Craig Hauber
Well-Known Member
I have been tasked with creation of 4 LED Christmas trees for a small upcoming Christmas tour. Producers sent me links to examples that they liked, YouTube videos, articles and ads. It's been several months of following that spiraling rabbit hole and learning a whole new (to me) aspect of lighting effects.
I now have the trees built. 1000 LED's each and 6 Universes each. Got all the wiring, networking and Art-Net all figured out and have several different software packages up and running to generate looks and sequences.
My main issue now is that none of it seems to have been designed by people that know nothing of theatrical stage lighting, the whole direction I was led down seems to be intended for hobbyist Christmas light displays in people's front yards. The effects I have come up with look amazing, and everyone is impressed and happy with the results. However I see no way to harness the looks we've created and make a "go button" cue-stack that is "minion-friendly" for following the script and having all 36 performances happen somewhat consistently!
The one program that the producer likes the results from the most is called "xLights" and is seems to be the primary system for the hobbyist Christmas light display community. For being open-source, it is quite impressive -and it's slinging 24 Universes of active data smoothly without glitching or lagging at 30fps. It's based on making sequences that accompany a recorded song you load into it.
The second program I've been running is by Enttec and works great too, but maps video over the LED's but doesn't do the individual pixel level animation that the producers really like. It uses a remote-by-DMX control method that allows you to use 24ch of the lighting board to run the pixel system as though it was one large lighting fixture. This works easy enough to quickly build your library of looks and not eat up the entirety of tech week with this one effect! Too bad it doesn't generate all the looks they want.
So after my long rambling build-up, my questions are:
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of effect in a scripted show?
What is the industry standard software for pro theatrical stage LED pixel control?
-I would be happy with the Enttec software myself and it's usability, but what do I know, I'm just a minion on this project!
Any insights from all of you regarding this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks much
I now have the trees built. 1000 LED's each and 6 Universes each. Got all the wiring, networking and Art-Net all figured out and have several different software packages up and running to generate looks and sequences.
My main issue now is that none of it seems to have been designed by people that know nothing of theatrical stage lighting, the whole direction I was led down seems to be intended for hobbyist Christmas light displays in people's front yards. The effects I have come up with look amazing, and everyone is impressed and happy with the results. However I see no way to harness the looks we've created and make a "go button" cue-stack that is "minion-friendly" for following the script and having all 36 performances happen somewhat consistently!
The one program that the producer likes the results from the most is called "xLights" and is seems to be the primary system for the hobbyist Christmas light display community. For being open-source, it is quite impressive -and it's slinging 24 Universes of active data smoothly without glitching or lagging at 30fps. It's based on making sequences that accompany a recorded song you load into it.
The second program I've been running is by Enttec and works great too, but maps video over the LED's but doesn't do the individual pixel level animation that the producers really like. It uses a remote-by-DMX control method that allows you to use 24ch of the lighting board to run the pixel system as though it was one large lighting fixture. This works easy enough to quickly build your library of looks and not eat up the entirety of tech week with this one effect! Too bad it doesn't generate all the looks they want.
So after my long rambling build-up, my questions are:
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of effect in a scripted show?
What is the industry standard software for pro theatrical stage LED pixel control?
-I would be happy with the Enttec software myself and it's usability, but what do I know, I'm just a minion on this project!
Any insights from all of you regarding this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks much