fpp VS xLights

Strong recommendation for Xlights, I used to program patterns for my dreamcoat.

I started with a 3D scan of me wearing the costume using my wife's iPhone when the first version with LIDAR came out. After cleaning up the scan (iPhone 12 LIDAR wasn't the best quality) in Blender, I spent a good many hours in Xlights placing every single light at its correct 3D position using the imported mesh as a reference. Laborious work, but with all 1300-odd WS2811 LEDs mapped in all 3 axes, it makes for a pretty beautiful product.

Using Xlights is great. For open source it's pretty smooth. There's a small learning curve for the technology, but making sequences a strong resemblance to video editing. The project has frequest updates, I haven't seen any project-breaking format changes in the 3.5 years I've used it, and it's clearly maintained by people who use it. Push new rendered sequences to my FPP-running raspi on the costume through wifi then editing the running playlist through a web interface on FPP on the laptop is a dream.

If anyone's curious:

FPP: https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp

My dreamcoat sequenced to Holst's Jupiter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWzdUJsAMa4&pp=ygUNbGVkIGRyZ...

Timelapses of me making the costume: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODWVIsqwwA&pp=ygUNbGVkIGRyZ...

I run my Christmas light show software (https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp) with a Pi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlxaA-ca6S0 :)

I use Falcon Player to run my show. This is software running on a Raspberry Pi that I upload my songs and light sequences to from xlights. FPP is configured to know where each light is plugged into on which pixel controller (small lighting computer). These controllers sit on my network and FPP pushes the data to them to play the songs/light sequences.

I recommend you to use a known working controller like this: the protocol is known (sufficiently reverse engineered ) to make it do anything you like. Tools like xLights and FPP can send data to the card and thus to the LED matrix.

You could also go the way of the LED panels (search for P5 Outdoor LED Panels) plus a Colorlight 5A 75B to control them. xLights and FPP support them well.

I don't think you need that much for it to work. I've seen so many cool light shows synchronized with music. You can use a Raspberry Pi and install on it Falcon Player ( FFP ) and connect everything through a network and maybe try on your laptop / pc a program called xLights to make some interesting stuff.

Details are here https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp

Happily! I will share what I use - please be aware there are lots of options in the space. Also, including my wife's advice from last year: Start small - one or two props can be make a great show and can be accomplished in a reasonable time frame.

Xlights: Sequencing and Scheduling software. This is what tells your lights what to do. (https://xlights.org/)

Falcon Pi Player (FPP): This software runs on your controller - A raspberry Pi or a Beaglebone are quite popular. This is what you run your sequences on. In my case, I drive my lights directly from my Pi. (https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp and https://falconchristmas.com)

I have reached out to one of the devs .. if it is downloads you need then you can grab it here. https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/releases

The latest update 2023_4 changes something about the .fseq files. They won't validate and don't play on the car. You can download older versions here (I'm on 2023.1)

If you want the devs to read your suggestion, post it on the github https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/issues

So I *think* I have Twinkly and XLights set up correctly but as I am having some issues (https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/issues/3458) I want to sanity check my set up. I found this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNRMY2xzfrk) but my version of XLights is different and the process flow and options etc also. I'm on a Mac running v2022.23.

I don't think you need that much for it to work. I've seen so many cool light shows synchronized with music. You can use a Raspberry Pi and install on it Falcon Player ( FFP ) and connect everything through a network and maybe try on your laptop / pc a program called xLights to make some interesting stuff.

On my PC, I use XLights to wirelessly connect to the controller, map my room and program the LEDs.