An implementation of still-active? which simply always returns true, useful for effects which run until you ask them to end.

Create an effect which does nothing. This can be useful, for example, when you want to use fade to fade into an effect from a state where there was simply nothing happening (or where earlier and lower-priority effects can show through). If you want the blank effect to have a particular name, for example you are using it to set shared cue variables, you can pass a string argument.

Returns an assigner of the specified type which applies the specified assignment function to the provided head or fixture.

Returns a list of assigners of the specified type which apply an assignment function to all the supplied heads or fixtures.

Returns an assigner of the specified kind which applies a parameter to the supplied head or fixture. If the parameter is not frame-dynamic, it gets resolved when creating this assigner. Otherwise, resolution is deferred to frame rendering time.

Returns a list of assigners of the specified kind which apply a parameter to all the supplied heads or fixtures.

Create an effect which moves through a list of other effects based on the value of a position parameter. When position is 1, the first effect in effects is used, 2 results in the second effect, and so on. Intermediate values produce a fade between the corresponding effects. The interpretation of values less than one or greater than the number of effects in effects depends on the value passed with the optional keyword argument :beyond. The default behavior (when :beyond is omitted or passed with :blank) is to treat any numbers outside the range of elements in effects as if they refer to blank effects. This makes it easy to fade into the first effect by having position grow from 0 to 1, and to fade out of the last effect by having position grow from the number of elements in effects towards the next integer, at which point the final effect will be fully faded out. In this mode, when position resolves to a value less than zero, or greater than the number of effects in effects plus one, the chase will end. So a chase which fades in, fades between its effects, fades out, and ends, can be implemented by simply passing in a variable parameter for position which smoothly grows from zero as time goes on.

Of course position needs to be a dynamic parameter for the chase to progress over time; build-step-param is designed to conveniently create parameters for controlling chases in time with the show metronome. They can also be controlled by a dial on a physical controller that is bound to a show variable.

Passing a value of :loop with the optional keyword argument :beyond causes the chase to treat effects as if it was an infinite list of copies of itself, so once the final effect is reached, the chase begins fading into the first effect again, and so on. Similarly, if position drops below 1, the chase starts fading in to the final effect. In this mode the chase continues until all of its underlying effects have ended (either on their own, or because they were asked to end by the operator), or position resolves to nil, which kills it instantly.

Finally, passing :bounce with :beyond is similar to :loop, except that every other repetition of the list of effects is traversed in reverse order. In other words, if position keeps growing steadily in value, and there are three effects in effects, with a :beyond value of :loop you will see them in the order 1 → 2 → 3 → 1 → 2 → 3 → 1… while a value of :bounce would give you 1 → 2 → 3 → 2 → 1 → 2 → 3 → 2….

Any element of effects can be a scene, grouping many other effects, or blank, which will temporarily defer to whatever else was happening before the chase was activated.

An effect which simply calls a function, then ends immediately, to allow arbitrary code to be easily run from the cue grid, for example to reset the metronome if the controller mapping doesn’t have a dedicated button for that.

f must be a function which takes two arguments. It will be called with the show and metronome snapshot a single time, when the effect is first launched. It must return immediately, because this is taking place on the effect rendering pipeline, so any lengthy operations must be performed on another thread.

The effect stays running until asked to end, so that grid controllers can give visual feedback that it was started, but it doesn’t do anyting more after calling the function once when it starts.

Create an effect which makes the output of another effect conditional on whether a parameter has a non-zero value. Very useful when combined with variable-effect which can set that value to turn parts of a scene on or off independently. When condition has the value 0, this effect does nothing; when condition has any other value, this effect behaves exactly like the effect passed in as effect.

An implementation of end which just reports that the effect is now finished by returning true. Useful for effects which can simply be removed as soon as they are asked to end.

Create an effect which fades between two other effects as the value of a parameter changes from zero to one. When phase is 0 (or less), this effect simply acts as if it were from-effect. When phase is 1 (or greater), this effect acts like to-effect. For values of phase between 0 and 1, a proportional linear blend between from-effect and to-effect is created, so that at 0.5 each effect contributes the same amount.

Of course phase can be a dynamic parameter; interesting results can be obtained with oscillated and variable parameters. And either or both of the effects being faded between can be a scene, grouping many other effects.

One of the effects may also be blank, which allows the other effect to be faded into or out of existence. When fading to or from a blank effect, the fade allows any previous or lower-priority effects to pass through as it approaches the blank effect. The same is true when fading between effects that do not include all the same fixtures, or affect different aspects of fixtures.

Calculates an intermediate value between two attribute assignments of the same kind (e.g. color, direction, channel value) for an element of a light show. The values of from-assignment and to-assignment may either be instances of afterglow.effects.Assignment of the same :kind, or they may be nil, to indicate that the attribute is being faded to or from nothing. This function does the preparation and valiation needed in order to delegate safely to fade-between-assignments by promoting nil values to empty assignments of the appropriate :kind affecting the same target.

The amount contributed by each assignment is controlled by fraction, which can range from 0 (or less), meaning that only from-assignment is considered, to 1 (or greater), meaning that to-assignment is simply returned. Intermediate values will ideally result in a blend between the two assignments, with 0.5 representing an equal contribution from each. Since the value of the assignments may still be dynamic parameters, the show and snapshot might be needed to resolve them in order to calculate the blended value. Some kinds of assignment may not support blending, in which case the default implementation will simply switch from from-assignment to to-assignment once fraction reaches 0.5.

Calculates an intermediate value between two attribute assignments of the same kind (e.g. color, direction, channel value) for an element of a light show. Most code will not call this directly, and will instead use the higher-level fade-assignment function to help set it up, or simply use a full-blown fade effect. This is the low-level mechanism which performs the fade calculations by dispatching to an appropriate implementation based on the :kind value of from-assignment, and it requires both from-assignment and to-assignment to be non-nil instances of afterglow.effects.Assignment of the same :kind.

The amount contributed by each assignment is controlled by fraction, which can range from 0 (or less), meaning that only from-assignment is considered, to 1 (or greater), meaning that to-assignment is simply returned. Intermediate values will ideally result in a blend between the two assignments, with 0.5 representing an equal contribution from each. Since the value of the assignments may still be dynamic parameters, the show and snapshot might be needed to resolve them in order to calculate the blended value. Some kinds of assignment may not support blending, in which case the default implementation will simply switch from from-assignment to to-assignment once fraction reaches 0.5.

Assign some attribute (color, direction, channel value) to an element of a light show at a given point in time. Any previous assignment to this element will be supplied as an argument, and may be tweaked or ignored as needs dictate. The target will be a subtree of the show’s fixtures, currently either a head or channel, or something defined by an extension to the rendering loop..

The effect is the basic building block of an Afterglow light show. It generates a list of assignments that should be in effect at a given moment in the show. It can end on its own, or be asked to end. When asked, it may end immediately, or after some final activity, such as a fade. See The Effect Lifecycle for more discussion.

Translates an attribute assignment (e.g. color, direction, channel value) for an element of a light show to the actual DMX values that will implement it. Since the value of the assignment may still be a dynamic parameter, the show and snapshot might be needed to resolve it.

Returns the final assignment value that results from iterating over an assigner list that was gathered for a particular kind and target ID, feeding each intermediate result to the next assigner in the chain.

Create an effect which combines multiple effects into one.

Scenes are a way to group a list of effects to run as a single effect. All of their assigners are combined into a single list, in the order in which the effects were added to the scene. Because of the way Afterglow evaluates assigners, that means that if any constituent effects try to assign to the same target, the later ones will have a chance to override or blend with the earlier ones.