Q Light Controller+

Hello,

I am working on a simple lighting setup using two strips of RGBW LED with WLED drivers(2m each 60LED/m). I am controlling them with E1.31 over Wifi and have broken the fill strips into 3 segments each(In QLC+ not WLED). To do this I have defined 6 LED Matrix fixtures of 40 LED each.

What I would like to do is have a number of color and pattern configurations that I can run across the LEDS. Simple things like static, flash, left right, top bottom, bottom->middle->top loop, and a zig-zag patterns. I would also like to have some color patterns as well (red>green, etc)

I was hopping to not have to make #colors*#patterns sequences, so my idea was to make a mask sequence for each pattern and then a sequence for each color loop. My idea was to define the color sequences and then the patterns as masks. So I would be able to activate a color sequence and then a mask pattern to define the effect.

The issue that I am running into is the relating to the how the masks are applied. Firstly, I can not really get the mask mode to work for anything except the Strobe. I was able to have some success using Blending Mode Subtract with White color. I think the issue is related to the fact that I am using collections to define the masks and colors. I exported the PlainColor RGB Matrix to a scene, and then I combine these scenes into collections to define colors across multiple segments. (Example: Left is a collection of Left-1, Left-2, Left-3). This issue is mostly solvable when using static colors.

The second issue is with cycling colors. When I create a sequence of colors, with fade in and out times, the mask gets deactivated when the colors change. I think this is due to the Matrix layering that is mentioned in this post https://forum.qlcplus.org/viewtopic.php?t=11619

Lastly I would like to be able to apply a fade out time to the masks, however this does not work because the mask for the second step in the pattern overrides the fade out and just turns the LED's off.

Finally my question is if I am going down the wrong path with this mask idea. Are they really designed to be used with sequences or is it best left to static scenes (ie. colored text like from the docs). Should I just learn the scripting process to create all of the colored sequences instead?

Thanks,
James

I partially figured some of these things out.

1. When creating an RGBMatrix Mask the Mask setting eliminates pixels that are not activated in the pattern. (I assumed the pattern would be the mask) This means that with the pattern Plain Color with Blend Mode Mask no pixels will be masked because all are activated.

2. There is some sort of bug with the Collections. Creating a collection with Plain Color RGB Matrix and a RGBMatrix Masks works as expected. However a Collection with a sub-collection of RGBMatrixes does not have the mask applied. Somehow the the sub collection does not get flattened or something, not sure how it works in the background.

hindenboat wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 11:58 am 2. There is some sort of bug with the Collections. Creating a collection with Plain Color RGB Matrix and a RGBMatrix Masks works as expected. However a Collection with a sub-collection of RGBMatrixes does not have the mask applied. Somehow the the sub collection does not get flattened or something, not sure how it works in the background.

The order in which the collection has been set up is essential. A collection always takes steps one through ... , and in that order. If you want to build a layered setup, consider this limitation.

GGGss wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 9:17 am

hindenboat wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 11:58 am 2. There is some sort of bug with the Collections. Creating a collection with Plain Color RGB Matrix and a RGBMatrix Masks works as expected. However a Collection with a sub-collection of RGBMatrixes does not have the mask applied. Somehow the the sub collection does not get flattened or something, not sure how it works in the background.

The order in which the collection has been set up is essential. A collection always takes steps one through ... , and in that order. If you want to build a layered setup, consider this limitation.

Yeah I know this and I had to do some digging in the forum to figure out how to get the masks to work in collections. The two cases that I tested are the following

Case 1:
Collection 1
- RGB Matrix-Segment-1-Red (Solid Color)
-RGB Matrix-Segment-2-Red (Solid Color)
Collection 2
- Collection 1
- RGB Matrix -Lines-Mask (This is applied to a fixture group that contains Segment-1 and Segment 2)


Case 2:
Collection 3
-RGB Matrix-All-Red (Solid Red applied to fixture group)
-RGB Matrix-Lines-Mask (Applied to same fixture group)


Case 1 does not work, case 2 works as expected. For case 1, just full red is shown on both segments and no mask pattern is applied. Typing this I'm realizing that it could be related to the usage of different fixture groups in the collection that is causing the issue. Whatever the issue is, it seams like the mask is not being applied when the collection contains a collection of RGB matrixes.