I would like to have multiple playlists like I do with songs by the Beatles or by the Eagles.
Here’s one example why:
I would like to buy three of your 8x8 matrix and place a rectangle of LEDs around all three. I would like to create a one pattern for one 8x8 matrix and have it play in sync with on all three of the matrices. To do so, I don’t want to write a pattern for the whole LED strip. I want your software to be smart enough to “fill in the blanks”. The SP108E can do this by dividing up the entire strip into three equal segments; in this case, 3x64 ignoring the rectangular loop. But they can’t achieve the next level which is to mix and match patterns via playlists.
Assume I have just three, 8x8 playlists; I would like to play any combination of the three on any of the three matrices; the same for four, five, etc. playlists.
To add to the challenge, I would like to have multiple playlists for the LED loop around the three matrices. These playlists would be independent from the matrices.
I realize I’m probably talking about custom software for each of the many geometric combinations.
The idea of “segments” isn’t built into PB but @zranger1 has written a pattern which implemented a way to do this.
But that won’t do playlists either…
I think segmenting is a huge change from how PB works now … Right now, it gets the map or at least the number of pixels, and then runs a single pattern. A playlist changes what that pattern is, but it’s still just one pattern. Adding segments would mean not merely handling a partial pixel list but a partial map. (Those are not the same thing at all… How should I be able to divide a map?)
If there was a way to call a pattern from inside a pattern (@zranger1 just reimplemented each new pattern inside, so it’s all in one still), but I suspect that’s definitely nontrivial.
All of these things, even the stuff @Scruffynerf mentions, are on The List™ for V3 (The List™ is quite expansive).
The memory on V3 will allow several patterns active simultaneously. That opens the doors for all kinds of things like cross-fading between patterns, running patterns mapped to segments, and that sort of thing.
There was briefly a product called RocketLife that had segments + photo preview overlays, and a cool timeline editor. It looks like they put a lot of work in to it, got a bunch of press, but their kickstarter sort of flopped and I haven’t seen a peep about it since. They seem to have completely gone off the grid. They even let their domain registration lapse.
You can see from the KS videos that they let you set up the LEDs in groups/segments, then toss pre-defined patterns on those groups through a timeline editor. It looked pretty slick, and seems to be a good way to handle this sort of thing.
Take a look, and let me know if this kind of thing is what you are looking for.
I can only imagine the mighty length The List™ has reached…
A timeline editor would be a nice, visual way to build playlists. I could use something like that too.
(btw, Pixel Teleporter supports photo preview to an extent – you can set the background image by specifying background("path/to/imagefile.jpg")
(or png, or bmp…) in your sketches, instead of the default grey color. )
Is The List™ a formal list available for viewing? If so, I would like to be directed to it. I’ve searched but can not find “The List™”. If it includes all the features you have mentioned, the V3 I bought will be quite impressive.
The RocketLife product does much more than I was asking for. It certainly had the features I’m requesting and more. I was really impressed with the power of the app to intuitively create challenging patterns. I would be most impressed if you could now or later, design a similar product.