Varying Effects for Groups of Submodels

[Noxx]

Hello,

I built a model with 48 parallel LED stripes. For simplicity sake I say that each stripe is 300 LEDs long.

Each stripe has 3 sub-models, I call them Part1, Part2 and Part3 for this post, and each has an equal length of 100 LEDs.

Then I created 3 groups where I bundle all Part1 sub-models into a Part1Group and same for the other 2.

Now if I put effects (e.g. Circles) on each group, they behave differently. Part1Group and Part3Group show circles as expected. Part2Group shows lines across all stripes.

The same happens for other effects.

Is there a reason that a second segment of an LED line (and a group based on 2nd segments) is treated differently by xLights effects than the 1st and 3rd?

PS: The practical application for this problem was an Art Installation we built for this year's Burning Man where we put LED stripes around a big steel mushroom. The three parts were trunk, floor and dome of the mushroom. The 2nd segment (the Floor) showed this unexpected behaviour.

Now I am working on an indoor installation where the 3 parts are Wall1, Ceiling, and Wall2. And again, the Ceiling behaves strangely. Of course, xLights doesn't know about  the 3D shapes; just lights and numbers.

[JonD]

This is pretty common with xLights.  Some effects look fine in sub-groups, and others do not. 

For example, I have some vertical strings that are a single strand of lights going bottom/up.  I also have a 5 string matrix panel on a porch pole.  The matrix consists of 5 single strings going bottom/up.   I have tried to create a subgroup for the last string in the matrix, and then place the subgroup in a group with the single strings.  Sometimes the effect works fine in the matrix subgroup, other times it plays undesirable lighting.  On rare occasions you can adjust the effect to correct, but most times it can't be fixed.  xLights will sometimes play things differently if the lead string is left bottom, compared to right bottom.  Even if the prop has been properly configured, a handful of effects will play different things just because the first light is in a different starting position.  Whenever creating props, I ALWAYS make sure the same style props start in the exact same starting location. 

I have mentioned this in the past and feedback was there are some known issues, but the fix breaks more than it resolves.

[MikeKrebs]

Did you make the model one plane or did you 3d it? 
Did you try different buffer render styles? 

It should work but maybe there are workarounds. You could pop in the zoom room and raise your hand and see if someone sees anything.

[Noxx]

Thanks @JonD, I suspected th at the xLights algorithms might not work for any model

@MikeKrebs I built 3D models. I never came across "buffer render styles". Any advice how to do that?

Never tried the Zoom room, but will do so. 

By now I tested with simpler (but structurally similar) models and they seem to work fine. Maybe it is related to the high number of LEDs and universes. I started the models always from scratch and built   them  very systematically step-by-step.  
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[jnealand]

Wow, amazing prop.

[Noxx]

Thanks @jnealand 


And some wonderful folks in the Zoom room told me how to fix the problems I had. Great!!

[k6ccc]

Impressive prop indeed!

Having not read this thread (I don't use xLights, so don't normally read threads in this section), but I saw the picture, and my first thought was "Burning Man".  Then read the first part of the thread and saw that I was right on that...