Awsome 3d lighting program

[mbandgeek]

i have found the coolest computer program ever!!

check it out.

http://showxpress.thelightingcontrol.../presentation/

this program is for moving light fixtures.

it takes a little while to figure out how to do some things, but if you play around with it it is awesome.

best of all IT IS FREE!!

anyone know of any other programs??

[Radman]

GrandMA onPC and 3D together are pretty sweet. And free.

[DarSax]

ACTUALLY, CAN I PLEASE TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO ASK A QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN BUGGING ME.

On every major computer-based console, there's always a "download" link. Download our software! Woohoo! Newest version! Don't need to pay or anything!

Does this mean you can download their software for free, and then run it, with the company making its money by selling you its DMX/Ethernet dongle so that you can actually use their software to actually control actual lights? Or am I simply confused?

[bdesmond]

Originally Posted by DarSax

Does this mean you can download their software for free, and then run it, with the company making its money by selling you its DMX/Ethernet dongle so that you can actually use their software to actually control actual lights? Or am I simply confused?

That's usually the gimmick. I don't see the use of one of these programs for setting up and programming intels ahead of time if you don't have the mover desk to go with it.

[Hughesie]

hey i have been using this program for ages and have seen it devolp it has come along way since i first downloaded it some new features

draging lighting and objects

better colour palatte

MORE LIGHTING (not just chavert lighting either)

orgainaly it was called sweetlight control (you will notice when you download it the pop up stems from sweetlight.com)

[DarSax]

Originally Posted by bdesmond

That's usually the gimmick. I don't see the use of one of these programs for setting up and programming intels ahead of time if you don't have the mover desk to go with it.

Well I just mean, for the purposes of learning a board/getting aquainted with the software. It'd be kinda worthless to do it, as you say, without any way to actually control the lights.

[mbandgeek]

Originally Posted by bdesmond

That's usually the gimmick. I don't see the use of one of these programs for setting up and programming intels ahead of time if you don't have the mover desk to go with it.

well it is still really fun to play with

[mbandgeek]

Originally Posted by DarSax

ACTUALLY, CAN I PLEASE TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO ASK A QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN BUGGING ME.

On every major computer-based console, there's always a "download" link. Download our software! Woohoo! Newest version! Don't need to pay or anything!

Does this mean you can download their software for free, and then run it, with the company making its money by selling you its DMX/Ethernet dongle so that you can actually use their software to actually control actual lights? Or am I simply confused?

this is my take on this.

if i was the company and if someone was shopping around for a computer lighting system, i would let people have the program. mainly because you want to have your best version out to have the consumer compare against other companies. i wouldn't trust a demo that has only half of the features

[jfitzpat]

Originally Posted by DarSax

Well I just mean, for the purposes of learning a board/getting aquainted with the software. It'd be kinda worthless to do it, as you say, without any way to actually control the lights.

I don't know if it is completely worthless. We've had a number of users who started with our download and a Capture or ESP demo primarily to try things and show them to potential clients. Only after they had used us this way for awhile did they buy an adapter and skip the step of renting a desk and recreating the looks from scratch when the gigs came through.

I've personally tried using visualization for testing rig ideas, but don't find it all that useful for actual cueing. None of the visualizers (even serious investments like MSD and WYSIWYG) really simulate all the features of most fixtures and my best looks are almost always inspired by something I see during the process of cueing up the more obvious ones. Also, I'm pretty anal about exact positioning, focus, and intensities. So I have to tweak any scene created on a visualizer anyway. For me, there isn't much time savings between touching up and creating from scratch.

-jjf

[len]

Originally Posted by jfitzpat

I've personally tried using visualization for testing rig ideas, but don't find it all that useful for actual cueing. None of the visualizers (even serious investments like MSD and WYSIWYG) really simulate all the features of most fixtures

-jjf

Agreed. (Scary that's happening lately, isn't it?). The only way to get a truly accurate visualization is to design in vectorworks and export it to Vision. Not cheap to do because Vision isn't cheap, plus it needs a monster of a pc with a state of the art video card to work.

Some advantages of the current pc/dmx paradigm are that it allows one to try before buying, and if you can rent a dongle, you don't need to worry about a long rental. Just do 90% in the visualizer and worry about stuff like focus on show day.