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light_settings:

This is a config file reference. Click for instructions.

This page is reference material which explains every setting and option for this section of an MPF yaml config file. See the instructions for config files for formatting and other details. See our guide to config file examples for more examples of real configs in action.

Valid in
machine config files YES ✅
mode config files NO 🚫

The light_settings: section of your config is where you configure default settings for lights in your machine.

If you are using LEDs in your machine you probably want to set default_fade_ms to make them look softer. Otherwise, they will turn on and off very sharply and might look flickery. For instance, Stern uses a value of about 40ms for LEDs on modern machines:

light_settings:
  default_fade_ms: 40

Depending on your hardware your color might look a bit off by default. Different color channels might achive different brightnesses and white might look pinkish or blueish for example. You can set a color_correction_profile to compensate for that:

light_settings:
  default_color_correction_profile: correction_profile_less_red
  color_correction_profiles:
    correction_profile_less_red:
      whitepoint: [0.9, 1.0, 1.0]
      gamma: 2.5
      linear_slope: 1.0
      linear_cutoff: 0.0

Human perception is also not linear. Therefore, linear_slope is used to translate perceived brightness to brightness (you can configure that). If you see flickering at very low brightnesses you can increase linear_cutoff to compensate for that (see below for details).

You can also define more than one profile and configure them per light in the color_correction_profile setting. This might be useful if you use different types of lights in your machine:

light_settings:
  default_color_correction_profile: correction_profile_less_red
  color_correction_profiles:
    correction_profile_less_red:
      whitepoint: [0.9, 1.0, 1.0]
      gamma: 2.5
      linear_slope: 1.0
      linear_cutoff: 0.0
    correction_profile_less_blue:
      whitepoint: [1.0, 1.0, 0.9]
      gamma: 2.5
      linear_slope: 0.8
      linear_cutoff: 0.1
lights:
  special_led:
    number: 42
    color_correction_profile: correction_profile_less_blue

Please note, that some hardware platforms (such as the fadecandy) support color correction in hardware. If possible, we advice you to use the hardware correction because it gives you more dynamic range (since they use 16bit values internally).

Optional settings

The following sections are optional in the light_settings: section of your config. (If you don't include them, the default will be used).

color_correction_profiles:

One or more sub-entries. Each in the format of string : color_correction_profile:

The color_correction_profile: section of your config is where you configure named color correction profiles which you can then apply to lights. You could create a single profile here which you use for all of them, or create different ones for different groups of lights.

default_color_correction_profile:

Single value, type: string. Defaults to empty.

The name of the color correction profile that applies to an light by default if that light doesn't have a profile configured for it.

default_fade_ms:

Single value, type: integer. Default: 0

This is the default fade_ms that will be applied to individual lights that don't have fade_ms settings configured. If you configure an individual light's fade_ms, it will override this setting.

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