Strobe
Blink, flicker, or stutter a property on and off.
Strobe switches a property between its value and a reduced one on a duty cycle. Pointed at opacity it is a blinking light; pointed at scale it is a stutter.
It uses a square duty cycle rather than a sine, because a neon tube is on or off, not sinusoidal.
When to reach for it#
- Neon signs, warning lights, cursor blinks.
- Broken screens and failing bulbs — turn Chaos up.
- Film-gate flutter and old-projector looks, at a low Depth.
Parameters#
Blinks per second. Above about 12 it stops reading as blinking and starts reading as flicker — and at frame rate it will alias into something unpredictable.
What fraction of each cycle is on. 0.5 is even. 0.9 is a light that briefly drops out; 0.1 is a light that briefly appears.
How far down the off state goes. 1 is fully off. 0.3 is a dim rather than a blackout, which is what a struggling fluorescent actually does.
Ramps the edges of the cycle instead of snapping. A little makes an LED; none makes a hard cut.
Chance that any given cycle is dropped entirely. A clean square wave reads as a metronome; a failing bulb does not keep time. 0.2 is a sign that needs replacing.
Changes which cycles Chaos drops. Give two signs different seeds so they do not fail in unison.
See also#
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