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Built-in Effects

Off

The Off effect simply turns every pixel off on the model/group that it is placed on.

This effect can be used in between other effects, to create a situation of a few seconds of “all lights off”, followed by effects coming on suddenly.

It can also be used on layers to adjust when an effect on another layer come on and goes off.

Prerequisite information: Colors & timing speed are ignored.

You can use fade in/out with off.

In some cases, when a controller does not turn off lights at the end of a sequence, place an off effect against an ‘All model’ group to force the lights off.

On

The On effect turns every pixel on for a given model/group

Prerequisite information: Only one color may be used with the ON effect. If multiple colors are chosen, only the first color selected will be used.

A start intensity of 0% and ending of 100% will result in a ramp up, opposed to an ON with hard edges.

Click on the "Shimmer" to get a shimmer effect.

Adjust

Used Canvas mode to offset channel values. Can be used to offset DMX channel values.

Adjustment

Bars

The Bars effect creates straight edged multiple color bars that move across a model. The edges may be hard, highlighted or 3D (soft).

Layering a On effect with a start intensity of 0% and ending of 100% will result in a ramp up, as opposed to an On effect with hard edges. Be sure to set the blending option of the On effect to “layer 1 is mask”. Make sure the cycle count is set to 1, and you have a color selected (doesn't matter which color since it's a mask).

Butterfly

The Butterfly effect creates seemingly random patterns of color swirling around, based on an initial set of parameters. This is very effective on a number of different types of models.

Butterfly style #2 generates radial patterns that look great on round models such as snowflakes, stars, globes, etc.

The effect can be repeated on the same model with different colors, directions or timings, using layers and offsetting the position on the model.

Candle

The Candle effect creates flickering effect that simulates a candle. The Color Palette is not used with this effect, it is always a orange to redish color.

Circles

The Circles effect creates solid sphere like objects that move seemingly in random fashion on a model.

Used most effectively on models such as a mega tree or a matrix. One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, than the circles will be made up of the selected colors.

Place the effect to initially span at least a few seconds. After placing the effect on the model, adjust the number of circles and the speed down until the circles can be seen moving around and then adjust upwards as required.

Place the Circles effect on a star and select the Radial option to obtain a nice looking effect.

Color Wash

The Color Wash effect creates a wash effect of the selected color or colors across the model. Can be effective if multiple colors are selected and the effect is used as a background effect.

One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, then the ColorWash will use the selected colors repeating the colors depending on the ‘count’ setting.

Curtain

The Curtain effect creates a color transition of one or more colors across the face of a model depicting a curtain opening or closing based on the options selected.

Used most effectively on models such as a mega tree, a matrix, whole house or grouped arches. Can also be used on singular items such as each arch.

You can use the curtain effect layered with any other effect as a mask to reveal the other effect.

DMX

The DMX effect is used to output a value between 0-255 to the model. Channel 1 in the DMX effect corresponds to the first channel of the model and up to 48 channels can be controlled.

Use a Single Line model for RGB nodes. As an example, 5 RGB nodes which will create 15 channels of data.

For Pan/Tilt head control movement, select the Use Ramps attribute and set it to a timing mark of say 10 seconds long. It will move the head for 10 seconds between the ramp values.

Remap DMX Channels

Remapping DMX Channels allows for channel data to be "swapped" or moved on a DMX Effect. This can be used if the DMX data from an imported model uses different channels. The data can be offset or scaled to fix issues with direction and rotational differences.

DMX Scaling Video https://youtu.be/tbT8DxhRag0

Duplicate

Copy Effect Data from another model. Each Individual Layer has to be "duplicated" to reproduce all the effects across two models.

Faces

The Faces effect is used by xLights to generate singing and talking face effects. It is used and placed on the sequencer as part of the Papagayo import functionality, if the target in xLights is a Coro face.

It is also used within xLights functionality to generate Singing Faces. The use of this effect is described in the section describing Singing Faces.

Color Pallet

The color pallet is used to determine the color of the signing face. If force custom colors is enabled in the model's face definition, the custom colors takes precedence and the color pallet will not change the effects color.

Fan

The Fan effect creates spiralling blade like objects that move around the model either clockwise or counterclockwise. Used most effectively on models such as a mega tree or a matrix.

One or many colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, then the blades of the fan will be made up of the selected colors.

Playing with the radius values i.e. making radius 2 less than radius 1 can provide some interesting effects.

You can create four Fan effects that each take up about one quadrant of your model (matrix/house) and have them all doing different thing with their arms blending at the edges. The four positions would be x25:y25, x25:y75, x75:y75, x75:y25.

Fire

The Fire effect creates an effect that appears as licks of flames. Used most effectively on models such as a mega tree or a matrix.

Fireworks

The Fireworks effect creates a fireworks type of effect of exploding lights in a burst. Used most effectively on models such as a mega tree or a matrix.

One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, then the lights in the explosion will be made up of the selected colors.

Add multiple layers of fireworks with different colors on each layer to get more explosions with multiple colors at the same time. Set different velocities and number of explosions on each layer.

Galaxy

The Galaxy effect creates a spiral like effect that expands around the model either clockwise or counterclockwise. Used most effectively on models such as a mega tree or a matrix.

One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, than the spiral will be made up of the selected colors.

Garlands

The Garlands effect creates an effect that simulates a circle of rings that drop on each other (depending on the direction of the effect).

One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, than the spheres will be made up of the selected different colors.

Glediator

The Glediator effect enables the import and use of an effect that has been created using the Glediator software into xLights. Glediator is a 3rd party application that can generate an unlimited number of effects. Once an effect has been created, it must be saved as a .GLED file.

Place the Glediator effect in on timing cells that you wish to have the effect on a model. Click on the filename prompt and browse and select the gladiator file.

You must configure Glediator to the X,Y dimensions of your model you wish to add effects to.

You may also use Jinx! to create effects. It will create a ‘.out’ file which can be used with this effect. There is no need to rename the saved output file to .gled to use with the Glediator effect. The Glediator effect now supports .GLED and .OUT files.

Guitar

Kaleidoscope

The Kaleidoscope Effect is a canvas mode effect. By itself it does nothing. It must be placed above another effect and it will modify the output. A Kaleidoscope will sample a section of the underlying effect and mirror it into a symmetrical pattern. A "Square" kaleidoscope type will use a square shaped sample area and a triangle type will use a triangle shaped area. The "Size" , "Center X", and "Center Y" determines the location/size of the sampling area.

Life

The Life effect simulates the Game of Life cellular automation model. One or multiple colors can be used for the effect.

From Wikipedia:

The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite, two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead, (or populated and unpopulated, respectively). Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by underpopulation.
Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overpopulation.
Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed; births and deaths occur simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick. Each generation is a pure function of the preceding one. The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.

Lightning

The Lightning effect generates a vertical lightning bolt type of effect. One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. White is always selected for the outer edge of the lightning bolt.

Lines

This is the Lines effect. It was inspired by the Mystify Screensaver in Windows.

Liquid

Marquee

The Marquee effect displays scrolling lines or bands of pixels around the edge of an model or from one end of a line to the other. One or multiple colors can be used for the effect. If multiple colors are selected, then the bands of the effect will be sequentially selected from the colors chosen.

Meteors

The Meteors effect generates a number of meteor like streaks of color.

Morph

The Morph effect creates a Movement across a model of one or many strands of lights with a head and tail. The Morph effect looks best on mega trees, arches and matrix models but is not limited to those models.

In the Color selection there can be from 1 to 8 colors used for the morph. The color selection is from left to right. If one color is selected the whole morph will be that color. If two colors are selected the Head will be set to the first selected color and the Tail with the second selected color.

If three colors are selected the Head will morph from color1 to color2 then will morph to Color 3. If more than 3 colors are selected then the tail will continue to morph from color3 to color4 to color 5 to color 6. Note if you only want the tail to morph then set color1 and color2 to the same color. If a color gradient color is used then the color morphing can be almost infinite.

A morph can start anywhere and end anywhere on a model. The starting and ending locations are specified by the X,Y coordinates on the Start/End tabs.

Open and use the Effect Assist window. The window will display a grid corresponding to the x,y start and end coordinates. If you then grab a slider for the morph effect and move it, the Effect Assist window shows exactly where the coordinate is being moved to, making it easier to determine what is being done to the effect. Double click to reset the coordinates to defaults.

Moving Head

Position Tab

Grid: The grid can be used to quickly change the Pan and Tilt values. You will see the slider update as you move. Pan: This will pan all selected heads. This also works as an offset to any other commands like Fan and a Path. Tilt: This will tilt all selected heads. This also works as an offset to any other commands like Fan and a Path. Fan Pan: This sets the number of degrees to fan each head in the pan direction. Fan Tilt: This sets the number of degrees to fan each head in the tilt direction. Groupings: Divides the selected heads into groups of 1 through 6. So if you have 8 heads with a grouping of 2 then the first 4 heads will fan and the second 4 heads will fan. Heads 1 and 5 will point the same direction and so on. Cycles: Change the motion speed of a head. Presets: Presets can be saved and an icon will be created to quickly recall those settings. It will try to draw a representation of the angle the heads are pointing and their colors.

Pathing Tab

Draw paths the same way as the Sketch effect. I had to make some improvements to allow a path to close properly. Scale: You can draw a circle and then use the Scale slider to make the head move in a smaller or larger circle. Time Offset: This will stagger each selected head so they aren't all in the same position on the path. Ignore Pan: Ignores the pan part of the path Ignore Tilt: Ignores the tilt part of the path Presets: Presets can be saved and an icon is generated that can be clicked to quickly recall the path settings.

Control Tab

Color Tab

Click anywhere in the color circle to select a color for all selected heads. You can click and drag the circle around to change the color. If you Shift-Left click you can define additional circles and a number appears inside the circle. Multiple circles will cause the effect to do a colorwash through the selected colors. Click a circle and press the delete key to remove one. The color bar at the bottom can be used to dial down the brightness of the selected color.

Pinwheel

The Pinwheel effect generates a rotating pinwheel arrangement or radial rays type of effect.

Ripple

The Ripple effect generates a ripple like spreading movement of color similar to when an object is dropped into water. One or multiple colors can be used for the effect.

State

The State effect is similar to the Faces effect, but enables you to have similar functionality for props that are not standard ‘Faces’ - such as Reindeer Coro faces, a seven segment FM ‘Tune to sign’ with a colon and a dot etc (image examples as below):

This effect is somewhat similar to the Faces effects i.e uses many of the same concepts.

However there are a number of differences and therefore this effect can be used when there are a number of ‘non standard’ elements that you wish to control. You can define upto 40 different combinations of channels to turn on and off (each combination via a state setting).

There are pre defined state values to support numbers and color options to cycle through or allocate specific colors to specific number digits.

Definition

Create a new Custom Model via the layout tab, named ‘Bruno’ (representing the reindeer image) for this example . Similar to other custom models, create or import the channel setup.

In a second example in this section , a custom model named ‘TuneTo’ has been created (representing the numbers in the Tune To image).

Then click on the State Property, to open up the State definition window.

Click on Add and specify a Name for the State (‘State1’ in this example). From the drop down box , select either Single Range or Node ranges.

You can specify upto 40 different combinations of states along with the channels to be turned on for each state. In the example , ‘wink’ will turn on channels 1,5 and 8 and ‘blink’ will turn on channels 1,2,5,and 8. For this type of effect, any words can be used - just ensure that the same words are used on the timing track and the matching nodes will be turned on.

To can define additional or different combinations by creating a new state definition (say State2) and having another set of upto 40 States defined.

The colors to be turned on, by default are sourced from the model properties, but you can force a specific color to be turned on by selecting the ‘Force Customs Colors’ option which then provides a column to specify the color.

Clicking in a cell in the Color column displays the color palette to pick a color.

Similar to other custom models, create or import the channel setup via the Mode Data attribute of the Model definition.

On the sequencer tab, drop the State effect against the Custom model (Bruno in this example).

Edit the timing track and enter the labels to match the state definitions. In this example, select the timing track ‘New Timing’ , create two timing bars (press lower case ‘t’ with the cursor in the waveform area), then double click on the white horizontal line between the two timing marks and enter the label text (eyesleft, eyesright etc) in the pop up window. Ensure that the text exactly matches one of the states defined.

In the Effects setting window, select ‘State1’ as the state definition, enable and select the Timing Track ‘New Timing’ as the source and select ‘Iterate’ as the Mode.

Similar to the way phonemes work on the Faces effect , this will cause the states ‘eyesleft’, ‘eyesright’ and ‘wink’ to be activated. Iterate causes it to loop around equally for the timespan duration selected for the effect.

You can create multiple Timing tracks and add labels to each track matching the defined states if required. You can also select a specific State to turn on instead of using the Timing track by checking the State attribute and selecting the State value (wink or another from the drop down list).

If you select ‘Default’ as the mode, then the selected states will be activated once (with equal duration).

The Color attribute has the following options:

Graduate will start from the first color selected and then transition to the next color.
Cycle will change color at the end of each timing mark.
Allocate will allocate a color to each state (‘eyesleft’, ‘eyesright’, ‘wink’) and turn that color on when that state is activated. The allocation depends on how many colors you have selected and how many states are defined.

Number is used (for number states) , to turn the matching number on to that color.

In the example of a 7 segment display below, each number has been created as a state and nodes assigned to it.

The ‘Countdown’ mode is used to Countdown from a specific number to zero. Specify the starting number in the label (if 123 was used in the example just above in this mode , then it would count down from 123 to zero).

The ‘Time Countdown’ mode is used to Countdown in seconds from a specific time until the effect duration runs out. Specify the starting time in the label (if 1.30 was used in the example just above in this mode , then it would count down from 1 minute 30 seconds).

In the 4 digit example, States 1 through 0 control the right most digit, States 00 to 90 control the second last digit from the right, 100 to 900 control the 3rd digit from the right and 1000 to 9000 control the first digit.

In the default mode, if you wish to turn on the number ‘123’, then you would specify ‘100,20,3’ (without quotes) in the label on the timing grid.

‘Colon’ and ‘Dot’ represent the colon and dot respectively.

These state names are predefined to work for a seven segment display. The nodes however can be assigned to each State/ Number as required.