H2 Driven Stage Pyros and Particle Effects

Standard Features in included in ALL OD Designs Pyros and Stage Particle Effects:

If you are an H2 Owner you do NOT need to buy the H2 Pyro HUD.   

The full set of Pyro HUDs is in the H2 Update Station

Setup
Changing The Password
Changing Colors
H2 - Customizing Your HUD
Default Channels And Group Settings

Setup

Setting up your stage pyros is super-easy.

1. Rez it.
2. Turn it ON.    Touch it.   You will get a blue pop-up menu.  Select ON.
3. Position it.
4. Done.

Change The Password

The first thing you will want to do is change the password so your devices can't be controlled by just anyone.  Right click the device, EDIT.  Go to the CONTENTS tab and open the _config notecard.  Inside you will see some stuff.   Part of it looks like this:

PASSWORD: pword

Enter your own password.  For example:

PASSWORD: mysecretcode

Save the notecard.  The device will automatically re-read the _config notecard. 

Next, wear your Pyro HUD.  Open the contents and edit the _config notecard.   Look for the odcommpword setting toward the top.

odcommpword: mysecretcode

Save the notecard and reset your HUD by clicking on the OD LOGO then choose RESET from the menu.

At this point assuming you have HUD and Pyros.. 

you should be rocking and might not need to read any further

Changing Colors

Tinting your pyros is easy.  If you have pyro HUDs you probably don't need to mess with this section.

1. Rez the Effect and turn it ON.
2. Rez the Color Control Panel.   To get your color control panel... touch the object and select ACCESSORIES from the blue pop-up menu.
3. Using standard Edit tools - apply colors to the START and END faces of the control panel.  Use the "select texture" tool to individually tint both the START and END faces of the Color Control Panel.
4. Effects that only use a single color (flames, lightning bolts, etc) will use the START color.
5. Effects that use two colors (smoke and other particle effects) use both START and END colors.
6. Touch the pyro device.   Get a blue menu.   Choose "Color".   Then touch the Color Control Panel.   The panel transmits its color settings to the pyro device.

You can also change the colors on the fly by customizing your H2 HUD.

H2 - Customizing Your HUD

All OD Pyros, particles and lights are designed to communicate using the ODComm stage control communication protocol.  These ODComm objects can be controlled from customized H2 HUDs.   Why would you want to do such a thing?

	Control multiple ODComm objects (pyros, lights, and effects) from a single HUD instead of lots of individual ones.
	Use only the features you need - get rid of extra buttons and un-clutter your screen.
	Use the H2 engine to program sequences of effects.  If you also own the H2 Animation HUD you can put ODComm buttons in with your animation HUD.  you can also create sequences of animations that are coordinated with pyros and lighting effects.

It sounds fancy but its really pretty easy to use.  First we need to understand a couple of simple terms.

ODComm is the communication pipeline used by H2 to communicate with various devices such as pyros, lights, etc.  Messages flow on a series of channels and groups.  An ODComm message will flow on a given channel and may affect one or more objects in a given set of groups. Channel.  A communication channel.  Channels are numbered 0 - 999.  These do not correspond to any particular in-world "chat channels".  Each pyro can be setup to listen to a certain channel. Group.  A way of grouping together effects so they can respond together.  Each pyro item will respond to commands on up to 16 groups. Using channels and groups you can configure H2 HUD buttons that single out individual effects or you can control them in any group you might choose.  Examples include: Turn ON and OFF a single flame burst. Turn ON and OFF a group of effect such as, all flame-pots ON and OFF at the same time. Fire off a pulse of a dozen red lightning bolts for 5 seconds, wait, then fire off green lightning bolts  for 8 seconds. Turn on all smoker foggers and have them ooze purple smoke that fades to blue. Switch the same smoker foggers to green smoke, then white.

Choose A Channel and Group

Take another look at the _config notecard in the object's contents.

CHANNEL:0
PASSWORD: pword
GROUP_0: 0
GROUP_1: 0
GROUP_2: 1
GROUP_3: 0
GROUP_4: 0
GROUP_5: 0
GROUP_6: 0
GROUP_7: 0
GROUP_8: 0
GROUP_9: 0
GROUP_10: 0
GROUP_11: 0
GROUP_12: 0
GROUP_13: 0
GROUP_14: 0 
GROUP_15: 1

Edit the notecard to specify your channel number and to select which group(s) the object will belong too. In the above example the object responds to commands on channels 2 and 15.  Remember that ALL stage effects respond on group -1.  This is the "global control" group and allows you to easily turn and entire channel of effects ON, OFF, switch to a color, etc, etc.    

Creating Buttons On the H2 HUD

Touch your object. (the pyro, fogger, etc).   Get a blue popup menu.  Choose Get H2 Cfg.  The object will spit out a series of example H2 button definitions, you can pick through these, choose what you want, then copy and paste it into the _config notecard inside your H2.   Simple as that.  For example:  touch the object, select Get H2 Cfg, you will get something that looks like this....(don't be alarmed)...

===BTN;SmokeCol OFF;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_red;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  off

===BTN;SmokeCol ON;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_green;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  on

===BTN;SmokeCol ONESHOT;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_oneshot;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  oneshot ^ 5

===BTN;SmokeCol PULSE;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_pulse;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  pulse ^ 10 ^ 5

===BTN;SmokeCol TOGGLE;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_aqua;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  toggle ^ 5 

===BTN; SmokeCol White ;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_white;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<1,1,1>^<0,0,1>

===BTN; SmokeCol Purple ;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_purple;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<1,0,1>^<0,0,1>

===BTN; SmokeCol Red ;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_red;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<1,0,0>^<1,1,1>

===BTN; SmokeCol Green ;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_green;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<0,1,0>^<1,1,1>

===BTN; SmokeCol Blue ;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_blue;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<0,0,1>^<1,1,1>

===BTN; SmokeCol Cycle ;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_purpleloop;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<1,1,1>^<0,0,1>
delay ; 2
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<1,0,1>^<0,0,1>
delay ; 2
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<1,0,0>^<1,1,1>
delay ; 2
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<0,1,0>^<1,1,1>
delay ; 2
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^<0,0,1>^<1,1,1>
delay ; 2
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  off

This is a simple series of H2 buttons definitions.   For a complete discussion of how buttons are created and programmed click here.  Each button requires a ===BTN line to define what the button looks like, and some commands that tell the button what to do.    Take the first two buttons for example:

===BTN;SmokeCol OFF;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_red;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  off

===BTN;SmokeCol ON;<1.0, 1.0, 1.0>;btn_green;
h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  on

The first one is an OFF button.  The second one is an ON button.  As you can see we are using the h2shout command.   Lets take a look at it in detail.

 h2shout ;  channel  ;  pword  ^ group ^ command ^ etc

h2shout	The H2 command that send data down the ODComm pipe.   Range is 100 meters.   You can also use h2say which has a range of 20 meters.
channel	The channel.  Valid channels are 0 - 1000.   Note.  These are not equivalent to chat channels 0-1000
password	a password to protect other users from interfering with your messages.
group	Each channel is made up of 16 groups.   A partical effect, light, or other target object can respond to commands on a single group, or it can also respond to multiple group commands (up to 16).  This allows you to create various groupings of target objects that will respond together to a single command depending on how the groups are setup. CHANNEL GLOBAL COMMANDS.   All devices on a particular channel will respond to commands on group -1.    This makes it easy to configure GLOBAL ON, OFF, and other commands.
command	The command that will be executed by the target object. on  - turns it on.  Example: Turn ON a object that is that is on channel 0, group 1 h2shout ; 0 ; pword ^ 1 ^  on off - turns it off.  Example: Turn OFF a object that is that is on channel 0, group 2 h2shout ; 0 ; pword ^ 2 ^  off oneshot.  Sends an ON pulse that lasts for num seconds.  Example:  Pulse ON and object for 4.5 seconds h2shout ; 0 ; pword ^ 2 ^  oneshot ^ 4.5 pulse - sets up a repeating on/off/on/off sequence.  Example:  Set an object to cycle back and forth ON and OFF.  The ON time will be 3 seconds, the OFF time will be 6 seconds h2shout ; 0 ; pword ^ 2 ^  pulse ^ 3  ^ 6 toggle - Change the current ON/OFF state.  If the object is ON it will turn OFF.   If the object is OFF, it will turn ON. h2shout ; 0 ; pword ^ 2 ^  toggle color - change the color of the device.  Particle effects will respond to both start and end colors (fade from start color to end color).  The start and end colors are specified in standard SL "vector" format:   <red, green, blue>.   h2shout ; 0; pword ^ 0 ^  color ^ <0,1,0> ^ <1,1,1> Some examples of colors in vector format: <1,1,1> - white <1,0,0> - red <0,1,0> - green <1,0,1> - purple <0,0,1> - blue

Don't forget that you can program your H2 to control complex sequences of actions.   Check out the  "SmokeCol Cycle" button sequence above.   For a complete discussion of how buttons are created and programmed click here. 

Default Channels and Group Settings

These are the default group and channel settings "out of the box" when you first buy your pyros and lights.   You can change anything to any group or channel, but these are the initial settings.  Remember that all devices will respond to commands on group -1.

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