LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2

[thatpurplestuff]

Hey arzoo!

First off, I just want to say thanks again for such a great piece of software.  I'm using it on my Skeeball machine in combination with my custom software and you were a huge help years ago in making that happen.  Obviously LEDBlinky wasn't created for my use case and I'm just piggybacking off of the existing arcade controls functionality, but I've got some quick (and possibly/probably stupid) questions that hopefully you can answer for me haha...

So I currently have an LEDWiz that is hooked up to my score ring LEDs so that the holes light up.  Depending on which type of game type I'm playing, the ring LEDs either get controlled via LWAX animations or by directly controlling the LED ports using the LEDBlinky command line.  This is working nearly perfectly for my needs so far.

What I was hoping to do is incorporate more LEDs in my machine, primarily a long string of LEDs for the ramp and a second string of LEDs for the ball return.  I've got those LEDs installed and working, but I was hoping for some info regarding my options for controlling them via LEDblinky.  Currently I have just added the ramp LEDs and ball return LEDs to the existing layout, so I can control them via LEDBlinky but it is very clunky since most of the time I would want the ramp/ball return/score rings to be running separate animations simultaneously.

Ideally I would want to be able to use LEDblinky to load animations specifically for the rings, and then be able to independently call separate animations for things like the ramp or ball return and not have the ring lights effected by any animations that are called for those LED sections.  Basically I would want each section of LED lights treated independently so calling animations within each section doesn't effect the other sections.  If animations controlling separate sections isn't an option, is it possible to run animations on the rings and then just use the command line to set solid colors on the ramp and ball return without effecting the rings?

Sorry, I feel like I repeated my question a couple of times but I just wanted to make sure that what I'm hoping to achieve is clear.  Thanks in advance for any clarity you could provide!

I think LEDBlinky comes close to doing what you want with the "Cabinet LEDs" functionality; basically LEDBlinky can run a separate animation on a separate LED controller. The intent here was to run an independent animation on cabinet mounted LEDs. Where this may fall short for your needs is currently LEDBlinky can only run animations (on the second LED controller) triggered by standard events; FE Start, FE Active, Game Start, Game Play, etc. And currently there's no command-line options for the second controller (although this is something I might be able to add).

Oh man if command-line options for a second controller is a possibility that would be incredible, that sounds like it would get me exactly where I need to be.  I could use the primary controller for the ring LEDs and then a secondary controller for the ball return, ramp, and anything else.  You have no idea how much I would appreciate it!  I also have no idea how much work it would entail for you, but if there is anything I can do on my end to help facilitate something like that please let me know and I'll do whatever I can to help!

[arzoo]

Hey arzoo!

First off, I just want to say thanks again for such a great piece of software.  I'm using it on my Skeeball machine in combination with my custom software and you were a huge help years ago in making that happen.  Obviously LEDBlinky wasn't created for my use case and I'm just piggybacking off of the existing arcade controls functionality, but I've got some quick (and possibly/probably stupid) questions that hopefully you can answer for me haha...

So I currently have an LEDWiz that is hooked up to my score ring LEDs so that the holes light up.  Depending on which type of game type I'm playing, the ring LEDs either get controlled via LWAX animations or by directly controlling the LED ports using the LEDBlinky command line.  This is working nearly perfectly for my needs so far.

What I was hoping to do is incorporate more LEDs in my machine, primarily a long string of LEDs for the ramp and a second string of LEDs for the ball return.  I've got those LEDs installed and working, but I was hoping for some info regarding my options for controlling them via LEDblinky.  Currently I have just added the ramp LEDs and ball return LEDs to the existing layout, so I can control them via LEDBlinky but it is very clunky since most of the time I would want the ramp/ball return/score rings to be running separate animations simultaneously.

Ideally I would want to be able to use LEDblinky to load animations specifically for the rings, and then be able to independently call separate animations for things like the ramp or ball return and not have the ring lights effected by any animations that are called for those LED sections.  Basically I would want each section of LED lights treated independently so calling animations within each section doesn't effect the other sections.  If animations controlling separate sections isn't an option, is it possible to run animations on the rings and then just use the command line to set solid colors on the ramp and ball return without effecting the rings?

Sorry, I feel like I repeated my question a couple of times but I just wanted to make sure that what I'm hoping to achieve is clear.  Thanks in advance for any clarity you could provide!

I think LEDBlinky comes close to doing what you want with the "Cabinet LEDs" functionality; basically LEDBlinky can run a separate animation on a separate LED controller. The intent here was to run an independent animation on cabinet mounted LEDs. Where this may fall short for your needs is currently LEDBlinky can only run animations (on the second LED controller) triggered by standard events; FE Start, FE Active, Game Start, Game Play, etc. And currently there's no command-line options for the second controller (although this is something I might be able to add).

Oh man if command-line options for a second controller is a possibility that would be incredible, that sounds like it would get me exactly where I need to be.  I could use the primary controller for the ring LEDs and then a secondary controller for the ball return, ramp, and anything else.  You have no idea how much I would appreciate it!  I also have no idea how much work it would entail for you, but if there is anything I can do on my end to help facilitate something like that please let me know and I'll do whatever I can to help!

I'll add this the the requested enhancement list and see how difficult it would be to implement.

[thatpurplestuff]

I'll add this the the requested enhancement list and see how difficult it would be to implement.

Thank you very much for looking into this, I sincerely appreciate it!

[Bidule200]

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to configure LEDBlinky with my custom-made arcade controller (BigBox+MAME).

Some multiplayer arcade games don’t have dedicated Start Buttons, but instead use a standard gameplay button to join the game.
(For exemple: Blasteroids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...)
Problem is, LEDBlinky always lights up my default Start buttons, despite not being used in the game (no Start input in MAME).

- The Misc. option "Use Default Start/Coin Voice Actions for all games" is DISABLED.

How do you think I can resolve this issue?

Thank you

[arzoo]

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to configure LEDBlinky with my custom-made arcade controller (BigBox+MAME).

Some multiplayer arcade games don’t have dedicated Start Buttons, but instead use a standard gameplay button to join the game.
(For exemple: Blasteroids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...)
Problem is, LEDBlinky always lights up my default Start buttons, despite not being used in the game (no Start input in MAME).

- The Misc. option "Use Default Start/Coin Voice Actions for all games" is DISABLED.

How do you think I can resolve this issue?

Thank you

I think what you would have to do here is turn of LEDBlinky's option to light the Start and Coin buttons and then use the Controls Editor to light those buttons (and set Always Active) for some Emulators or specifically for each game. I've never actually tried this but in theory it should work.

[Bidule200]

I think what you would have to do here is turn of LEDBlinky's option to light the Start and Coin buttons and then use the Controls Editor to light those buttons (and set Always Active) for some Emulators or specifically for each game. I've never actually tried this but in theory it should work.

Sorry, no good.
- I have every button customized in the Controls Editor, including Start and Coin for every game (I have custom text since I use a french text-to-speech).
- If I disable "Light Player Start and Coin Buttons", these buttons do not light up at all.
- The "Always active" tickbox is disabled (greyed out) so I can't try this setting.
- Even if I could tick the Always Active box, wouldn't this setup mess up the "blink on mame output" feature of some Start Buttons, like on Asteroids?

[arzoo]

I think what you would have to do here is turn of LEDBlinky's option to light the Start and Coin buttons and then use the Controls Editor to light those buttons (and set Always Active) for some Emulators or specifically for each game. I've never actually tried this but in theory it should work.

Sorry, no good.
- I have every button customized in the Controls Editor, including Start and Coin for every game (I have custom text since I use a french text-to-speech).
- If I disable "Light Player Start and Coin Buttons", these buttons do not light up at all.
- The "Always active" tickbox is disabled (greyed out) so I can't try this setting.
- Even if I could tick the Always Active box, wouldn't this setup mess up the "blink on mame output" feature of some Start Buttons, like on Asteroids?

Hmmm I don't see how this can work if you also want to use the mame outputs to blink the start buttons like on Asteroids. Sorry.

[Bidule200]

Alright. I'll mess up with it until I find a satisfying setup ^^

I would suggest to add to LEDBlinky a special "expert" mode where the only logic is given by the LEDBlinkyControls.xml file, so it'll completely override this "start and coin" weird logic where sometime I get veeery strange behaviors.

For exemple, in 4 players games with no Start Buttons (only 4 coins) like TMNT, Gauntlet or Sunset Riders, i managed to get the voice announce the 4 coin buttons ok by tricking the software.
I setup fake START1, START2, START3, START4 buttons in the Controls Editor, with a 0,0,0 color, and a dummy text. If I don't do that, the program WILL speak non-sense and announce ghosts Start Buttons.
Anyway, now it kinda works, but for a mysterious reason, one of the 4 Coin buttons... will not lit. Tried for hours to fix it, but didn't succeed.

[arzoo]

Alright. I'll mess up with it until I find a satisfying setup ^^

I would suggest to add to LEDBlinky a special "expert" mode where the only logic is given by the LEDBlinkyControls.xml file, so it'll completely override this "start and coin" weird logic where sometime I get veeery strange behaviors.

For exemple, in 4 players games with no Start Buttons (only 4 coins) like TMNT, Gauntlet or Sunset Riders, i managed to get the voice announce the 4 coin buttons ok by tricking the software.
I setup fake START1, START2, START3, START4 buttons in the Controls Editor, with a 0,0,0 color, and a dummy text. If I don't do that, the program WILL speak non-sense and announce ghosts Start Buttons.
Anyway, now it kinda works, but for a mysterious reason, one of the 4 Coin buttons... will not lit. Tried for hours to fix it, but didn't succeed.

You can try the LEDBlinkyTroubleshooter app to see if it can help identify the issue with the 4th coin button. If not, email me the debug.log and I'll take a look.

[Bidule200]

Oh, I didn't notice this troubleshooting utility! It's very well made, i'll investigate further with it! Thank you

EDIT
------------------
I got it working by opening the game .cfg file and adding fake START1, START2, START3, and START4 input and setting them to NONE.
Then I had to set the .cfg file to READ-ONLY since MAME will try to rewrite it when it launches.

It's kind of a ghetto fix... but at last it's working ^^

[Bidule200]

I noticed a bug, don't know if it's an easy fix for you or a real hassle:

I managed to get additional Microsoft voices for the TTS feature, the default one being really low quality.
It works perfectly. Problem is, when I restart the Win10 PC, the default voice is back. But only vocally. The new voice is still correctly selected in LEDBlinky Settings.
To get the new voice back to speak, I have to setup the old voice, and select again the new voice. And then it works. Until I restart

EDIT
The bug seem to only happen in LEDBlinky Config app. In my front end, the correct voice is still there.

[arzoo]

I noticed a bug, don't know if it's an easy fix for you or a real hassle:

I managed to get additional Microsoft voices for the TTS feature, the default one being really low quality.
It works perfectly. Problem is, when I restart the Win10 PC, the default voice is back. But only vocally. The new voice is still correctly selected in LEDBlinky Settings.
To get the new voice back to speak, I have to setup the old voice, and select again the new voice. And then it works. Until I restart

EDIT
The bug seem to only happen in LEDBlinky Config app. In my front end, the correct voice is still there.

So you're good then?

[Bidule200]

Yeah, just wanted to report it as it could potentially help to resolve bigger issues. But since it only happens in the Config app, it's not bothering.

[midd]

I updated to 8.2.1 and now my buttons only flash orange and green regardless of the pattern I select. When I launch the inputmap.exe, my buttons are still assigned to all three colors.  So I can select blue for any of the buttons and they light blue. 

[arzoo]

I updated to 8.2.1 and now my buttons only flash orange and green regardless of the pattern I select. When I launch the inputmap.exe, my buttons are still assigned to all three colors.  So I can select blue for any of the buttons and they light blue.

If you turn on the Debug Log option (Misc Options tab), run your FE and a few games, then email me the debug.zip and/or debug.log file I'll take a look.

[dragon_sa]

Does anyone know how I can permanently light my volume up and down buttons, specifically for non mame emulators such as retroarch for playstation, I have tried to manually add them using the controls editor but there is no option to select the volume up and down buttons to actualy set them up. I am using an ipac ultimate I/O which assigns the buttons fine for MAME, but cant add them manually

[arzoo]

Does anyone know how I can permanently light my volume up and down buttons, specifically for non mame emulators such as retroarch for playstation, I have tried to manually add them using the controls editor but there is no option to select the volume up and down buttons to actualy set them up. I am using an ipac ultimate I/O which assigns the buttons fine for MAME, but cant add them manually

If you're not currently using any animations, you can create a single frame animation that just lights up the volume buttons and set that as FE Active and Game Active Animation. But if you're already using animations, you would have to modify them so every frame has those buttons lit.

[dragon_sa]

If you're not currently using any animations, you can create a single frame animation that just lights up the volume buttons and set that as FE Active and Game Active Animation. But if you're already using animations, you would have to modify them so every frame has those buttons lit.

That worked perfectly thankyou 

[dragon_sa]

Just wanting to know if there is any way to see what profiles are being sent to LEDBlinky when a game loads, as I have manually made some configurations which work fine, but then some extra player buttons light up that i didnt configure, I tried setting them to off in my configuration, but that didnt work

[arzoo]

Just wanting to know if there is any way to see what profiles are being sent to LEDBlinky when a game loads, as I have manually made some configurations which work fine, but then some extra player buttons light up that i didnt configure, I tried setting them to off in my configuration, but that didnt work

You can try using the LEDBlinkyTroubleshooting app which may help diagnose issues with buttons not lighting.

[dragon_sa]

Just wanting to know if there is any way to see what profiles are being sent to LEDBlinky when a game loads, as I have manually made some configurations which work fine, but then some extra player buttons light up that i didnt configure, I tried setting them to off in my configuration, but that didnt work

You can try using the LEDBlinkyTroubleshooting app which may help diagnose issues with buttons not lighting.

troubleshooter didnt offer much, so started looking through the files, turned out to be a rogue setting in the LEDBlinkyControls.xml that wasnt showing in the LEDBlinkyControlsEditor for the rom

[dragon_sa]

If I add games to Colors.ini in the LEDBlinky folder, should that light up the buttons set for that game in mame, eg I added 88games and mapped the colors to red,green,blue to the file, just like other games are mapped in there and that worked, but then I add 1on1gov the same way and that doesnt light up the controls at all, is there something else I also need to configure somewhere to make them work, I am currently just working on the mame game list to set all controls to the original cab colors that I can find, so every game in mame lights up.

this is an example of what I added
[1on1gov]
P1_BUTTON1=Red
P1_BUTTON2=Green
P1_BUTTON3=Blue
P2_BUTTON1=Red
P2_BUTTON2=Green
P2_BUTTON3=Blue
[88games]
P1_BUTTON1=Red
P1_BUTTON2=Green
P1_BUTTON3=Blue
P2_BUTTON1=Red
P2_BUTTON2=Green
P2_BUTTON3=Blue


so the [88games] one worked but [1on1gov] doesnt

[arzoo]

If I add games to Colors.ini in the LEDBlinky folder, should that light up the buttons set for that game in mame, eg I added 88games and mapped the colors to red,green,blue to the file, just like other games are mapped in there and that worked, but then I add 1on1gov the same way and that doesnt light up the controls at all, is there something else I also need to configure somewhere to make them work, I am currently just working on the mame game list to set all controls to the original cab colors that I can find, so every game in mame lights up.

so the [88games] one worked but [1on1gov] doesnt

My guess is your front-end is not sending LEDBlnky a GameSelected or GameStart command with "1on1gov" as the rom parameter. If you look at the Import Unknown Games menu on the Controls Editor, it will show you all the game and emulator values passed to LEDBlinky which are not defined in the Controls Editor or controls.ini file. If that doesn't help, send me an email with your debug.zip and/or debug.log file and I'll take a look.

[dragon_sa]

If I add games to Colors.ini in the LEDBlinky folder, should that light up the buttons set for that game in mame, eg I added 88games and mapped the colors to red,green,blue to the file, just like other games are mapped in there and that worked, but then I add 1on1gov the same way and that doesnt light up the controls at all, is there something else I also need to configure somewhere to make them work, I am currently just working on the mame game list to set all controls to the original cab colors that I can find, so every game in mame lights up.

so the [88games] one worked but [1on1gov] doesnt

My guess is your front-end is not sending LEDBlnky a GameSelected or GameStart command with "1on1gov" as the rom parameter. If you look at the Import Unknown Games menu on the Controls Editor, it will show you all the game and emulator values passed to LEDBlinky which are not defined in the Controls Editor or controls.ini file. If that doesn't help, send me an email with your debug.zip and/or debug.log file and I'll take a look.

You are a champion  thankyou for your continued support, very much appreciated