Art-Net / REST Input for MusicBeam

[suplstfdo]

Hi,
I have another Idea I might like to Implement. I have a upcomming party and I want to have a autonomous light show playing. I already have a few PARs that will be driven by ledFx and ArtNet. I also plan to run MusicBeam there. I somehow want to be able to sync ledFx with MusicBeam, so their effects correlate and not just randomly flicker next to each other.

Thus I either want to drive MusicBeam from ledFx, or have some kind of Orchestrator script that selects currently fitting effects on both ledFx and MusicBeams side. LedFx already has a REST API that can be used for this.

On the MusicBeam side there is currently no way to control it by an API. I could imagine two possible solutions:

1. REST API: Having a custom REST API to control the currently active effect and its properties. This would need a custom integration in whichever program it shall be used in (e.g. the orchestrator script or ledFx).
2. Art-Net: Is the defacto standard protocol for professional show lightning infrastructure. This solution would have the great benefit, that MusicBeam could be easily integrated into typical lightshow infrastructure and be controlled by a big variety of lightshow tools like QLC+. The application would just listen on a UDP port and interpret the DMX frames comming from it. In the first step I would only interpret the first value, which would be the effect selector. A 0 would be no effect / the Blackout effect. The other Effects would each have a index they can be activated with.

I tend to favor solution 2, because it opens up a whole world of usecases for the project.

Before implementing anything I wanted to discuss it here. If such a contribution is welcomed, I might contribute an Implementation. If you do not see this as a fit for the project in its current state, I might just make a sloppy AI implementation for my own usage. 😄

EDIT: I vibed a prototype, just to verify the idea. This would still need some work, so don't consider it a PR just yet.

Code of the concept: https://github.com/suplstfdo/MusicBeam/tree/artnet
Screenshot:

[codingjoe]

Hello again,

Art-Net or DMX support has been proposed in the past, so has MIDI.
While I am not against it, nobody has actually contributed a full implementation. Now we have AI, so this could be an option. However, I am the person that needs to maintain this long term, so I won't accept an overly complex extension. This app is mainly targeted towards enthusiasts and not professional light artists.

In other words, give it a try, but no promisses ;)
Oh, and defnetly option 2.

Cheers
Joe

[suplstfdo]

Yeah I understand. I gave it a shot anyway, because I wanted to have it for my personal use. I filed PR #127 , let me know what you think. :)