Relatively realistic and possibly cooler strobe lighting :)

[GROOV3ST3R]

CAUTION! I FOUND OUT THAT THE STROBE LAGS QUITE BADLY IN MULTIPLAYER. SO BY APPLYING THIS YOU WILL SEE A GREAT REALISTIC STROBE WHILE EVERYONE ELSE WILL SEE A REGULAR STROBE. IT'S AN ISSUE I AM WORKING ON.

I stumbled upon this while configuring my own strobe. It's still work in progress but I think I will share this utterly invaluable information with you.

Things you need (as far as I got):

LFS Strobe by Tommy
KeyTweak program

You can open Tommy's strobe twice which means that you can load the same program twice and run both at the same time for increased ''realism''.

The basic configuration is already included in the download, you just need to load it up through each of the strobes and save two copies:

1)
- Basic program,
- Horn switch enabled (select what button you want to use to switch horn on/off)
- Select the button for lights
- select the button you use for the horn
- select the starting button to be something thats either convenient or out of the way - I chose Num Lock for reason I will explain later.
-Make sure random strobe is not ticked
---------
Just a precaution: I selected the ALT key to toggle my horn/siren because the game would tab-out EVERY time i pressed shift with the strobe activated and I had to deactivate it to get back in the game.
So use ALT for that function

2)
- Basic program again
- this time select the NONE option on the Horn Switch, that will disable the horn on that program altogether
- select the SAME key for activating this program as the other one
- select the ''Random Strobe''
- For lights, select the button for Left or right indicator. Alternatively you can select the ''light flash'' button to flash headlights more often.
- char for horn doesn't matter since it's not being used anyway

Save those two setups separately and now the only thing you need to do is load them up in separate instances of the Strobe by Tommy and enjoy a more realistic, fully functional strobe.
If you catch me in game i will show you how it looks




Now I said that I used the Num Lock to activate the strobe. I also use the W/S buttons for gas and brake and a mouse in the other hand so it would seem inconvenient to use this button for anything. And you're right. It's a major pain.

Thing is, this program only allows Num, Caps or Scroll to activate the strove since they have on/off states. And you don't want to use caps because then every time you go to type anything in chat it will be.... in CAPS.

To fix this, download the KeyTweak program. (From here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-E...weak.shtml )
It's a very small tool that can rebind the keys and their functions on your actual keyboard from Windows.
Changes to any binds/functions are permanent but easily reverted - by changing the key to it's original function from within the program.

So once you get the program, select the Caps Lock button (all buttons show up in their numerical value so select the key that LOOKS like Caps, button 30 that is).
Then use the drop down menu and select ''Num Lock'' function as the new mapping. Once you got it, click remap key and... sigh.... restart your PC. I know, I know - it's a pain to do that but bear with me.

Once you log back into windows, you will notice that whenever you press Caps Lock, the num lock light comes on. num lock still works unchanged but your caps now doubles as num lock too. So no more writing in block capitals. And now that caps has been remapped, it can be used as Num Lock to activate the strobe from the left side of the keyboard while still allowing to type in lower case.
Nobody needs caps anyway, right?



I have also been experimenting with Ash' script for horn 4-5 toggle. It works very well and all, but I'm trying to enhance it still to make it that much more useful.

The outcome of this whole exercise is:
- a cool, realistic strobe light
- a fully functioning strobe at the same time, with an option to switch sirens on/off independently
- all functions easily accessible with one hand in one place on the keyboard
- Still to come: one button horn type toggle

That's it for now Thank you for your patience and attention. Please let me know what you think!

[[TC]»Elmo«]

Server Rules Wrote:5.6.1. Indicators:
Avoid using indicators (7, 8 keys) as part of a strobe pattern as it can be confusing to other players.

5.6.2. Flashing Frequency:
Avoid using flashing frequencies of greater than 2Hz. Faster frequencies do not show up well to others in multiplayer.

5.6.2 is basically the issue you have highlighted in red in your post. True strobes/fast flashing simply does not work in multiplayer, which is why they're not permitted here.
Then there's the fact that true strobes are actually much less visible than a flashing light - they're actually banned in the UK partly for that reason.

5.6.1 should speak for itself I think.

[Josh]

(2012-11-16 02:53)Elmo Wrote:  Then there's the fact that true strobes are actually much less visible than a flashing light - they're actually banned in the UK partly for that reason.

What do you mean by 'true strobes'?

[◄Chuck►]

(2012-11-16 03:34)Josh Wrote:  What do you mean by 'true strobes'?

Ditto

[Tommer]

As said above nobody else can see your strobes functioning due to packet speed limitations, and also, you wouldn't see the strobe yourself if you're going for realism, because you would be using the in-car view.

[[TC]»Elmo«]

A 'true strobe' is on for a very short period of time - much less time than it's off for - usually only a few ms. This means that the human eye can see the flash, but devices with lower frame rates (ie standard cameras & lfs, especially multiplayer) often miss the flash altogether.
A proper strobe lamp uses a very high current for a short time, the rest of the time it's charging a capacitor to provide the current. For example, A traditional camera flash is a strobe.

I used the 'true strobe' distinction, because it's fairly common on our servers (partly due to Tommy's LFS Strobe) to use the term 'strobe' to mean any kind of flashing police light pattern/program.

Strobe behaviour (rather than just the traditional lamp design itself) is banned in the UK for road use - flashing lights must be on for the same time period as off.

[Josh]

(2012-11-16 12:09)Elmo Wrote:  Strobe behaviour (rather than just the traditional lamp design itself) is banned in the UK for road use - flashing lights must be on for the same time period as off.

Where did you get that from, out of curiosity?

[[TC]»Elmo«]

Pretty much every summary of the lighting regulations - this I found today, but there was a better one I looked at a while back although I forget where. http://www.ukemergency.co.uk/index.php?o...mid=61#slr

There was a period when some emergency vehicles did use strobes, but every newish one I've seen has non-strobing LEDs. I dunno if the strobe thing was a more recent amendment or not, I can't find the full regulations that include the amendments.

[◄Chuck►]

ECE-R65 is an European regulation for that kind of equipment. I'm not sure how far that one affects any local regulations though. Most of our polices use LED flashers by now but quite a lot tow trucks still use the "older" Xenon strobes.

[GROOV3ST3R]

You can always give it a go anyway. Ill try and have a look at what can be done with the limitations.

Also I read that UK Emergency site and I'm still not clear as to why strobes are not covered? The regulations say they must flash ''1 to 4 times per second'' which they are easily able to achieve. That is unless they are somehow unable to spend an equal amount of time off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biBky9vgzCk

Still, ones used in night clubs seem to flash a lot quicker and with a steady frequency.

And this is the kind of effect the strobe I use in game gives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-qAqNtSqWI
And I should also point out that I overuse the word ''strobe'' as an expression for ''flashing lights''. There's no actual strobes in game.

[◄Chuck►]

Oh well, the first video perfectly shows the difference between the classical xenon strobes (mounted on the roof at the front) and the LED ones, mounted in the grille and the backside. The xenon flashes are simply too short to be recorded by that camera.

[[TC]»Elmo«]

(2012-11-16 19:53)GROOV3ST3R Wrote:  Also I read that UK Emergency site and I'm still not clear as to why strobes are not covered? The regulations say they must flash ''1 to 4 times per second'' which they are easily able to achieve. That is unless they are somehow unable to spend an equal amount of time off:

ukemergency.co.uk Wrote:Each warning light should flash between 1 and 4 times per second and spend an equal amount of time on and off (meaning strobes are not covered).

It's that second part that's important - a strobe light is always on for a *much* shorter time than off; that's essentially the definition of strobe behaviour.

(2012-11-16 19:53)GROOV3ST3R Wrote:  Still, ones used in night clubs seem to flash a lot quicker and with a steady frequency.

Not quite. I've been trained on and have live-operated professional club strobes - you have full independent control over rate, duration and intensity.

Rate is the frequency - anywhere between ~1Hz and too fast for the human eye to see (aka blinder mode, as it can be used as an additional blinder/crowd fill for short periods, providing you have the power supply to handle it - >18A@240V per light).
Duration controls the proportion of time it's on for per flash - the longest is something like 1/8-1/4 of a cycle iirc, the shortest is single digit milliseconds - hard even for the human eye to pick up, let alone a camera.
Intensity is the brightness of each flash.

If you keep the rate & duration the same for more than a few seconds at any decent intensity, you'll start causing everyone headaches and potentially other problems.

The little sparkly ones that do their own thing at a constant rate with no control aren't really club strobes, they're more designed for smaller travelling DJs.

You can now get actual professional LED club strobes that mimic the behaviour of the proper strobes (although not quite as brightly) with added features, like RGB colour mixing and true blinder/fill modes.

(2012-11-16 19:53)GROOV3ST3R Wrote:  And I should also point out that I overuse the word ''strobe'' as an expression for ''flashing lights''. There's no actual strobes in game.

No, but you can reproduce the strobe effect (in single player at least). LFS Strobe's 'random' feature that you mentioned in the OP does produce a strobe effect a large proportion of the time.
The only ways to make a light pattern that works properly in multiplayer & conforms to our rules are:
Make a custom LFS Strobe config
Use TC Lights (to which I intend to add more features like proper horn changing in future)
Make a custom profiler script/macro/sequence
Not bother and turn '3' and '9' on.

Unfortunately, LFS Cops wasn't updated to use the '3' key, so is not suitable for use on our servers anymore.

[[TC]»Pete«]

Such a good answer.

[◄Chuck►]

(2012-11-17 01:05)Elmo Wrote:  ...If you keep the rate & duration the same for more than a few seconds at any decent intensity, you'll start causing everyone headaches and potentially other problems....

Thats why led incapacitators were invented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_Incapacitator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jsr53yvyrM
Would be fun if that could be mounted as a strobe-bar, making everyone around you collapse and vomit

[GROOV3ST3R]

Very apt name ''Incapacitator'' I must get one

I wonder how does the server handle the headlight flash feature. I could incorporate that into a program and see how that works. Im just curious as to whether or not there is a way of getting relatively fast flashes that show up equally for everyone.


The offline effect is pretty amazing anyways

[[TC]»Elmo«]

(2012-11-20 01:08)GROOV3ST3R Wrote:  I wonder how does the server handle the headlight flash feature.

I assume they get sent along with position packets, so a constant 3-6 pps (depending on server setting).
1Hz requires 2 button presses, so that'd work out at a maximum of 1.5-3Hz depending on the server.

[GROOV3ST3R]

I think I got the right combination. It needs a bit of adjustment but works good

I just wish that the server wasn't full every day between 3pm and 7pm so I could test more and drive around.