effects

,

Android updates, Nanoleaf improvements, iOS Promos and more in the latest update

,

Hey there, Kevin from Light DJ HQ here with another round of app updates!

Nanoleaf Lines & Other Improvements

In case you missed the last post, Light DJ now supports more types of Nanoleaf lights than ever before, including Nanoleaf Lines and Nanoleaf Elements Wood Look Hexagons. The latest releases added a number of backend improvements that will improve sync and responsiveness for all users, especially for those controlling multiple Nanoleaf controllers simultaneously.

Android changes

Android Cloud Support

The Android version now fully supports and syncs with the Light DJ Network cloud service. This means that all of your patterns, playlists, and color palettes are fully backed up to the cloud and useable across the universe of iOS and Android devices. Cross-platform access continues to be available for all subscribers and full purchase users through your Light DJ Network account.

Android Command Items & Automations

New command items are now available for your playlists. These instruct the app to perform some simple commands when they're triggered during playback. They can tell the app to change brightness or tempo, switch to a different playlist, or apply a color palette. Brightness and tempo commands can include automations that will slowly increase and decrease the value over time or in a wave pattern. Brightness and tempo automations can also be started manually through the SceneMaker Options page.

iOS Community Sharing Features

On iOS, the community content sharing feature has been removed. My original plan was for users to upload their custom content to a community library so that other users could download it for their own use. It seemed that many users didn't understand this feature and it ended up being a dumping ground of sorts with a lot of duplicate and poorly named content, so as of today this section will feature all the official content available in the app. For iPad users, this is particularly useful for downloading different sheet sizes other than your native device. In a future update I'd like to add select community content from approved creators - email me if you have something you'd like to share!

iOS Promotional Offers

If you previously subscribed to the app but cancelled for some reason, check the latest update to find your limited-time, personal promotional offer. These are unique for every user and change periodically so if you've been thinking about re-subscribing look for your offer in the app and you could save up to 50%. 

Sunsetting Bonus Effects

Finally, after much consideration and after creating almost 5 years worth of bonus effects for the app, I've decided to finally sunset the development of new effects with the final 2 bonus effects being unlocked April 2023. While it was a rewarding challenge to create over 100 unique configurable effects for the app it's also been limiting with respect to the expansion of Light DJ and my business as a whole. For example I'd love to make updates to the Visualizer and to the Light DJ Studio app (as well as port it to Android). I've also got a top-secret project I'm working on that should add a few more effects to Light DJ's library once it's complete. Light DJ will continue to receive updates as new lighting hardware becomes available as well as periodic updates based on new effects and controllers from other products I create.

As always, if you have any suggestions or feedback on the app feel free to reach out at kevin@nrthrnlights.com.

Happy Lighting!

Kevin

Creating stunning visuals using Hue Entertainment

fd-philips-hue-2-product-photos-14.jpg

As many of you know, I updated the Light DJ apps earlier this year to support the new Hue Entertainment API. It took just over a month to recreate all of Light DJs 30+ effects in the new format for both iOS and Android. Today I'd like to delve a bit deeper into what it takes to write effects for Hue Entertainment and how you can integrate this new technology into your projects.

The starting place for any Hue developer is the Hue Developer Portal at www.developers.meethue.com. Here you'll find all of the documentation on Hue APIs and guidance for application design. Once you create an account, you'll also need to accept the terms & conditions if you plan on using the Hue Entertainment Development Kit (recommended). The EDK handles bridge discovery & pairing, effect creation & rendering, and streaming to the bridge. If this all sounds complicated, it's not. Hue developed a Quick Start app that incorporates everything you need to start creating effects. (You'll get access to this once you accept the T&C).

Once you start the Quick Start app and pair it with your bridge you'll see two buttons for controlling the lights. The Randomize Lights button uses the legacy Hue API to set the lights to random colors. A typical legacy light command involves a target color and duration. For example, if a light is currently set to blue, you could send the bridge a command to set it to red over 3 seconds and the light will slowly fade from blue to red. If you don't have a need for high-performance or spatial effects this may be enough for your project since it's a bit easier to program for - just be sure you're not exceeding the 10 commands/sec limit on light changes (1 command/sec on groups) or the bridge may start rejecting your commands.

For more advanced effects you’ll need to use the EDK; the Explode button shows an example of this. This process is a bit more involved so I'll go further in detail here. Upon pressing Explode the app will first check to see if you've created an Entertainment Area. If not, it will create one automatically (though I recommend setting one up right from the Hue app so that you can position your lights correctly). Next, the app sets the bridge into streaming mode. This is necessary for the bridge to be able to listen to the UDP-type messages coming from the app. When in streaming mode, the bridge will ignore legacy Hue commands so you'll need to disable it when you're finished if you plan on controlling your lights through other apps. With streaming mode enabled, the app will call a function in the EDK to create an effect based on the parameters that you set. In this case, we're creating an Explosion Effect with an intense burst of color in one location that radiates outward. The effect object is added to the mixer, which renders the state of the lights for the entire Entertainment Area.

Unlike the legacy Hue commands which offer the ability to set individual light states, the EDK always controls the entire Entertainment Area and it will continually stream updates to the lights based on the effects that you add to the mixer. As the name implies, multiple effects can be mixed together with a combination of layers and color transparency.

Aside from the Explosion effect, there are other types of effects that you can create with Hue Entertainment, such as:

  • Area Effect - sets all of the lights in sub-area(s) of the Entertainment Area to a color or animation.

  • Multi-Channel Effect - sort of like 5.1 audio, you can define a separate channel for different animations. Light DJ typically uses these over Area Effects because I can’t always guarantee that users will have lights in every area. This effect distributes the channels evenly regardless of light locations in the Entertainment Area or how many lights the user has.

  • Light Source Effect - created a radial color animation from a specific location in the room. (An Explode Effect is a type of Light Source Effect.)

  • Light Iterator Effect - cycles through each of the lights in a room with a certain color or animation.

You can find more details on these effect types at http://developers.meethue.com/documentation/hue-edk-effect-creation including sample code and details on how to define animations.

For advanced users, there's also the ability to create your own fully custom effects, rendered by the EDK, by implementing the Color Animation Effect Delegate. By overriding the color(...), render(), and renderUpdate() functions you can set the color of each light every time the EDK requests a render (around 30 times/sec). If you plan on creating long-running effect sequences, there’s also a Sequence Effect and timeline functions that you can use to program and chain multiple effects over a longer duration.

Light DJ takes advantage of all of these effect types in various places throughout the app. For example, the Strobe Cycle effect uses a Multi-Channel effect where each channel is defined by the four corners of the room, with 1 channel set to the selected color, and 3 channels set to off (black), switching the colored channel each beat. The Drip effect uses an Area Effect (area == .all), displaying a looping fade-off animation over the whole area. The Matrix and Fireworks effects use multiple layered Explode effects. I had to write custom effects for Swirl, Groove Wave and others due to the need to match the speed of the effect to the tempo, but these could have also been made using Sequences. As you use the Light DJ app, see if you can identify the EDK effect(s) I used to make each of the effects.

As you can see the Hue EDK is a powerful tool for creating effects. Before this became available developers had the complex task of managing individual light states on systems with ’n’ number of lights (with significant performance limitations). Now the effects ‘just work’ regardless of the each users' setup. Since integrating these new effects, users’ time-in-app has increased by over 30%. As Philips Hue continues to dominate the smart home market, expect to see more Hue Entertainment integrations with video games and other media. Razer Chroma already works with Hue Entertainment on games like Overwatch, syncing lighting effects with in-game actions.

I hope this helps new developers get up to speed quickly with the new API. If you’re just starting out I recommend creating a few effects right in the Quick Start app for easy development then port them into your own projects. The Quick Start app is available for iOS and Android and EDK library is written in C++ so it’s compatible with most coding projects. If you have any questions about the Hue EDK or creating effects feel free to email me anytime at kevin@nrthrnlights.com.

Cheers and happy coding,

Kevin

Android Super Update Now Available

Hey everyone! I've been working hard over the past few months updating the Android app with the popular SceneMaker Effects and Matrix Strobe Maker controllers from the iOS version.

The SceneMaker controller has 23 different types of beat-matched effects. You get control of the effects, colors, and tempo and the controller will sync up the effects to whatever kind of music you’re listening to. You can take a peek at the effects here.

The SceneMaker controller includes over 20 effects that will sync to the beat of your music.

Setting the tempo is as simple as tapping the beat. Precision controls are also included.

The Matrix Strobe Maker is an interactive controller that has 5 different effect modes and lets you create strobes and tap out patterns. It’s a fun toy that gives you a lot of immediate control over the lights. 

Along with the new controllers, I've also added an improved color selector to the Visualizer, so now you can pick any color!

Tap, Swipe, and Drag your fingers over the Matrix controller to strobe your lights.

Pick your own custom colors by tapping on one of the Active Colors.

Color and Brightness Picker.

The updates are already available in Google Play. If you’ve previously purchased the Visualizer then you’ll get the other two controllers for free!

As always, if you have any questions or feedback feel free to write me at kevin@nrthrnlights.com

Cheers!