Tip Of The Day #057

Tip Of The Day #057

Ever wanted a star when you only have a matrix … in fact pretty much any model when you only have a matrix.

With the power of submodels it is possible to turn a matrix into any sort of model … you just need to choose the right nodes.

Some time ago I built this spreadsheet which tries to make the process more manageable.

The process is basically:

– Ensure you enable macros … if you feel the need to you can inspect the code … nothing is hidden
– Describe your matrix on the config tab cells B1-B6
– Click the generate test matrix
– Go to the TestMatrix tab and validate the node layout looks correct. If it is wrong fix your configuration
– Delete all the outline bla bla bla tabs and replace them with a copy of the TestMatrix tab. You only need one … unless you are building multiple overlapping submodels in which case you will need to add more.
– Now in your new tab find the cells that you want to include in your submodel and overwrite the number with a submodel name … so if you want a 3 layer star you might put “layer1” into all the nodes you want in layer 1 and “layer2” in all the nodes you want in layer 2.
– If it helps you to delete the numbered cells that is fine … but don’t put text in them as these will become yet more submodels … although you could ignore them
– Once done go back to the config tab and click “generate subbuffers”
– At the bottom of the sheet you should now have a list of your submodels and a comma separated list of nodes that need to be in that submodel.
– Now you can go to xLights and copy and paste in these node lists into your newly created submodels.

The spreadsheet is located in the files section of the facebook group and here …

https://bitbucket.org/…/Matri…/Singing-Faces-on-Matrix.xlsm…

The data in it currently is for singing faces … but it could be anything.