Particle Lights Simulator

Each chime is a "particle" in this system.

Development setup

Generally, it should be as simple as:

• Clone the repo
• Run cargo run

However, Paho Eclipse MQTT is actually a C library, so it has some dependencies of its own. If you find that the build fails, you might need to brew install openssh and brew install cmake (on MacOS).

If you're testing without an ArtNet device available, run with --artnet.broadcast or the application may simply panic on startup. You can monitor output, if you like, with a tool such as ArtNetView.

Tech stack

• Nannou: creative coding framework
• Tween crate as per the OG Robert Penning ease functions (demo)
• Strum and Strum macros, specfically for dealing with enums in a way that is convenient for the GUI
• artnet_protocol for ArtNet/DMX output
• MQTT + MessagePack = Tether

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Saving/loading settings

By default, your custom settings will be saved to a file named settings.json, and these are what will be loaded on startup.

Keep in mind that these settings apply when you are clicking on the light fixtures to test out various effects, and they will be used as defaults in "live" remote-controlled animations as well, but some aspects of specific animation effects can be overridden by incoming trigger messages.

For example, you may specify a (long) release duration of 9000ms, and this value will indeed be used if the LightTriggerMessage does not specify anything, e.g.:

{ id: 0, targetBrightness: 0.9 }

...but will be overridden to 1000ms if the incoming message specifies it:

{ id: 0, targetBrightness: 0.9, releaseDuration: 1000 }

Command-line arguments

Pass --help to see the full list, e.g. cargo run -- --help

If testing locally, you may want to use ArtNet Broadcast mode and disable Tether, i.e. --artnet.broadcast --tether.disable

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Remote Triggers

Trigger a single fixture

Example:

tether-send --host localhost --topic dummy/dummy/lightTriggers --message=\{\"id\":7\,\"targetBrightness\":0.7\,\"attackDuration\":1000,\"finalBrightness\":0.2,\"transmissionRange\":0\}

Other than id and targetBrightness, all fields are optional. So the following also works:

tether-send --host localhost --topic dummy/dummy/lightTriggers --message=\{\"id\":0\,\"targetBrightness\":1.0\}

Fade all lights simultaneously

Example - all on to full brightness:

tether-send --host localhost --topic dummy/dummy/lightReset --message=\{\"targetBrightness\":1.0\}

To black:

tether-send --host localhost --topic dummy/dummy/lightReset --message=\{\"targetBrightness\":0\}

Optional duration - if not provided, the fade will be "instant". Here's an example with a 3 second duration, to half-brightness:

tether-send --host localhost --topic dummy/dummy/lightReset --message=\{\"targetBrightness\":0.5\,\"fadeDuration\":3000\}