effect with Step 1 being a preset that takes color to NC and intensity to Full, and Step 2 being "Background."  Then just futz with the timing and fixture selection order until you get what you're looking for.

    I usually find that for those kinds of effects, it's best to not select all the fixtures, so some never strobe, and you have a little more negative space.

    -Jason

  • 0 in reply to Jason1032

    I had a chance to try this, but I could not quite make it work.

    (To clarify, I have 16 RGBA strip lights arranged, each on a separate channel.)

    I created an absolute effect. Step 1 was duration 1, on=100%, off=0%, parameters were Intensity + white. Step 2 was a background.

    Where I got stuck was that it simply flashed the whole array between the background color and white. All 16 fixtures were assigned to each step. How exactly do I make it so that they work randomly? I don't have any effect grouping functions for step-based arrays. The order in which I selected the fixtures didn't make a difference.

Reply
  • 0 in reply to Jason1032

    I had a chance to try this, but I could not quite make it work.

    (To clarify, I have 16 RGBA strip lights arranged, each on a separate channel.)

    I created an absolute effect. Step 1 was duration 1, on=100%, off=0%, parameters were Intensity + white. Step 2 was a background.

    Where I got stuck was that it simply flashed the whole array between the background color and white. All 16 fixtures were assigned to each step. How exactly do I make it so that they work randomly? I don't have any effect grouping functions for step-based arrays. The order in which I selected the fixtures didn't make a difference.

Children
  • 0 in reply to aaronfessler

    If you are doing a STEP EFFECT you'll want to make a separate step for each fixture.  So that's 16 steps each with 1 channel in it.    Make the On state your 100% and the Off state the Background - Like so

    You can choose the "Random Group" attribute to randomize the order - or place the lights in a random order in the steps themselves.   With STEP EFFECTS the channel selection is built into the effect.  It can't be separated.

    You could also use an ABSOLUTE EFFECT - which is a slightly different technique.   With absolute effects you can create randomness with the order selection of the channels.  Each channel will perform the 2 steps in the effect based on the Order selection, Grouping and Trail of the effect.

     

Related

www.etcconnect.com