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fadecandy:

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 fadecandy: section of your config is where you configure your fadecandy hardware platform. Usually you can leave this at the defaults. See How to configure a FadeCandy RGB LED Controller for more details.

From the fadecandy documentation:

Fadecandy internally represents colors with 16 bits of precision per channel, or 48 bits per pixel. Why 48-bit color? In combination with our dithering algorithm, this gives a lot more color resolution. It's especially helpful near the low end of the brightness range, where stair-stepping and color popping artifacts can be most apparent.

Each pixel goes through the following processing steps in Fadecandy:

  • 8 bit per channel framebuffer values are expanded to 16 bits per channel
  • We interpolate smoothly from the old framebuffer values to the new framebuffer values
  • This interpolated 16-bit value goes through the color LUT, which itself is linearly interpolated
  • The final 16-bit value is fed into our temporal dithering algorithm, which results in an 8-bit color
  • These 8-bit colors are converted to the format needed by OctoWS2811's DMA engine
  • In hardware, the converted colors are streamed out to eight LED strings in parallel

The color lookup tables can be used to implement gamma correction, brightness and contrast, and white point correction. Each channel (RGB) has a 257 entry table. Each entry is a 16-bit intensity. Entry 0 corresponds to the 16-bit color 0x0000, entry 1 corresponds to 0x0100, etc. The 257th entry corresponds to 0x10000, which is just past the end of the 16-bit intensity space.

Since MPF cannot do any better we suggest that you use this instead of our software color correction (which is limited to 8-bit resolution here).

Optional settings

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

console_log:

Single value, type: one of the following options: none, basic, full. Default: none

Log level for the console log for this platform.

dithering:

Single value, type: boolean (true/false). Default: true

Enabled temporal dithering for 16bit color precision. You want to leave this enabled since it looks much nicer (especially at low brightness).

file_log:

Single value, type: one of the following options: none, basic, full. Default: basic

Log level for the file log for this platform.

gamma:

Single value, type: number (will be converted to floating point). Default: 2.5

Specifies the gamma correction value for the lights. The default is 2.5.

keyframe_interpolation:

Single value, type: boolean (true/false). Default: true

Whatever the fadecandy should fade between keyframes. You usually want to leave this at true since it looks much nicer.

linear_cutoff:

Single value, type: number (will be converted to floating point). Default: 0.0

This is best explained by quoting the FadeCandy documentation: By default, brightness curves are entirely nonlinear. By setting linearCutoff to a nonzero value, though, a linear area may be defined at the bottom of the brightness curve. The linear section, near zero, avoids creating very low output values that will cause distracting flicker when dithered. This isn't a problem when the lights are viewed indirectly such that the flicker is below the threshold of perception, but in cases where the flicker is a problem this linear section can eliminate it entirely at the cost of some dynamic range. To enable the linear section, set linearCutoff to some nonzero value. A good starting point is 1/256.0, corresponding to the lowest 8-bit PWM level.

linear_slope:

Single value, type: number (will be converted to floating point). Default: 1.0

Specifies the slope (output / input) of the linear section of the brightness curve for the lights. The default is 1.0.

whitepoint:

List of one (or more) values, each is a type: number (will be converted to floating point). Default: 1.0, 1.0, 1.0

Specifies the white point (or white balance) of your lights. Enter it as a list of three floating point values that correspond to the red, blue, and green light segments. These values are treated as multipliers to all incoming color commands. The default of 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 means that no white point adjustment is used. 1.0, 1.0, 0.8 would set the blue segment to be at 80% brightness while red and green are 100%, etc.

You can use this to affect the overall brightness of lights (e.g. 0.8, 0.8, 0.8 would be 80% brightness as every color would be multiplied by 0.8). You can also use this to affect the "tint" (lowering the blue, for example).

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