Hello all! Recently I became fixated on adding a movie style 'shimmer' effect to every font on my Diamond sabers, i.e. the default set as well as those I've assembled using various other soundfonts. Because I'm a completist, I ended up creating shimmer settings for all the standard colors, all the forum colors, and a couple of others that are in the express launcher palette but don't have official names. I leaned heavily on this thread:
http://www.saberforum.com/index.php?topic=26443.0 for initial ideas and started tweaking from there. First I came up with a set of massaged Emerald shimmer settings that I'm quite happy with on my lone Emerald saber, but unfortunately they won't simply port over to a Diamond saber due to the way the Diamond effects editor works.
I found while experimenting with my Emerald saber that I prefer a shimmer cycle totaling 0.08 seconds in length with 0.06s of 'resting' color and 0.02s of 'shimmer' color, but since you can't do instantaneous transitions in the Diamond effects editor it makes things a bit more challenging. I ended up staying with a 0.08s total cycle, going from 0.00s to 0.06s at 'resting' color then moving to a modified 'shimmer' point at 0.07s before coming back to the 'resting' color at 0.08s and repeating as necessary. Since 0.01s is the closest you can space the points in the editor at present this means that the shimmer perturbation is a triangular transient rather than the virtual square wave that is possible with the Emerald driver, so the differences between the 'resting' and 'shimmer' settings must be exaggerated to get the same perceived effect. Here's an example screenshot of my Arctic Blue idle shimmer effect for the default Episode II font:
I know the foregoing explanation is probably confusing and unclear, so here's my attempt to boil it down. To use the following suggested Shimmer settings, follow these steps:
1.) Go into the Effect Editor for the "Idle" effect of the font you're modifying.
2.) Add "Points with values" at 0.06s, 0.07s, and 0.08s. This will be easier if you zoom in on the time scale.
3.) Set the RGB values at 0.00s and the created time points to the numbers below as specified.
4.) Scroll to the end of the idle sound on the timeline and note the ending time, preferably to at least the nearest hundredth of a second.
5.) Divide the ending time (total length) of the idle sound by 0.08s to determine the number of repetitions of the shimmer effect needed for the idle sound.
6.) Enter the number of repetitions in the "Play X time" field, rounding up to the nearest integer.
7.) With your saber connected, click "Test" to ensure light and sound are properly synchronized.
8.) Click "Apply to font."
9.) Done!
ktulu's Diamond Color Shimmer Settings, 0.08s total cycle time
Color Name 'resting' color 'shimmer' point
[0.00s, 0.06s, 0.08s] [0.07s]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guardian Blue B255 G12 B255
Consular Green G255 G255 B8
Blazing Red R255 R255 B10
Arctic Blue G255 B255 G215 B255
Sunrider's Destiny G255 B20 G255 B7
Violet Amethyst R75 B255 R59 B255
Fire Orange R255 G150 R255 G127
Emerald Green G255 B10 G255
Dark Violet Amethyst R40 B255 R30 B255
Bane's Heart R255 B25 R255 B13
Hot Pink R255 B75 R255 B60
Sentinel Yellow R175 G255 R152 G255
Pyrestone Orange R255 G30 R255 G20
"Lime Green" R50 G255 R37 G255
"Sky Blue" G55 B255 G39 B255
If the idle sound is longer than 8 seconds, add another cycle of points at 0.14s, 0.15s, and 0.16s and repeat the RGB settings then divide the idle sound length by 0.16 to get your number of repetitions. This is necessary because 99 is the maximum setting for repetitions and is illustrated in the screenshot above. If the sound is longer than 16 seconds, go to 0.22, 0.23, 0.24 and so on as needed.
If you'd like to know where I got the base color settings, please see my previous long winded post here:
http://www.saberforum.com/index.php?topic=37764.0Some of these shimmers ended up pretty subtle as I didn't want to lose the character of the base or 'resting' color. Others ended up subtle because the base colors only take a touch of a second LED to create them (why hello SRD and EG!) so there's not much room to adjust it to create shimmer. I'm pretty happy with all of them for now, but of course you should season to your own taste. FYI, the blues and greens were optimized for an UltraEdge blade while the others were optimized for a standard clear blade reflecting my preferences regarding blade type and color.
Working up these settings was quite enjoyable and I wanted to share them as an example of what can be done even by a rank amateur such as myself. I hope other folks are enjoying poking around in the editor as much as I am. Thanks for reading and happy sabering!