Solution for fade-in fade-out time of non-static functions
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:54 pm
Hi!
QLC+ has a serious limitation when you have to smoothly fade-in or fade-out a running function (chaser, RGBMatrix or sequence) into a chaser: The times you enter into the chaser are passed to every step of the running function.
This is not the expected behavior: When for example you have a function blinking a light at 1 hertz and want to fade-in this effect in 10s, you expect to be able to have its intensity fading-in in 10 seconds, not to have a 10 seconds fade-in before every blink... As they are spaced 1s, your light will dim-up to 10% every second... Similar problem with fade-out...
The only way to have a chaser or a RGBMatrix fade as expected into a cue list is to use the manual crossfade... this works as expected... But you don't expect to take your stopwatch and try to move these cursors at the right speed manually.
The way to have this work is to use a loopback to control the crossfade: You have to create a dimmer into a universe with loopback output, create a scene with the dimmer @full and one @0%, create a chaser with the same number of steps as the one you're trying to dim, and alternate the steps at 100% and 0% with the corresponding fade-in times. Then you link the loopback input of your real universe to the right crossfade dimmer of your real cue list. This is the simple way if you can link the crossfade and have the same fade-out and fade-in time.
The same idea can be used if you need different cross-fade times but it is more complex as you need a second dimmer for the 2nd crossfade slider, and each step must be controlled by a collection of functions with the corresponding fade-in/fade/out times... You can even simulate the 'wait' time of traditional sequencers but I don't even want to try this for the typical 40-60 effects of a theater play...
I haven't lurked at the code for the moment, but I can imagine that it might be a hard work to have the timer work as expected...
But this present 'feature' of QLC+ is a serious limitation for it's use wherever you need smooth transitions between non-static functions.
EDIT: I made some new tests and this solution does not work for chasers with fade-in fade-out time or 'gradient' RGBMatrixes... Even if fade-out is Ok, they don't fade-in properly with the crossfader...
Or maybe someone has a better solution?
QLC+ has a serious limitation when you have to smoothly fade-in or fade-out a running function (chaser, RGBMatrix or sequence) into a chaser: The times you enter into the chaser are passed to every step of the running function.
This is not the expected behavior: When for example you have a function blinking a light at 1 hertz and want to fade-in this effect in 10s, you expect to be able to have its intensity fading-in in 10 seconds, not to have a 10 seconds fade-in before every blink... As they are spaced 1s, your light will dim-up to 10% every second... Similar problem with fade-out...
The only way to have a chaser or a RGBMatrix fade as expected into a cue list is to use the manual crossfade... this works as expected... But you don't expect to take your stopwatch and try to move these cursors at the right speed manually.
The way to have this work is to use a loopback to control the crossfade: You have to create a dimmer into a universe with loopback output, create a scene with the dimmer @full and one @0%, create a chaser with the same number of steps as the one you're trying to dim, and alternate the steps at 100% and 0% with the corresponding fade-in times. Then you link the loopback input of your real universe to the right crossfade dimmer of your real cue list. This is the simple way if you can link the crossfade and have the same fade-out and fade-in time.
The same idea can be used if you need different cross-fade times but it is more complex as you need a second dimmer for the 2nd crossfade slider, and each step must be controlled by a collection of functions with the corresponding fade-in/fade/out times... You can even simulate the 'wait' time of traditional sequencers but I don't even want to try this for the typical 40-60 effects of a theater play...
I haven't lurked at the code for the moment, but I can imagine that it might be a hard work to have the timer work as expected...
But this present 'feature' of QLC+ is a serious limitation for it's use wherever you need smooth transitions between non-static functions.
EDIT: I made some new tests and this solution does not work for chasers with fade-in fade-out time or 'gradient' RGBMatrixes... Even if fade-out is Ok, they don't fade-in properly with the crossfader...
Or maybe someone has a better solution?