LEDBlinky - Part 4 - Controls Editor

This is Part 4 of our 5 part series on LEDBlinky. In this video we cover how to use the Controls Editor to setup controls for non-MAME emulators and how to manually configure specific games with their own controls.
NOTE: This is our first time recording the video live and there was an issue with the audio at the beginning and the end, that is why you can see a blip at the end video. There is also some popping noises in the audio which we are trying to resolve for future videos.

[@jazzr3616]

You are the man dude. Your tutorials are easy to understand and you break it down where a noob can understand. Thanks. Keep up the great tutorials

[@MavericksArcade]

Working on it :-)

[@John._.T]

Up to tutorial 4 of this great series!! You made me spit some of my coffee out when I read your T-shirt. :-)

[@DSt3alth]

Thanks a lot Chuck with all your help. Your LED Blinky tutorials are invaluable! Most of my console systems are done, now just need to figure out how to make my defined buttons for pc games to 'stick'. Thanks again for your videos, my bartop Arcade is nearly perfect

[@MavericksArcade]

Send pictures to my email! Also, if you're interested, I'd like to add segments soon with interviewing people's creations so we can all share and feel inspired by each other's accomplishments!

[@DSt3alth]

@@MavericksArcade Sure, what's your email address?

[@MavericksArcade]

[e-mail]

[@dkr8336]

These videos are super helpful. Thanks! One question I can't find an answer...how can I adjust the brightness of the LEDs under my trackball? They are connected to my ipac and using LEDBlinky.

[@MavericksArcade]

It depends on how those lights are being lit. In most MAME games there is a definition in the colors.ini file that says for a particular game that (for example) TRACKBALL=White, and then in LEDBlinky, White is defined in the Colors-RGB.ini file. ;For exclusive use with LEDBlinky - Arcade LED Control Software. ; ;Intensity values 0-48 ;column 1: Red Intensity ;column 2: Green Intensity ;column 3: Blue Intensity [Colors] Black=0,0,0 White=48,48,48 Red=48,0,0 Yellow=48,48,0 Orange=48,24,0 Lime=0,48,0 Green=0,24,0 Cyan=0,48,48 Blue=0,0,48 Purple=12,0,24 Violet=24,0,48 Magenta=48,0,48 Brown=24,12,0 As you can see, White is defined as full on. Therefore, to lower that overall brightness of the Trackball it would affect any other button that uses White. In order to lower this per game you could define another color in the color-RGB and perhaps call the color "TBWhite" and have lower settings. Then in the color.ini file find the games you wish to lower it on and change it to the TB(color) version you created. In my example I would add TBWhite=32,32,32 as a new line in the colors-rgb.ini file. Then in my game file I would look for instances of P1_TRACKBALL=White or P2_TRACKBALL and change the color to =TBWhite. Does this make sense? If so, let me know how it goes :-)

[@Bradman77]

I followed this but i only get leds that are set in the Default_Inactive... I've tried change them to 0 but the other controls wont come through.

[@MavericksArcade]

If you'd like send me a more detailed email to mavericksarcade at gmail and I'll work with you to see if we can figure it out :-)

[@paulonatali5614]

If you have Ultimarc U360 sticks there is an very very important configuration In Controls Editor under "Common" Primary Controls option for Non MAME games. If yu dont change the primary control std configuration from 8way joystick to analog mode it wont let yu play non MAME games with analog map on U360. I was strugling on Sega Model 3 not running the U360 analog map for Star Wars, Lost World, etc and took me days to figure out the issue was on Controls Editor.

[@MavericksArcade]

That's a very good point, I'll keep that in mind as I do my 1UP mod builds where I'll be using the U360's again :-) Thank you :-)

[@drewjbx228]

hello maverick, I know this tutorial was made awhile ago, I just started watching your channel.. very well done and informative, subscribed! I have a questions about editing controls for non mame emulators. Example - how can we make the nes A and B buttons light up just going through the NES list rather than having to launch a game to see them?

[@DSt3alth]

drewjbx I think there's an option in LED Blinky to demo controls while in lists. You just have to check it. That's how my arcade is setup up. When you go through each game, it lights up the controls briefly, then reverts to lighting up my bigbox controls

[@MavericksArcade]

In the Controls Editor, search for "Unknown Games", it will then show Nintendo (as long as you've launched the emulator from your front-end software in the past). Once you've added the emulator, modify the setting for "default" and configure the lights and phonetic names for the buttons.

[@Marcdaddy2112]

Quick question, in Mame as well as my frontend ( launchbox ) I can get my trackball to work ( lightup ) correctly. But in teknoparrot I set it up in the control editor and I cant get it to lightup. Any thoughts on where i can look?

[@MavericksArcade]

I'm not 100% sure, I'll try that on my setup and see if I have an issue. If you would, please email me at [e-mail] and let me know the issue you're experience and a little more about your setup and hardware and I can try to help :-)

[@Marcdaddy2112]

@MavericksArcade i figured it out re-watching your tutorials... real stupid thing i did. When I selected the trackball in the controls editor I did not double click it to move it over. I was highlighting it then hitting ok. Whoops.

[@andrewlingle8985]

Hello, thanks for the video. I am having an issue with Nintendo_Wii_U and that is no games in that emulator light the controls (I'm using Cemu as the emulator). I have set the default controls but no lights work. I have tried adding a specific game (for example mario kart 8) but this game is not in controls editors unknown game list. This tells me that LED Blinky doesn't even see me launching the game. I have tried deleting the emulator and recreating it using a game that does show up in the list but the controls still don't work even for that specific title. I don't know where to go from here, no web searches lead to anything that relates to this issue. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[@MavericksArcade]

Which front-end are you using? Also, if you can email me at mavericksarcade here on Gmail I will be able to follow the issue better :-)

[@latin625]

Hi Maverick, How do you get rid of the games listed in the "Unknown Games"? Or if not, what happens if your game does not show up on the list? I have tried playing it and then going back, but still nothing. Thanks

[@MavericksArcade]

The games will show up in the unknown list if they haven't been specifically designated. If you add a configuration for the game it will disappear from the unknown list because it has been defined. When you're launching the game is it going through your normal front end? If has to be launched with the normal front end (that uses LEDBlinky) in order to appear in the list. If you're still having problems, you can reach out to me at mavericksarcade on gmail to continue the discussion.

[@latin625]

@@MavericksArcade Many thanks as always. I was able to correctly map LEDBlinky to Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom

[@arcadeencasa]

Hi maverick. You have a very good channel. I am having trouble with ledblinky. I have 4 players arcade. When i change buttons (for example today i change the order of button 1,2 and 3 in player 3 from below to above in 6 buttons players of a 4 players games) and in this case the buttons stay on correctly but coin 3 went out. Like this i had a lot of situations...leds stop working without any change in your config or leds start if i change something in other place..95% works fine...but i want 100% :).sorry for my english.

[@MavericksArcade]

I have not experienced this issue yet, if anyone has, please help out and let me know the fix. Otherwise, you may want to ask Arzoo at LEDBlinky if he knows what's happening.

[@shanejohnson970]

Maverick, love the videos, thanks for all of the help. I am trying to change the FE lights in controls editor and it keeps coming up with an error saying missing front end node in ledblinky controls.Xml. Any suggestions?

[@MavericksArcade]

Not sure, are you still having this issue?

[@rellikfolla]

Hey, your videos have helped me so much lately, thanks so much.. but I am having an issue where I set all the controls for NES in the control editor and they will just not light up when I play a nintendo game.. I am running Launchbox as my FE and retroarch as the NES emulator.. any ideas?

[@MavericksArcade]

The issue may be from the game being launched through RetroArch, RetroArch isn't an emulator. It's actually just a front-end that downloads cores. I'm wondering if it's not handing off the request in the same manner as the other emulators would. I will know more soon, I'm going to start testing RetroArch on both the PC and the PI soon. In the meantime, I would try downloading the actual emulator and run the Nintendo games through that, then see if the instructions above work with LEDBlinky :-)

[@gameblasted]

@@MavericksArcade that's a good troubleshooting tip to figure out where the issue lies. Thanks I'll try it. But man I hope I can get retroarch working with ledblinky.. i use retroarch for half my emulators :S

[@MavericksArcade]

@@gameblasted No problem, I'll be testing Retroarch in the fashion personally soon. I'll make sure to test that functionality specifically. In the meantime, you test with the normal emulator and let me know, if it still doesn't work email me and we can coordinate a time for me to try and assist you remotely, if you have a webcam and don't mind being in a segment for content :-)

[@rellikfolla]

@@MavericksArcade Hey Maverick, so I did the test without a Retroarch emulator.. I tried Project 64, no dice. buttons still won't light up.. I'm currently trying to figure out what is wrong/conflicting/not set right and preventing the controls editor from lighting the stuff I have set... maybe if you send me a couple screen shots or something of your led blinky config and controls editor? And yeah, I'm definetely down to have some help remotely and yeah, also up for being in a segment. sounds fun and will hopefully educate others.. Any help is appreciated

[@rellikfolla]

oh yeah, and I just realized I've been talking to you on both my accounts.. I am also Billy Diamond

[@LunchBoxArcades]

hi thanks for your informative videos, I'm working through it nicely. first question, why does my led blinky repeat the controls twice, I see no option to get it to only say it once...

[@MavericksArcade]

I'm not sure, I've seen it take too many inputs before. It's also intermittent for me. I wonder if its that the button is triggering twice during the motion of down and up. Usually, if it does this I just remove the extra entry. Also, it does seem to act differently depending on the speed in which I press the button. Luckily, since you only change this occassionally it's not been a big deal for me. I do believe it's a button switch issue vs. an application issue.

[@el3y09]

your videos have help out alot thanks plus do u know where the place place for a update mame colour file

[@MavericksArcade]

Good question! The colors.ini file comes with LED Blinky. In the LED Blinky folder you should find colors.ini. This is where the colors and game names are located. If a game is missing, you can add an entry for it using the ROM name and following the format of other games already listed. Another important file is Colors-RGB.ini. In this file you can define new colors by name or even modify existing colors. One color I suggest you modify is "black". By default, black is not black, it's a low color (I'm not sure why). It created some confusion for me because I wanted some buttons effectively off so I'd specify black and would light up anyway. You need to modify the Colors-RGB file and change black to read 0x0x0. Then you can define black to shut off a button.

[@el3y09]

Maverick's Arcade thanks

[@Speedracer50]

is there anyway to get higher numbers than 48 for RGB colors? the reason i am asking is my brown looks burnt orange and my greys look white?

[@MavericksArcade]

Think of it as 48 is 100%. I'm not sure how 1-48 was determined, but 48 is 100% for each color.

[@Speedracer50]

guess i will have to do some more tinkering :) i was looking for someway to use the universal RGB color chart like for brown the code is red 102 green 51 and blue 0

[@MavericksArcade]

you probably still good. Normal PC is 0-255, LEDBlinky is 0-48, so do (Original number / 255) * 48 It won't be as precise, but for example, your numbers would be RED 19 GREEN 10 BLUE 0.

[@Speedracer50]

thats pretty much what i did but without being able to change the hue and sat can't quite get it as dark as i would like

[@MavericksArcade]

Gotcha

[@Steve-jo8zm]

Ok this has me stumped. I Have ultimarc servosticks and ledblinky. When I play a game like Windjammer a neogeo game in mame. Ledblinky doesn't switch my joysticks to 8-way. I have this issue with several other games. Is there a way to manually edit the way ledblinky switches my joysticks for a game?

[@MavericksArcade]

To be honest, I had not attempted connecting the two through LEDBlinky yet. When I first setup my sticks the option wasn't in LEDBLinky. I'm going to make a video this (or next) week for this functionality. I will make sure to explore a manual override option while I'm doing that. :-)

[@Steve-jo8zm]

@@MavericksArcade Thanks for the reply. Acually since I posted this I have discovered that Rockeylauncher (Hyperspin as my frontend) can control the servostiks as well. It seems to do a better job and is more accurate (at least so far) with the 4-way and 8-way swithcing. Once again thanks for the reply and of course making your videos witch I have relied on espicailly with configuring Ledblinky. Keep up the awsome work!!

[@MavericksArcade]

@@Steve-jo8zm No problem! - I have the next video releasing tonight - for LEDBlinky + ServoStik showing how to enable the functionality, and how to manually override the setting if desired. :-) Glad you were able to get it working with Hyperspin and RocketLauncher. I may check with you on how when I get to that point of testing Hyperspin :-)

[@ryangill4254]

When I go to import it says there are no unknown roms or games. I've tried to manually setup a NES one but it doesn't take effect when I launch my NES games.

[@MavericksArcade]

Which front end are you using? The handling of the script is information passed off from your front end launcher

[@ryangill4254]

Launchbox

[@MavericksArcade]

email me your contact information and if you have skype we can do a live stream interview/fix to resolve it :-) (after i get back from vacay - back sept 6th)

[@ryangill4254]

I ended up just adding it manually and then realizing later that there is a setting in LED Blinky config on the Misc tab to Save Unknown Games. I have this checked now and now the import shows options

[@MavericksArcade]

Bingo! I thought that was checked in my walkthough, I'll have to check it now, but I'm glad it's working for you!

[@el3y09]

sorry to be a pain i was wondering if you have or know where i could get a updated 2 player control.ini as the one i have is not up to date and only lights up 1 play for mame

[@MavericksArcade]

dean eley funky. No problem email me and I'll send you a copy of mine :-)

[@justinfugate5708]

did u have any issues with any of the mortal kombats lighting up correctly? mk1 is the only lit correctly. tried to change the others but the buttons are mixed up or something

[@MavericksArcade]

Yes, it was an issue with the block button. This was because I had 6 buttons and the original arcade machines had 5 or 7... So, I just remapped the buttons within the game and they were then correct... So in my case Button 1 was high punch (or kick whichever is first). Button 2 Block, button 3 High (the other one). Button 4 Low punch (or kick), Button 5 NOTHING - Button 6, low (the other one)

[@SharkBytesKnox]

Can you do sinden light guns please?

[@MavericksArcade]

I would love to get a chance to play with those. That's why i need to grow the channel more and get more people sending me stuff to review :-) Those things are expensive LOL

[@pipesfranco]

I guess youtube took down the jukebox video.....i could really do with a tutorial on that :(

[@MavericksArcade]

THANK YOU!, I didn't notice it was blocked. In the past it was simply non-monetized because Metallica claims and 2 others, but apparently, Thunderstruck caused the whole video to be blocked. I will mute those sections and just have a caption describing what is playing, and then re-upload. THANKS AGAIN!

[@MavericksArcade]

I was able to choose to mute those sections, it is now processing. Once finished, it will just be muted in those places. But hey, I can now monetize it again :-)

[@pipesfranco]

@@MavericksArcade Thats awesome...thank you for your awesome vids they helped me enormously :) more more :)

[@LunchBoxArcades]

are you arzoo?

[@MavericksArcade]

No, I'm not Arzoo. I've emailed him a couple times while making these videos and gave him permission to use these videos directly on his site, but I am not him. :-)