Main Restorations Software Audio/Jukebox/MP3 Everything Else Buy/Sell/Trade
Project Announcements Monitor/Video GroovyMAME Merit/JVL Touchscreen Meet Up Retail Vendors
Driving & Racing Woodworking Software Support Forums Consoles Project Arcade Reviews
Automated Projects Artwork Frontend Support Forums Pinball Forum Discussion Old Boards
Raspberry Pi & Dev Board controls.dat Linux Miscellaneous Arcade Wiki Discussion Old Archives
Lightguns Arcade1Up Try the site in https mode Site News

Unread posts | New Replies | Recent posts | Rules | Chatroom | Wiki | File Repository | RSS | Submit news

  

Author Topic: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2  (Read 552940 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

gstav

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 212
  • Last login:March 22, 2024, 10:59:19 am
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,157861.0.html
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1920 on: September 18, 2022, 04:43:20 pm »
I set my color in LEDBlinkyControls.xml as 0,0,0 for one button for that game which kills the leds. Perfect for racing and lightgun games which I don't want to be distract.
I can send you an example for it if you want to as I'm not near my pc atm.
"One coin to rule em' all"

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1921 on: September 18, 2022, 06:11:55 pm »
I set my color in LEDBlinkyControls.xml as 0,0,0 for one button for that game which kills the leds. Perfect for racing and lightgun games which I don't want to be distract.
I can send you an example for it if you want to as I'm not near my pc atm.

Was just about to post this, thanks.  :cheers:
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1922 on: September 18, 2022, 08:49:52 pm »
Ah, cool! Thank you!

Does this technique work across all games without interfering if a specific game calls for that button to be lit a certain color?

Right now I have these two buttons active always:

Mouse Button 1 (Left click)
and Player 1 button 4

Looking for those buttons to not be lit up, UNLESS I call them to be from Colors.ini. Will this technique work for that? Cause I'm looking at that file and it's just not "clicking" yet in my head how to go about doing this.

Thanks

--
Holmes

gstav

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 212
  • Last login:March 22, 2024, 10:59:19 am
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,157861.0.html
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1923 on: September 19, 2022, 03:25:16 am »
The default for a system will be taken over if you make a specific game setup within it. So set 1 button to red or blanked out all the rest will be shut off, don't think you can have "untouched" button to be system default at the same time, but kinda easy add these two extra for the games you want to do a special button layout for I guess.
"One coin to rule em' all"

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1924 on: September 19, 2022, 11:36:04 pm »
All right, I must be not getting it, sorry. Maybe an example is what I need.

HOWEVER, I did get the issue fixed through just changing the MAME controls ... not ideal, but whatever.

Here's what I tried in that LEDBlinkyControls.xml file:

  <emulator emuname="MAME" emuDesc="MAME Defaults and Control Overrides">
    <controlGroup groupName="DEFAULT" voice="" numPlayers="2" alternating="0" defaultActive="Black" defaultInactive="0,0,0,0" jukebox="0" ledwizGlobalPulse="3">
      <player number="0">
        <control name="CONTROL_JOY8WAY" voice="" color="" primaryControl="1"/>
        <control name="UI_CONFIGURE" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="24,24,24"/>
        <control name="UI_LOAD_STATE" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="24,24,24"/>
        <control name="UI_PAUSE" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="24,24,24"/>
        <control name="UI_CANCEL" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="24,24,24"/>
      </player>
      <player number="1">
        <control name="P1_BUTTON1" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON2" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON3" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON4" voice="" color="0,0,0"/> <--- this is what I added for player 1 button 4 to turn it off. But it didn't seem to have any affect. :/
        <control name="P1_BUTTON5" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON6" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON7" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON8" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_JOYSTICK_UP" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_JOYSTICK_DOWN" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_JOYSTICK_LEFT" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P1_JOYSTICK_RIGHT" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="START1" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="COIN1" voice="" color=""/>
      </player>
      <player number="2">
        <control name="P2_BUTTON1" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON2" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON3" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON4" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON5" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON6" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON7" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON8" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_JOYSTICK_UP" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_JOYSTICK_DOWN" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_JOYSTICK_LEFT" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="P2_JOYSTICK_RIGHT" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="START2" voice="" color=""/>
        <control name="COIN2" voice="" color=""/>
      </player>
    </controlGroup>

is that what you're referring to? :/
--
Holmes

gstav

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 212
  • Last login:March 22, 2024, 10:59:19 am
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,157861.0.html
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1925 on: September 21, 2022, 11:37:53 am »
Yeah, but I rather not change the emus default but change the game instead. I can give you a bit of my xml and you'll see what I mean if you want

here's a cutted part of my LEDBlinkyControls.xml with the MAME system as default blanked out, Street Fighter 2 with dedicated buttons and Operation WOLF with blanked out buttons as its a light gun game
<emulator emuname="MAME" emuDesc="MAME Defaults and Control Overrides">
    <controlGroup groupName="DEFAULT" voice="" numPlayers="2" alternating="0" defaultActive="48,48,48,48" defaultInactive="0,0,0,0" jukebox="0" ledwizGlobalPulse="3">
      <player number="0">
        <control name="CONTROL_JOY8WAY" voice="" primaryControl="1" alwaysActive="0" color="0,0,0"/>
        <control name="UI_CANCEL" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="Red"/>
        <control name="UI_PAUSE" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="Yellow"/>
        <control name="UI_SELECT" voice="" alwaysActive="1" color="Lime"/>
      </player>
      <player number="1">
        <control name="P1_BUTTON1" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON2" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON3" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON4" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON5" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON6" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON7" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON8" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
      </player>
      <player number="2">
        <control name="P2_BUTTON1" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON2" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON3" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON4" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON5" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON6" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON7" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON8" voice="" alwaysActive="0" color="Lime"/>
      </player>
    <controlGroup groupName="hsf2" voice="Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition (USA 040202)" numPlayers="2" alternating="0" jukebox="0">
      <player number="0">
        <control name="CONTROL_JOY8WAY" voice="8-way Joystick" color="Black" primaryControl="1"/>
      </player>
      <player number="1">
        <control name="P1_BUTTON1" voice="Light Punch" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON2" voice="Middle Punch" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON3" voice="Heavy Punch" color="White"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON4" voice="Light Kick" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON5" voice="Middle Kick" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON6" voice="Heavy Kick" color="White"/>
      </player>
      <player number="2">
        <control name="P2_BUTTON1" voice="Light Punch" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON2" voice="Middle Punch" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON3" voice="Heavy Punch" color="White"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON4" voice="Light Kick" color="Red"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON5" voice="Middle Kick" color="Blue"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON6" voice="Heavy Kick" color="White"/>
      </player>
    </controlGroup>
    <controlGroup groupName="opwolf" voice="Operation Wolf (Europe)" numPlayers="2" alternating="0" jukebox="0">
      <player number="0">
        <control name="CONTROL_JOY8WAY" voice="8-Way Joystick" primaryControl="1" color="" inputCodes=""/>
      </player>
      <player number="1">
        <control name="P1_BUTTON1" voice="Button B" color="0,0,0" inputCodes="KEYCODE_A"/>
        <control name="P1_BUTTON2" voice="Button A" color="0,0,0" inputCodes="KEYCODE_S"/>
      </player>
      <player number="2">
        <control name="P2_BUTTON1" voice="Button B" color="0,0,0" inputCodes="KEYCODE_T"/>
        <control name="P2_BUTTON2" voice="Button A" color="0,0,0" inputCodes="KEYCODE_Y"/>
      </player>
    </controlGroup>
« Last Edit: September 21, 2022, 02:34:36 pm by gstav »
"One coin to rule em' all"

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1926 on: September 22, 2022, 11:56:45 pm »
That makes sense I believe, but I'd have to do this for every game within MAME then, because this button lights up no matter what game I launch. I believe this button is lighting up simply because 1 button is assigned to Shift and the other button is assigned to Shift + F7 which causes both to light up because I'm telling LEDBlinky to light up the Shift key, when only the Shift + F7 button should light up.

Is LEDBlinky not supposed to do that? Trying to figure out why that's happening I guess. Has this not happened to anyone else?

Mouse Button 1 is the same situation in this case.

On my arcade I have a button solely dedicated for the left mouse button click (which LEDBlinky shouldn't light up).

But MAME's default for the Player 1 button 1 is "CTRL OR Mouse Button 1 OR Gun Button 1", and because I want to light up this button with LEDBlinky, LEDBlinky enables BOTH buttons because of that Mouse Button 1 attached in MAME.

I had to remove Mouse Button 1 from MAME to fix that issue. Is this what other people are doing? :/ Right now, for the shift issue, I also changed the key assigned in MAME to not include shift. This is fine, it works, but I feel like I shouldn't have to change MAME defaults in these cases.
--
Holmes

gstav

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 212
  • Last login:March 22, 2024, 10:59:19 am
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,157861.0.html
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1927 on: September 23, 2022, 04:32:05 am »
I used Rocket Blinly to generate my base file, then I have edited each game actually 😅 but I'm kinda anal about it and only have around 300 mame titles, so it was doable. But you could have default and only change the games that needs it. Don't know if you can bypass some key through a title you edited though
"One coin to rule em' all"

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1928 on: September 23, 2022, 07:49:54 am »
That makes sense I believe, but I'd have to do this for every game within MAME then, because this button lights up no matter what game I launch. I believe this button is lighting up simply because 1 button is assigned to Shift and the other button is assigned to Shift + F7 which causes both to light up because I'm telling LEDBlinky to light up the Shift key, when only the Shift + F7 button should light up.

Is LEDBlinky not supposed to do that? Trying to figure out why that's happening I guess. Has this not happened to anyone else?

Mouse Button 1 is the same situation in this case.

On my arcade I have a button solely dedicated for the left mouse button click (which LEDBlinky shouldn't light up).

But MAME's default for the Player 1 button 1 is "CTRL OR Mouse Button 1 OR Gun Button 1", and because I want to light up this button with LEDBlinky, LEDBlinky enables BOTH buttons because of that Mouse Button 1 attached in MAME.

I had to remove Mouse Button 1 from MAME to fix that issue. Is this what other people are doing? :/ Right now, for the shift issue, I also changed the key assigned in MAME to not include shift. This is fine, it works, but I feel like I shouldn't have to change MAME defaults in these cases.

You should just be able to remove the mouse input code from the LED ports (using GenLEDBlinkyInputMap). If you turn on the Debug Log option (Misc Options tab), run your FE and a few games, them email me the debug.zip and/or debug.log files and I'll take a look to see what's going on.
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1929 on: September 23, 2022, 09:30:18 am »
@gstav

Yeah, I mean I guess I have been going through every game on MAME (like 2000+) and adding in colors to the Colors.ini file. But that's me only adding colors for buttons not lit up, not defining them all as black / off.

Thanks for sharing though how you work your config, it helps! :)

@arzoo

If I remove the mouse input code, will I be able to light up the button at other times though individually?

Yeah, I'll do a debug soon on this thing, because now I'm running into an issue where some games aren't respecting colors that I'm assigning them within colors.ini... Makes me wonder if I have a typo in a file somewhere. That's another problem though, that just started happening. I just haven't had a chance to mess with it for the last couple of days, and will be going out of town this weekend as well. So it might be a few days before I can get back in front of it.

Planning to run a debug to see if I can't spot out why Colors.ini is no longer respecting values I'm giving it.

Thanks for he offer to look though on the other issue! I'll send the logs in a few days once I get an opportunity to look through these things.
--
Holmes

Moleburt

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 23
  • Last login:July 24, 2023, 05:40:31 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1930 on: September 28, 2022, 09:04:24 am »
Wondering if anyone here has anyone here has any experience using the Ultimarc Ultimate I/O board and a PACLed64 board together with mamehooker? I’m not having much luck and wasn’t sure where to ask. I’m trying to get some effects working with gun games (gStAv helped me with the ini files, but he uses ledwiz). Nothing I’ve tried has worked, I’m not sure if it is because I have 2 boards in order to control all my lights or what. Any help would be appreciated!

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1931 on: September 28, 2022, 09:30:06 am »
Wondering if anyone here has anyone here has any experience using the Ultimarc Ultimate I/O board and a PACLed64 board together with mamehooker? I’m not having much luck and wasn’t sure where to ask. I’m trying to get some effects working with gun games (gStAv helped me with the ini files, but he uses ledwiz). Nothing I’ve tried has worked, I’m not sure if it is because I have 2 boards in order to control all my lights or what. Any help would be appreciated!

You might have better luck starting a new thread in the software forum for a mamehooker question.
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1932 on: September 28, 2022, 10:44:55 pm »
So, I reviewed things and not seeing clearly why colors.ini isn't being respected for button colors with the game Brute Force [brutforc].

The other issues with the wrong buttons lighting up is basically "fixed" but I disabled the mouse click within MAME and reprogrammed one of my admin buttons to use something other than Shift (made it load game vs save game, and I reassigned save game to that button with a hotkey).

While reenablng the left-click mouse button for P1 Button 1 might be nice in case some game needs this (maybe there isn't a game that needs this), this is my current set of files.

At this time, I'm really perplexed as to why none of my buttons light up except admin buttons and start buttons 1 through 3 for this game, on top of it Start buttons 1 through 3 should be lighting up different colors, but they all light up as white. Do I have a typo somewhere?!

Thanks for the help :( Greatly appreciate it!
--
Holmes

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1933 on: September 28, 2022, 11:04:29 pm »
It's because LEDBlinkyControls.xml is superseding it with settings that it all ready has for this game isn't it?!

I just realized [brutforc] is inside that file.

Okay, so what's the different between these two files, XMLBlinkyControls.XML and Colors.ini? Should I be doing color assignments in one vs the other? I've been heavily modifying the Colors.ini and Controls.ini file to fill in for games that don't exist or don't have all or proper colors set like Brute Force. Should I be doing this in XMLBlinkyControls.XML instead?

While on the topic of these files, I looked over the LEDBlinky website for an explanation on what these variables mean to LEDBlinky from the Controls.ini file:

Mirrored (I assume this is for like games that support tabletop setups and show the screens upsidedown?)
Tilt
Cocktail
UsesService

Just as I set some this stuff, would be nice to know what those do.

Also, can't guarantee that I'm perfect on these settings and colors, but I'm literally sitting here going through every single MAME game because I'm quite obviously a masochistic psychopath (though removing a lot of games from my MAME.XML list that aren't quite up to my level of acceptance). But once I'm finished (if I finish, which I assume I will), more than happy to share my work.
--
Holmes

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1934 on: September 29, 2022, 08:54:15 am »
Okay, so what's the different between these two files, XMLBlinkyControls.XML and Colors.ini? Should I be doing color assignments in one vs the other? I've been heavily modifying the Colors.ini and Controls.ini file to fill in for games that don't exist or don't have all or proper colors set like Brute Force. Should I be doing this in XMLBlinkyControls.XML instead?

While on the topic of these files, I looked over the LEDBlinky website for an explanation on what these variables mean to LEDBlinky from the Controls.ini file:

Mirrored (I assume this is for like games that support tabletop setups and show the screens upsidedown?)
Tilt
Cocktail
UsesService

The controls.ini and colors.ini files were created by community members (many years ago) for mame games. The LEDBlinkyControls.xml file is generated and updated by the LEDBlinkyControlsEditor. The controls editor serves two purposes; it provides an interface to define controls for non-mame games, and it can be used to override the control colors and spoken actions for mame games. This support link may be helpful.

LEDBlinky uses "Cocktail" and "Alternating" to determine if player two controls should be lit. The other variables are not used. Keep in mind, the controls.ini file was not created specifically for LEDBlinky.

If you're taking the time to update the colors.ini file I can definitely include it with a future LEDBlinky build  :cheers:
« Last Edit: September 29, 2022, 08:58:35 am by arzoo »
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1935 on: September 30, 2022, 11:47:53 pm »
Interesting!

Now I'm super curious about the history of LEDBlinky! :P

But this is all good information to know. Yeah, I'll send what I have when I'm finished. The only thing I considered, which I haven't done yet, was removing games from controls.ini and colors.ini that I'm omitting from my build (i.e. Mahjong games, non-english games, non-functional games, etc) simply to speed up the loading of everything. All that seems like a lot of data for LEDBlinky to parse. But for now I haven't done that, and if I share the stuff back with you, I'll keep what's in there and just update the games that A) don't have entries, or B) the lighting is clearly wrong / incomplete.

Basing some of the lighting of the buttons off of pictures from online sources or manuals so far. For the games that don't have that information, I usually just stick with white or red buttons, or base it off of game colors (i.e. Pacman might have yellow buttons or whatever if I couldn't find pictures of cabinets online).

Anyways, thanks for the explanations! That helps a lot!

Now if I could just figure out what the dang HyperSpin button does within HyperSpin. Their documentation on that function is lacking.
--
Holmes

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1936 on: October 01, 2022, 09:51:41 am »
Interesting!

Now I'm super curious about the history of LEDBlinky! :P

But this is all good information to know. Yeah, I'll send what I have when I'm finished. The only thing I considered, which I haven't done yet, was removing games from controls.ini and colors.ini that I'm omitting from my build (i.e. Mahjong games, non-english games, non-functional games, etc) simply to speed up the loading of everything. All that seems like a lot of data for LEDBlinky to parse. But for now I haven't done that, and if I share the stuff back with you, I'll keep what's in there and just update the games that A) don't have entries, or B) the lighting is clearly wrong / incomplete.

LEDBlinky started out as a plugin for the Mala FE when the only LED controller available was the GGG LEDWiz. It's evolved over the years to say the least.

As for loading files, that all happens when LEDBlinky is first started and then the data is stored using in-memory indexed data structures, so it's fast. The only file that is really an issue (when it comes to size) is the mame.xml. For that file, LEDBlinky creates a minimized version to speed up the load time at startup.
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1937 on: October 01, 2022, 06:36:09 pm »
Oh, figured all these colors and such was an ordeal to load. Interesting. Well that's good to know, I know it was talked about on the support page, but I remembered it as all the color data vs just the MAME.xml file. So I likely read over it quickly.
--
Holmes

Moleburt

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 23
  • Last login:July 24, 2023, 05:40:31 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1938 on: October 03, 2022, 12:54:58 pm »
Any tips for how to make animations? Whenever I try i feel like it takes me forever and the animations don’t turn out well. Not sure if there is a trick to it or something.

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1939 on: October 03, 2022, 05:56:10 pm »
I haven't done a lot of this myself yet, but from a general point of view. I'd say first have a plan or have it down in your mind what you want to do with the LEDs that you have to work with; then, once started, I imagine things go pretty fast. :)

From a software side of things for tricks on quicker frame by frame animations, I'll leave that to some others to recommend, I think you just dup the last frame and then change then things you want changed... from what I recall. Wasn't too terrible.
--
Holmes

theholmesplace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:January 17, 2023, 10:06:20 am
  • Beep Boop Beep
    • The Holmes' Place
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1940 on: October 16, 2022, 11:43:57 am »
Experiencing an issue with lights speaking upon launching games within SNES and I don't know why it's happening.

Debug log attached. It looks like it speaks a button and then gets stuck in a queue. I haven't mapped all consoles yet, but I've done NES and Atari and don't have this issue with those. Is there something in the debug log that I'm missing that would clue me into why LEDBlinky is hanging when it tries to speak through all of the buttons?

Basically I launch the game, LEDBlinky speaks Button B (usually can't even complete the sentence), and then the next button remains blinking ... it never stops. UNTIL I stop the game, then things resume speaking and the buttons return to normal.

I'm emulating SNES through Retroarch using the SNES balanced core. Could the core be interfering?

Anyone else experience this issue?

Okay, just got Atari 5200 to finally emulate, and it does the exact same thing...  ??? Emulating through RetroArch Atari800 core. How to troubleshoot this...  :-\ Come on Google, don't fail me now!

It's gotta be a RetroArch issue ... NES and Atari 2600 and MAME don't emulate through that emulator, Atari5200 and SNES does, so likely the common thread.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2022, 11:51:25 am by theholmesplace »
--
Holmes

ShabbyDog

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
  • Last login:October 23, 2022, 03:55:35 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1941 on: October 18, 2022, 08:09:57 am »
Please forgive me if this is already answered, but I'm struggling wiht lighting my player 2 stick.

I've changed my config to use the player specific codes as in https://www.ledblinky.net/Support.htm#LightTBJoy but only my Player 2 stick lights up.  Buttons for both P1 and P2 light as intended so I'm not sure what might be causing the issue?

Any suggestions are welcome.  :)

vaderag

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 362
  • Last login:January 16, 2023, 05:11:02 am
  • Building my own cab :)
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1942 on: November 08, 2022, 08:58:41 am »
OKAY, I've at least partially solved this by setting my default.cfg as the contoller file in LEDBlinky.
However, I still have an issue with my neogeo games which utilise a different layout file - is there any way to have LED Blinky actually see what MAME is using? It doesn't seem to be aware of the CFG file that's actually referenced for the game?

-----------------------------------------------
Below kept for posterity and to help others
----------
Hoping someone can help me out here - I'm just resetting up my cab and re-starting with LEDBlinky

Have a few... oddities... which I can't work out
I've gone through the coniguration wizard and everything is set up as I expect - all RGB are working and tested

However, I'm seeing a mismatch between what should be showing in MAME and what is showing on the panel

For example - if I pick 3countb (3 count bout) - a Neogeo MVS title, I should have the top 4 lights lit in Red Yellow Green Blue - this is what is outlined in the colours.ini file that came with LED Blinky, and how the controls are mapped in MAME. I should also see this for P2 when I get nothing

However, what I see is as follows


You'll notice that my flipper is lit blue (that is mapped to Left Shift and has no input for this game in MAME), the Green button three is white and my P1B8 is mapped red (this is actually mapped to Player1_Button D in my NeoGeo setup since I duplicate the row). And nothing for P2

The colours.ini is correct as here:
Code: [Select]
[3countb]
P1_COIN=White
P1_START=White
P1_BUTTON1=Red
P1_BUTTON2=Yellow
P1_BUTTON3=Green
P1_BUTTON4=Blue
P1_JOYSTICK=Black
P2_COIN=White
P2_START=White
P2_BUTTON1=Red
P2_BUTTON2=Yellow
P2_BUTTON3=Green
P2_BUTTON4=Blue
P2_JOYSTICK=Black

Now, Neogeo might be a little different as I do use a custom layout for NeoGeo (and if there is an easy way to use the same layout for all neogeo games I'm all ears!), but I see similar oddities in other roms

In Altered Beast for example - the P1 controls light correctly, BUT with the P1B8 (Mouse1,button1) lit additionally. P2 Still doesnt get lit

Am I missing something obvious? Thanks!

EDIT: Running the troubleshooter I see the issue is that the keycodes that are being pulled out from MAME do not match what is being used... very odd... These keys are not defined anywhere that I can see
Code: [Select]
Analysis:

These are the Emulator defined Input Codes for [P1_BUTTON1]:
KEYCODE_LCONTROL
JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1
MOUSECODE_1_BUTTON1

Using your assigned Input Codes from the current Input Map, the following ports were enabled (ON):
iPACUltimateIO ID:1   Port:22   Label:P1B8  (RGB Red)
iPACUltimateIO ID:1   Port:23   Label:P1B8  (RGB Green)
iPACUltimateIO ID:1   Port:24   Label:P1B8  (RGB Blue)

My Mame.ini is set to use default.cfg as the ctrlr file and (for neogeo) it uses neogeo.cfg based called from neogeo.ini
They are the only places controls are mapped...

Where might it be pulling these values from?
« Last Edit: November 08, 2022, 09:34:27 am by vaderag »

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1943 on: November 08, 2022, 10:18:45 am »
EDIT: Running the troubleshooter I see the issue is that the keycodes that are being pulled out from MAME do not match what is being used... very odd... These keys are not defined anywhere that I can see
Code: [Select]
Analysis:

These are the Emulator defined Input Codes for [P1_BUTTON1]:
KEYCODE_LCONTROL
JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1
MOUSECODE_1_BUTTON1

Using your assigned Input Codes from the current Input Map, the following ports were enabled (ON):
iPACUltimateIO ID:1   Port:22   Label:P1B8  (RGB Red)
iPACUltimateIO ID:1   Port:23   Label:P1B8  (RGB Green)
iPACUltimateIO ID:1   Port:24   Label:P1B8  (RGB Blue)

My Mame.ini is set to use default.cfg as the ctrlr file and (for neogeo) it uses neogeo.cfg based called from neogeo.ini
They are the only places controls are mapped...

Where might it be pulling these values from?

The troubleshooter will display (above the "Analysis" section) which mame cfg file is used to determine the input codes for the selected button/control.

Here's an example:
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

veegee

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
  • Last login:December 23, 2022, 08:33:52 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
LedBlinky Lights lighting Incorrectly
« Reply #1944 on: November 13, 2022, 08:50:01 pm »
My ledblinky lights up correcty when I Test them in the controls editer. But when I play a Game in Coinops button 1 wont light insted it lights button 2
and button 2 turns on button3 and 3 truns on 4, i checked the input mapping and it matches buttons.
please someone help me.

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LedBlinky Lights lighting Incorrectly
« Reply #1945 on: November 13, 2022, 10:38:35 pm »
My ledblinky lights up correcty when I Test them in the controls editer. But when I play a Game in Coinops button 1 wont light insted it lights button 2
and button 2 turns on button3 and 3 truns on 4, i checked the input mapping and it matches buttons.
please someone help me.
Sent you a PM.
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

djm468

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:May 01, 2023, 03:21:16 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1946 on: November 25, 2022, 09:56:46 pm »
I seem to have stumbled over an issue related to the "Interrupt Speech with Any Key" option. The diagnosis is not exactly scientific, but after a bit of evidence gathering, I feel like this option is to blame for a very sporadic (and somewhat maddening) issue I've experienced with HS + LEDBlinky.

I believe I am using the latest HS and LEDBlinky on Windows 10, with the former from 2015, IIRC and the latter downloaded a few months ago from your site. My HS setup is as simple as possible, at least WRT MAME and RA, which make up the bulk of my "wheels". No HyperLaunch; it gets stuck in memory, unless force-closing MAME and RA in CloseProcess, which loses high scores. So that thing was out from the start.

I looked into RocketLauncher at the beginning and realized it was just piling on more complications to the HyperLaunch failure (and was apparently written by the same people that wrote HyperLaunch), so skipped that as well. HS just launches MAME and RA and when they exit, HS regains the focus and all is well. That has always worked for me 100%, which is the standard I was after. No special pause screens and no "fades", but who needs the latter when MAME and RA launch almost instantly?

I also skipped Joy2Key, XPadder, etc. No need for those, as I just mapped the keys and gamepad buttons in the same way for RA and MAME (and various others). The only add-on I am using for HS is the oddly-named "Startup Script", which is great for gamepad input (HS sucks at that too) and its roulette function that spins to a random game.

Anyway, I have two machines: one is for development, where I tested the setup to death for months, launching hundreds, if not thousands of games *without* LEDBlinky. The other is in a cabinet and I tested it thoroughly with identical results, using the same exact files that run on the development box. I just copied the containing folder over to the cabinet and started launching games. Wonderful. Then I added LEDBlinky to the mix.

After spending a few weeks fiddling around, I managed to get LEDBlinky doing what I wanted without issue and never had any issues launching games during this time; but at some point, I turned on this "Interrupt Speech with Any Key" option and, not long after, began experiencing sporadic "silent" failures, where everything worked, except no games were launched.

When this happens, the HS log looks the same as always (of course), LEDBlinky announces the game and controls, lights the correct buttons, etc. But HS never even loses the focus, failing to launch anything. I could shut down HS, check Task Manager for anything stuck (nothing ever there), restart HS and it would *still* persist in this inane behavior. Then again, on occasion, it would somehow snap out of it after a restart and start launching games again.

As I was testing this (and tearing my hair out), I focused on the initial announcement of the HS controls and remembered that I had turned on that Interrupt option to be able to skip it. So I turned it off on the next failure to launch, re-ran HS and all was well. I left it off for a while, re-testing dozens of times and never an issue. Then I turned it back on at some point and the issue came back. So I turned it off again and was immediately able to launch games again.

I realize that the interaction between HS and LEDBlinky is hard to debug (e.g. HS fails silently), particularly without the source code for each, but based on the evidence gathered so far, it certainly seems like this Interrupt option sometimes causes this mind-boggling failure on the HS end. I can only speculate why and have not been able to think of a reason that this option should cause such a problem.

As mentioned, it was always sporadic, as I was often able to "cure" it by restarting HS a few times. Possibly it is the timing of the speech interruption that leaves HS in a bad state? Just to note, I did see this happen to the odd systems that use HyperLaunch as well (e.g. Daphne).

BTW, love the Pixelcade integration. Just added that and while testing, I noticed that I somehow had that Interrupt option checked on again, after marveling at the light shows in the menus, hitting the "Enter" button and then seeing no game launch. Turned it off and games immediately started launching again. Seems like a pattern at this point.

So that option is now turned off *forever*. Kind of sucks having to sit through the HS instructions in full on each launch (though I've found they get interrupted anyway in some cases), but I'll take it, as long as the games launch as expected afterward.

Anyway, just wanted to note this, though it will be buried in this single thread of a forum, perhaps others going through the same thing will be able to dig it up through Google. The most maddening thing about it is that everything else works perfectly and then it completely fails at its primary (and simplest) task, which is launching games.

As mentioned, I can't assign blame here, but seeing what a miserable excuse for a Windows app HS is, with its many documented (and often inexplicable) problems, I'll chalk it up to another mystery on its end. Despite its various quirks, I am still a big fan of LEDBlinky. :)

So, has anyone else seen such a problem with HS + LEDBlinky? I Googled for a while, but it's impossible to find specific reports of this nature, due to all of the decade's worth of reported problems and confusion out there WRT HS. As mentioned, having one long thread for LEDBlinky conversations isn't helping either.

One more clue: when it works, it always works (i.e. if the first game launches after a HS restart, all games will launch, at least until the next restart) and when it fails, all games fail to launch, at least until the next restart. That's part of what made me focus on the timing of the startup sequence, announcements, interruption, etc.

Will post back if I find this problem happening again *without* that Interrupt option checked, but I am hopeful that won't happen. At this point, my gut (and the evidence so far) tells me that turning off that option is indeed the "fix" for this issue. I sure hope so, as the next step would likely be to find another front-end (and learn to work around a whole new set of problems, I'm sure) or to live with a system that should work perfectly every time, but sporadically falls flat on its face for seemingly no reason. :(

Thanks in advance for any clues, no matter how seemingly insignificant, and Happy Holidays to all!

EDIT: So the checkbox may be a red herring, though I'm still somewhat convinced that this has something to do with the integration of LEDBlinky and HS. But turns out the checkbox in question is a bit of a weird interface and it threw me off. Turning it off without selecting a key in an adjacent control doesn't do anything, which can be seen by restarting LEDBlinky (the Any Key checkbox will be checked again). Still, opening and closing LEDBlinky seemed to cure it each time. I just restarted HS numerous times without this weird launch issue, so could just be another strange (and sporadic) HS problem after all.

EDIT: Typically, when UIs do odd things, it is a good spot to ignore what the UI is doing and refer to their settings file, Settings.ini in this case:

AbortSpeechAnyKey=0

What does that mean? Don't abort speech with any key? It looks like it could represent a Boolean value, but IIRC, selecting a key in the UI changes that value to a key code. I'll have to look at that again, as maybe that checkbox does change the value to 0 on un-checking it, but incorrectly displays it as checked on restarting the configuration app. Or perhaps somebody can chime in with what this value means to the app. :)

So maybe it wasn't a red herring. Will check on that...

EDIT: So the 0 does appear to be represented by an unchecked box in the UI. That makes sense and presumably it is a 1 if checked. I may have forgotten to hit Save at some point, but I am not sure how that box ever gets checked again (which it seems to have done earlier), as I never touched it. Perhaps the key is a different value that is only referenced if Any Key is turned off. I did change some other settings and hit Save for sure, but I never wanted to see that box checked again.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2022, 02:58:27 am by djm468 »

djm468

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:May 01, 2023, 03:21:16 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1947 on: November 26, 2022, 01:45:40 am »
Donkey Kong, for one example, despite having 2 players, lights up P2 Coin, but according to MAME, it doesn't have that control. I thought maybe this was an odd case that the data files can't express, but MAME.xml shows hundreds of games with inputs like this:

<input players="2" coins="1" service="yes">

Donkey Kong, Jr is another that demonstrates the issue.

I don't have any special profile for these games, so does LEDBlinky look at this "coins" attribute in MAME.xml? What if the game is in controls.ini? Does that format even make the distinction? I imagine the app chooses one or the other, though they are certainly not equal. IIRC, controls.ini has a lot more information, which makes me think that it would be the first choice.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2022, 01:57:29 am by djm468 »

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1948 on: November 26, 2022, 10:45:03 am »
EDIT: Typically, when UIs do odd things, it is a good spot to ignore what the UI is doing and refer to their settings file, Settings.ini in this case:

AbortSpeechAnyKey=0

What does that mean? Don't abort speech with any key? It looks like it could represent a Boolean value, but IIRC, selecting a key in the UI changes that value to a key code. I'll have to look at that again, as maybe that checkbox does change the value to 0 on un-checking it, but incorrectly displays it as checked on restarting the configuration app. Or perhaps somebody can chime in with what this value means to the app. :)

So maybe it wasn't a red herring. Will check on that...

EDIT: So the 0 does appear to be represented by an unchecked box in the UI. That makes sense and presumably it is a 1 if checked. I may have forgotten to hit Save at some point, but I am not sure how that box ever gets checked again (which it seems to have done earlier), as I never touched it. Perhaps the key is a different value that is only referenced if Any Key is turned off. I did change some other settings and hit Save for sure, but I never wanted to see that box checked again.

With "Abort Speech Any Key" checked, AbortSpeechAnyKey will be set to 0. With "Any Key" unchecked and a keyboard value selected, AbortSpeechAnyKey will be set to the ascii value for the selected key. You must have one or the other; if not, Any Key is the default.

As for your specific issue with HS, have you tried assigning a single key (like ESC) to abort the speech? I don't recall anyone else having this specific issue but HS can definitely function oddly when it comes to the app or emulator losing focus. Maybe just the fact that you're pressing a key (to abort speech) is causing HS to act weird? I might suggest posting the question on the HS forum?
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1949 on: November 26, 2022, 10:51:33 am »
Donkey Kong, for one example, despite having 2 players, lights up P2 Coin, but according to MAME, it doesn't have that control. I thought maybe this was an odd case that the data files can't express, but MAME.xml shows hundreds of games with inputs like this:

<input players="2" coins="1" service="yes">

Donkey Kong, Jr is another that demonstrates the issue.

I don't have any special profile for these games, so does LEDBlinky look at this "coins" attribute in MAME.xml? What if the game is in controls.ini? Does that format even make the distinction? I imagine the app chooses one or the other, though they are certainly not equal. IIRC, controls.ini has a lot more information, which makes me think that it would be the first choice.

For two player alternating games, LEDBlinky will light both coin buttons. It does not look at the "coin" attribute in the mame.xml.
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

djm468

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:May 01, 2023, 03:21:16 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1950 on: November 27, 2022, 01:09:45 am »
Donkey Kong, for one example, despite having 2 players, lights up P2 Coin, but according to MAME, it doesn't have that control. I thought maybe this was an odd case that the data files can't express, but MAME.xml shows hundreds of games with inputs like this:

<input players="2" coins="1" service="yes">

Donkey Kong, Jr is another that demonstrates the issue.

I don't have any special profile for these games, so does LEDBlinky look at this "coins" attribute in MAME.xml? What if the game is in controls.ini? Does that format even make the distinction? I imagine the app chooses one or the other, though they are certainly not equal. IIRC, controls.ini has a lot more information, which makes me think that it would be the first choice.

For two player alternating games, LEDBlinky will light both coin buttons. It does not look at the "coin" attribute in the mame.xml.

Thanks, Arzoo.

As the physical cabinets had two coin slots (apparently COINS="1" in MAME.XML means they were wired to the same switch), ISTM that this is best solved at the MAME ctrlr level. Something like this:

<!-- Donkey Kong has only one coin switch, but LEDBlinky lights up both buttons/slots; so make COIN2 work like COIN1 -->

    <system name="dkong">
        <input>
      <port type="COIN1">
               <newseq type="standard">
                   KEYCODE_6 OR KEYCODE_5 OR JOYCODE_2_BUTTON8 OR JOYCODE_1_BUTTON8
               </newseq>
           </port>
        </input>
    </system>

Then there won't be buttons and slots lit that do nothing. :)

djm468

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:May 01, 2023, 03:21:16 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1951 on: November 27, 2022, 01:16:39 am »
EDIT: Typically, when UIs do odd things, it is a good spot to ignore what the UI is doing and refer to their settings file, Settings.ini in this case:

AbortSpeechAnyKey=0

What does that mean? Don't abort speech with any key? It looks like it could represent a Boolean value, but IIRC, selecting a key in the UI changes that value to a key code. I'll have to look at that again, as maybe that checkbox does change the value to 0 on un-checking it, but incorrectly displays it as checked on restarting the configuration app. Or perhaps somebody can chime in with what this value means to the app. :)

So maybe it wasn't a red herring. Will check on that...

EDIT: So the 0 does appear to be represented by an unchecked box in the UI. That makes sense and presumably it is a 1 if checked. I may have forgotten to hit Save at some point, but I am not sure how that box ever gets checked again (which it seems to have done earlier), as I never touched it. Perhaps the key is a different value that is only referenced if Any Key is turned off. I did change some other settings and hit Save for sure, but I never wanted to see that box checked again.

With "Abort Speech Any Key" checked, AbortSpeechAnyKey will be set to 0. With "Any Key" unchecked and a keyboard value selected, AbortSpeechAnyKey will be set to the ascii value for the selected key. You must have one or the other; if not, Any Key is the default.

As for your specific issue with HS, have you tried assigning a single key (like ESC) to abort the speech? I don't recall anyone else having this specific issue but HS can definitely function oddly when it comes to the app or emulator losing focus. Maybe just the fact that you're pressing a key (to abort speech) is causing HS to act weird? I might suggest posting the question on the HS forum?

Okay, I think that explains what I was seeing in the UI. I had no keyboard value selected, so it kept going back to checked for Any Key. I knew I wasn't seeing things. :)

I did assign Esc at some point and the checkbox now stays unchecked. I'll have to pick something else though, as Esc is used to exit games. Whatever.

Am familiar with the HS/LEDBlinky focus woes when using HyperLaunch and its sequel. No clue what could make HS fail to launch entirely, without even using HyperLaunch, but the issue sure seems to go away when I uncheck the Any Key option (and never happens on the PC without LEDBlinky). Whatever it is, it's been easy to snap it out of it, possibly just by opening and closing LEDBlinky, but that seems like a stretch.

Thanks again!

EDIT:
And no, it's not the pressing of keys/buttons alone that is throwing it. I virtually always interrupt the intro video by pressing any key on both PCs.

EDIT:
As for HyperSpin forums, do they still exist? I read tons of old posts about HyperLaunch sticking in memory, waiting forever for a program that already finished up (not the problem I have, as I don't use that thing to launch MAME/RA) and the responses were usually of the "HyperLaunch is old, get RocketLauncher" variety. I never used that one either, but it obviously has its own problems, requiring special workarounds in LEDBlinky.

The only other possible clue I see repeated is to exclude the HS folder from Windows threat protection to avoid "strange problems", which I never had to do on the development box, but went ahead and did anyway on the cabinet. As usual, I won't know if that did anything helpful or not, until the next time this issue comes up (or not).
« Last Edit: November 28, 2022, 12:20:06 pm by djm468 »

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1952 on: November 27, 2022, 10:00:37 am »
As the physical cabinets had two coin slots (apparently COINS="1" in MAME.XML means they were wired to the same switch), ISTM that this is best solved at the MAME ctrlr level. Something like this:

The "Coin" attribute in mame.xml refers to the credit button, not the physical coin slot in the cabinet door (which may have lit up via the general illumination wiring and not individually controlled).
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

djm468

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:May 01, 2023, 03:21:16 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1953 on: November 27, 2022, 11:56:30 pm »
As the physical cabinets had two coin slots (apparently COINS="1" in MAME.XML means they were wired to the same switch), ISTM that this is best solved at the MAME ctrlr level. Something like this:

The "Coin" attribute in mame.xml refers to the credit button, not the physical coin slot in the cabinet door (which may have lit up via the general illumination wiring and not individually controlled).

I think it is "COINS", but no matter. COINS=1 seems to indicate that P2 COIN won't do anything, as there is only one coin switch on the cabinet, wired to both slots. So the ctrlr-based solution I posted should work, though would have to be repeated for each such game (good place for a script to generate them).

djm468

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18
  • Last login:May 01, 2023, 03:21:16 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1954 on: November 28, 2022, 12:06:40 am »
EDIT: Typically, when UIs do odd things, it is a good spot to ignore what the UI is doing and refer to their settings file, Settings.ini in this case:

AbortSpeechAnyKey=0

What does that mean? Don't abort speech with any key? It looks like it could represent a Boolean value, but IIRC, selecting a key in the UI changes that value to a key code. I'll have to look at that again, as maybe that checkbox does change the value to 0 on un-checking it, but incorrectly displays it as checked on restarting the configuration app. Or perhaps somebody can chime in with what this value means to the app. :)

So maybe it wasn't a red herring. Will check on that...

EDIT: So the 0 does appear to be represented by an unchecked box in the UI. That makes sense and presumably it is a 1 if checked. I may have forgotten to hit Save at some point, but I am not sure how that box ever gets checked again (which it seems to have done earlier), as I never touched it. Perhaps the key is a different value that is only referenced if Any Key is turned off. I did change some other settings and hit Save for sure, but I never wanted to see that box checked again.

With "Abort Speech Any Key" checked, AbortSpeechAnyKey will be set to 0. With "Any Key" unchecked and a keyboard value selected, AbortSpeechAnyKey will be set to the ascii value for the selected key. You must have one or the other; if not, Any Key is the default.

As for your specific issue with HS, have you tried assigning a single key (like ESC) to abort the speech? I don't recall anyone else having this specific issue but HS can definitely function oddly when it comes to the app or emulator losing focus. Maybe just the fact that you're pressing a key (to abort speech) is causing HS to act weird? I might suggest posting the question on the HS forum?

I could have sworn that un-checking the box lit up the Save menu button, which raises the question of what it would save if no key has been selected in the adjacent control. I'd expect it to disallow saving until the two controls are in alignment. I'll play around with that next weekend and post back...

If un-checking and not selecting a key does nothing to the INI file, as I now suspect, then that setting was a red herring and the only evidence I have is that opening and closing the configuration app (which loads LEDBlinky in the background) has always managed to snap HS out of its bad state where it fails to launch any games, but logs as if it did, at least until the next HS restart.

I'd say that 99% of the time on the cabinet (and 100% on the PC without LEDBlinky), HS works as expected. But, on rare occasions, HS starts up in this bad state and there's no logical way to debug or fix it. Fiddling around with LEDBlinky in between starting and stopping HS seems to do the trick, for whatever reason. Or maybe that is just a coincidence, as I couldn't think of anything else to do, short of restarting Windows (has never come to that). Will post back if I see any sort of logical pattern emerge.

bozowise

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
  • Last login:December 04, 2022, 04:11:01 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1955 on: December 04, 2022, 03:27:39 pm »
Installed LED Blinky in my cab and am slowly learning the details. I have watched all the videos and done the FAQ but I am still at a bit of a loss.

I attached an image of the lighting for Galaga.

I am not sure why it does not light coin 1 and it has an extra button lit on the controls. From everything I can see in the control file it should light coin 1 and there should only be one button lit for the fire button.

nick7184

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3
  • Last login:December 05, 2022, 09:59:02 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1956 on: December 05, 2022, 09:59:02 pm »
I have set up a default set of mappings in the control editor for "<default>" emulator, however, when I run a game in RetroArch, or any other emu for that matter via BigBox, I don't see buttons light up. The only other emulator config I have is MAME, which works properly.

Anyone have any idea what else I need to do to get default colors working?

Thanks

arzoo

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2092
  • Last login:March 15, 2024, 10:31:32 pm
  • Robots WILL kill you.
    • LEDBlinky
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1957 on: December 06, 2022, 07:16:53 am »
Installed LED Blinky in my cab and am slowly learning the details. I have watched all the videos and done the FAQ but I am still at a bit of a loss.
I attached an image of the lighting for Galaga.
I am not sure why it does not light coin 1 and it has an extra button lit on the controls. From everything I can see in the control file it should light coin 1 and there should only be one button lit for the fire button.

I have set up a default set of mappings in the control editor for "<default>" emulator, however, when I run a game in RetroArch, or any other emu for that matter via BigBox, I don't see buttons light up. The only other emulator config I have is MAME, which works properly.

Please enabled the Debug Log option (Misc Options tab), run your FE and a few games that don't light correctly, then email me the debug.zip and/or debug.log files and I'll take a look.
Robots will kill you.



Arcade Addiction

ToddBMCV

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
  • Last login:December 13, 2022, 01:48:27 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1958 on: December 11, 2022, 11:53:04 am »
Complete noob here, having difficult getting LED blinky active animation to keep buttons a solid color as shown in the support videos by using a single frame animation.
Also when I go into a game it doesn't light only the buttons of that game.

My active animation setup-

<a href="https://ibb.co/0YpCyG0"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/tYwqpJ0/active-animation.png" alt="active-animation" border="0"></a>

What actually happens, only player 4 is comletely right.

<a href="https://ibb.co/vLj5N4h"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/XFCBnxD/arcade.jpg" alt="arcade" border="0"></a>

When I check the LED colors in the "General LEDBlinky INput Map they are all correct and when I run the animation it's all correct.    Please HELP!
Also sorry haven't used a forum like this is a long time, didn't know how to get images to show directly. 

PL1

  • Global Moderator
  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9394
  • Last login:Today at 02:12:01 pm
  • Designated spam hunter
Re: LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor - v8.2
« Reply #1959 on: December 11, 2022, 01:06:21 pm »
haven't used a forum like this is a long time, didn't know how to get images to show directly.
Putting the image URL inside IMG tags like this code example displays the image like below.   :cheers:
- The icon inserts the IMG tags.

Code: [Select]
[img]https://i.ibb.co/tYwqpJ0/active-animation.png[/img]

My active animation setup-



What actually happens, only player 4 is comletely right.




Scott