Johnny 5 and LedWiz

[MYX]

In theory you can make up to 110,592 different variances (48³), but your right, with the white buttons, you'll never see em. I have found that even making jumps of 5 points higher in a given setting sometimes is hard to see a difference. If you made divisions at like every 8 points (6 points total for each color) you could make a sort of accurate color picker with 216 colors. I made a little cheet sheet for my self of number to colors. But in Randy's app, it takes for ever when trying to make any complex animations.

[RandyT]

That's not the issue.  I actually use a color wheel for one of my transition tests doing what you describe. 

The issue is that led colors are not the same as colors on your monitor.  As the color value is lowered on your pc, the color approaches black.  On your ice button, it first gets dimmer and then approaches white (the color of the button).  I don't think it'll ever get to the point that you can calibrate it exactly because of this, but your major arcade button colors could be mapped out and matched with the proper windows color picker swatches. 

Yes and no.  There's the transmitted "white" light created by the LED and there's the reflected white of the buttons.  In a dark room, the colors can indeed go to "black", but most will have some sort of room lighting.  This means that the darkest color the buttons will appear is equal to the amount of ambient light reflected from them. 

Calibration would probably be a little difficult and would have to be based on the response curves of the LED.  But if one were to try, it should also be based on a normal to dimly illuminated room.  Looking at the buttons in front of a east-facing bay window at 9am probably isn't going to be very useful

MYX:

That's an interesting thought.  A user color palette rather than a mixer (or combination of the two).  I can see this being especially useful if there were an equate table that allowed the user to mix the color for the LED separately from the color of the on-screen representation.

RandyT

[MYX]

MYX:

That's an interesting thought.  A user color palette rather than a mixer (or combination of the two).  I can see this being especially useful if there were an equate table that allowed the user to mix the color for the LED separately from the color of the on-screen representation.

RandyT

Yeah, it would be a rough estimate. Kinda like doing photoshop on a LCD. Never looks the same on a glass monitor, but you get the general idea.

[headkaze]

Hey Howard, I noticed you mentioned losing your LEDWiz work in your HDD crash. I found some interesting code in VB6 that will read the audio levels. Of course you have to set your Recording to Stereo Mix so it registers all sound playing through the PC. I knew you were already working towards doing this, so it should fast track things a bit so you can get the LED's working in time with audio.

I was thinking about writing a tray app to do this myself, but I don't think I can be bothered since I have no interest in adding a LEDWiz to my cab.

[Howard_Casto]

I appreciate it, but the now ancient dragonator jukebox program I made in the stone age had some beat detection software (basically working the same way you mentioned) so I have the source I need. 

My ledwiz stuff is on hold for a while myself.  Right now I am getting dk ready. Personally I'll probably never use my ledwiz either, unless some mame devs use the output functions to do some force-feedback stuff. I'm not big on blinkly lights, although it is cool to mess with and I do like the idea of lighting up your layout. 

[headkaze]

I appreciate it, but the now ancient dragonator jukebox program I made in the stone age had some beat detection software (basically working the same way you mentioned) so I have the source I need. 

My ledwiz stuff is on hold for a while myself.  Right now I am getting dk ready. Personally I'll probably never use my ledwiz either, unless some mame devs use the output functions to do some force-feedback stuff. I'm not big on blinkly lights, although it is cool to mess with and I do like the idea of lighting up your layout. 

Perhaps you can use the LEDWiz to light up your XMas tree at the end of the year

[Rudi]

Have you posted your Dualie program yet to support J5? 

-Rudi

[Howard_Casto]

Not yet........  we'll see it this winter probably.  Mame has had rendering changes wihich effect it and it needs more testing. 

[Rudi]

If you want a beta tester, I've got the hardware ready for my next cab.  I just have to build the cab and CP.  I've got to finish up another project first, but winter is when I'll be working on the dual monitor unit.

-Rudi

[arzoo]

Count me in as one who would love to see j5 support for a second ledwiz device.

Anyway, I

[RandyT]

I

[Howard_Casto]

Count me in as one who would love to see j5 support for a second ledwiz device.

Anyway, I

[arzoo]

The beta supports all 16 theoretical devices.  Color coding by label caption though, that would be a futile effort as most captions are not shared amoungst games and you would have to pretty much manually light each game and in that case there is no point in putting j5 in the equation. 

That's great to hear that j5 supports multiple devices! 
As for the color by button function - I agree, this would have to be configured on a game by game basis. In fact, pm lets you do just that. I just thought that for the couple dozen games that I really like to play, I would set up the color file. I'm just trying to figure out a way to make good use of the rgb buttons!

[Howard_Casto]

well j5 supports a colors.ini, it's just one doesn't exist yet.  The idea is to document the colors of the actual buttons used on the arcade machine. 

[digitaldj]

You guys have been talking about mixing colors from the rgb leds and there is a complete science to this. First off alot depends on the rgb led specs, second the frequency of the pwm cycle(which pwm is not the best choice) and third the operating voltage. The operating voltage makes a big difference, i know you think i'm crazy but they are current devices but depend on voltage for the current range(ohms law). Here is a good example to develope white from rgb led at 12volts the red led will be set to 20ma but green and blue will be at app. 10ma(so you loose some current range compared to red), at 5 volts red set at 20ma the green and blue app. 5ma. Green and blue being at totally higher wavelenghts then red of coarse appear alot brighter. I am designing a lighting system for my juke and the processor board runs the leds at 5volts so for me to get a great color spectrum i have added a extra red led to the rgb to get the red brightness up so i can get the green and blue current up and this gives me the current range i need. I typically don't  like rgb leds for projects because of the poor insentity of the red led portion(very big manufaturing flaw). When dealing with rgb leds like i have you have to accomodate for this problem either in the fashion i did by adding the extra red or by the pwm frequency.  Color kinetics deals with some of these problems in their software and is the only company to do this and is patented. You would typically have to design a alogorhythm based on typical rgb specs with maybe some controls for tweaking this.

The other thing is you will never generate the other end of the color spectrum which includes black(which is the absence of color). There is three colors that can generate black but these are not made to my knowledge at least not in a led. I know you're saying i thought he just said black was the absence of color but now we are talking about black as being generated as a artists color. If you are making you own lighting you can use tinted acylic(non glare) and put it over the white. Now the great mystery is how does a TV get black?

Check this out!
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/tv/colortv.html
http://home.att.net/~RTRUSCIO/COLORMX.htm

Additive and Subtractive Color
Televisions, cameras, scanners and computer monitors are based on the additive system of color (RGB), where red, green and blue light projected together yield white. Offset printing, digital printing, paints, plastics, fabric and photographic prints are based on the subtractive system of color (CMY/CMYK) in which cyan, magenta and yellow mix to form black (K).



Jukeman

[RandyT]

Sound like you are reading an awful lot into your experiments.  LED's vary greatly in their output capabilities.  Your requirement of using 2 red LEDs for 1 each of green and blue speaks more to the type of LED's you are using than the differences between colors.  Decent RGB LED's are tuned to allow one to achieve a fairly convincing "white" with little  difficulty.

The other thing is you will never generate the other end of the color spectrum which includes black(which is the absence of color). There is three colors that can generate black but these are not made to my knowledge at least not in a led. I know you're saying i thought he just said black was the absence of color but now we are talking about black as being generated as a artists color. If you are making you own lighting you can use tinted acylic(non glare) and put it over the white. Now the great mystery is how does a TV get black?

There are no "colors" that can generate black.  Black is the total absorption or lack of light.  Putting a tinted acrylic cover over a white LED does nothing more than filter out certain wavelengths relative to the specs of the material.   If the wavelength isn't there in the LED, or not there in sufficient levels, the tinted cover won't do what you expect it to.  If you are talking about dark tinted acrylic to produce "dark" light, then that is just silly.

There is no great mystery as to how "black" is generated on a CRT.  The electron beam gun shuts off and the phosphor is not excited so no light is produced..  The quality of the  "blacks" you get are based on the shade of the phosphor on the inside of the screen, the tint of the CRT glass, and the amount of ambient light in the room where the CRT is viewed.

Additive and Subtractive Color
Offset printing, digital printing, paints, plastics, fabric and photographic prints are based on the subtractive system of color (CMY/CMYK) in which cyan, magenta and yellow mix to form black (K).

This is just incorrect.  (K) is black.  No real offset / digital printers use a 3 color process, rather a 4 color process which includes real black ink.  Cyan, Magenta and Yellow by themselves just produce a muddy dark gray, which is why inkjet printers which use separate CMY and Black (K) ink cartridges produce vastly superior text and imagery.

Also, this is not precision spectrometry here.  If you are trying make an orange light, and of 10 people 9 say the color is "orange" and the tenth says it's a slightly reddish orange, there's good chance you succeeded in making an orange light.  Anything beyond that in this application is overkill to the nth degree.

Presets with user defined R, G and B values which are linked to on-screen color icons is probably all anyone would really need.

RandyT

[digitaldj]

True that they will generate white but will not generate the color spectrum like it should. I have experimented with every rgb that is available on the market as part of research project for a college term paper.
 
The tinted acrylic is only to simulate what would be the phosphor of a TV screen and when illuminated with varying brightness of white can produce shades of gray. I never said there was a great mystery to a TV generating black.

Actually commercial printing equipment use more colors to generate the full color spectrum.

Still with CMY it is very close to black and would suffice instead of none. Matter of fact 48 steps of PWM is definately over kill. Generating over 4096 is going to be way more than the human eye can typically see.

Wow! You try to make this all sound so simple which tells me that you lack the knowledge on the subject. Try to tell Color Kinetics(leading L.e.d. Lighting Manufaturer) what their doing is putting way to much effort into their products and see what they tell you.

Besides i was only making reference to my findings and just take from it what you will.

Jukeman

[RandyT]

Still with CMY it is very close to black and would suffice instead of none at all which your board doesn't seem to be able to do. Matter of fact 48 steps of PWM is definately over kill. Generating over 4096 is going to be way more than the human eye can see.

Well, it might be if the LED-Wiz was only designed with LED's in mind.  The fact is, it can operate as a 48 level DC motor speed control, or any other application where PWM might be desirable.  The fact that it can give you that level of adjusrment with an LED is so much the better.  No point in crippling something if you have the capability to make it better.

Actually commercial printing equipment use more colors to generate the full color spectrum.

4 color process is still the standard.  Most inkjets don't have the color gamut that commercial offset printers have with their inks and therefore have intermediate colors to fill in the gaps. 

Wow! You try to make this all sound so simple which tells me that you lack the knowledge on the subject.

I spent 7 years doing thin film deposition and manufacturing laser optics and another 5 on top of that in glasses-free 3D system design and manufacture.  I know a thing or two about "light."

RandyT

[digitaldj]

What makes you think i have differences with alot of folks, it seems it's just you? If you are refering to the differences i have with the guys that have Virtual Jukbox software then it speaks for it's self.

I have spent a year working with and developing my own lighting and just wanted to share my findings so if you don't believe them then that is fine. I guess my new employer may be dissapointed in my knowledge(not)we will see. I get to move to the town of sin and work with a lighting company that designs lighting systems used on casinos and corporate buildings all over the world. 

Laser is whole different animal and i don't know how you can compare that to L.e.d. lighting.

And like i said 48 steps is way overkill, looks like you need to read alot more about led lighting. As i was going to mention before and took it out of the post that it seems like you have a problem with me and you must feel threatened by what i am doing.

Let's just get back to what the original posts were all about! If you want to brow beat me then do it by email.
Jukeman

[arzoo]

well j5 supports a colors.ini, it's just one doesn't exist yet.  The idea is to document the colors of the actual buttons used on the arcade machine. 

Can I create my own colors.ini for a selected set of games?

[mahuti]

To sum up Jukeman's comments...

he doesn't like using RGB leds himself.
tv's are black when they're turned off
sometimes printers use "RICH BLACK" c+m+y+k
putting a black plastic cap over a led will make the color black.

I think what we should get out of this is that we should swap our white buttons for black whenever we want to use the color "black." Randy, can you build some sort of button that flips inside a control panel from white to black when it gets a signal from the ledwiz? Perfect.

OK, now... like arzoo said... can I create my own colors.ini?

[Howard_Casto]

yup... it's included in the data section with a sample game.  Just find the controls.ini entry for the game, copy it over and replace the caption with a r,g,b value.

This whole led color discussion is moot btw... what you a jukeman are forgetting is that the button, not the led is the thing we wish to color.  No matter how kind of do-kickey we put on the led itself, the button will be white when it is turned off.  Even if you aren't using it with a button, a diffusor is needed to blend the colors properly.  It's nearly impossible to make a black diffusor that will work well.  It isn't totally impossible, just nearly.  it's be hard to get white and yellow by shining through a black object. 

The only way (that I know of) to generate black is to fill an object with liquid quartz and make it into a giant lcd.  Run current through it and it turns black.  Unfortuantely it would be nearly impossible to make such an item in the shape of a button. 


Since no one has complained about the beta, I will repackage it as the "official" j5 build later this weekend.

[Tiger-Heli]

The only way (that I know of) to generate black is to fill an object with liquid quartz and make it into a giant lcd.  Run current through it and it turns black.  Unfortuantely it would be nearly impossible to make such an item in the shape of a button. 

Except for those Russian keyboard manufacturers. . . 

[Howard_Casto]

The only way (that I know of) to generate black is to fill an object with liquid quartz and make it into a giant lcd.  Run current through it and it turns black.  Unfortuantely it would be nearly impossible to make such an item in the shape of a button. 

Except for those Russian keyboard manufacturers. . . 

If you are talking about that keyboard with the little lcd displays in them, the button isn't an lcd, rather the little screen inside it is.  Keyboard keys are square too.  In order for it to look right the entire arcade button (not just the top or a disc inside) would have to be quartzified, which would be hard to say the least. 

[loadman]

Does this post need to be sticky anymore?

[arzoo]

Howard,
I was wondering if you would consider a modification to the way J5 defines the individual LEDs in Lights.ini? As it stands, each RGB led must have all 3 leads wired to the same LEDWiz device. It would be much more flexible if RGBs could span devices - I'll explain why I think this would help. Since there is no way to set multiple LEDWiz devices into a master/slave configuration, only one can act as the control for sequencing. That limits a cp to at most 10 buttons in a sequence - assuming each requires all three RGB values to define the color. But if you're willing to limit the sequencing LEDs to a single color, you can now use up to 32 buttons and still provide multiple color options for each button during game play.

I'll use my cp as an example - I have 16 RGB buttons, 1 LED for the Trackball, and 4 single LED admin buttons (Atari volcano's). The blue lead for the RGBs, and the other single LEDs are all wired to device 1 (21 ports used). The red and green leads for the RGBs are wired to device 2 (32 ports used). With this layout, I can sequence all the LEDs together (RGBs only in blue), and still light the RGBs in other colors for game play.

It may be that not many members have cps with so many LEDs or that they're not interested in an attract mode sequence, but I still think this would be a useful enhancement to J5 - it would certainly help me out. 

[loadman]

Since there is no way to set multiple LEDWiz devices into a master/slave configuration, only one can act as the control for sequencing.

...hmmm  Unless I read this wrong.

I don't know about J5 but..

There is no reason why you can't have animation sequences span multiple Led-Wiz.

I am doing that now making the attract mode for the Led-Wiz Plugin.

RandyT's animation file format only accounts for one wiz so that needed to be changed.

As I say I could have missunderstood what you meant

[arzoo]

Since there is no way to set multiple LEDWiz devices into a master/slave configuration, only one can act as the control for sequencing.

...hmmm  Unless I read this wrong.

I don't know about J5 but..

There is no reason why you can't have animation sequences span multiple Led-Wiz.

I am doing that now making the attract mode for the Led-Wiz Plugin.

RandyT's animation file format only accounts for one wiz so that needed to be changed.

As I say I could have missunderstood what you meant

Did Randy modify his animation file format to allow for multiple devices? Back when I bought mine, they could not do that, which is why I've wired my LEDs across the two devices. How do multiple devices stay in sync?

[loadman]

Did Randy modify his animation file format to allow for multiple devices? Back when I bought mine, they could not do that, which is why I've wired my LEDs across the two devices. How do multiple devices stay in sync?

No, But he told me what his intension are so I basically followed that

You can address all Ledwiz with a command or just one