Projection Software

[kylecrook]

Hi...

I'm TD For a local pantomime company who this easter will be putting on Cinderella. I want to project our Cinderella logo onto our front gauze, I want to logo to do a star burst at the end of the overture. Anyone got any experience in doing this kinda of stuff or know any software to that can easily do it? I'm a windows user and don't have funds for a mac so QLab is out of the idea...

Cheers!!

 

[dbaxter]

Are there two questions here? One - how to make the video, and Two - how to drive the projector?
Making the video is probably the harder of the two. I would suggest you find someone familiar with either Adobe's After Effects or the open source Blender. That would be if you needed an animated movie of the starburst going up like fireworks. If it's the case that you can get by with cross-fading from the image of your logo to an image of a starburst, then the Cue Player Premium Plus software I've written can do that for you. (if you do have a video, it can play that too)

 

[Joshualangman]

I know this doesn't really answer the question, but if you're only projecting one image in the whole show, I might get a high-quality (glass?) gobo made, which will be higher resolution than a video projector anyway. For the "starburst," you could flash some other lights at that spot, or if you put the gobo in a moving light, you could zoom it out or do some other creative transition to take it out.

 

[CrazyTechie]

As dbaxter has mentioned, making the logo change into a star-burst will be the harder part of this. I second his recommendation for using Adobe After Effects as you can get some reasonable effects with the built in particle and explode tools.

In terms of projecting this, have you thought about simply using PowerPoint? It would definitely get the job done with the least amount of fuss.

If projections is something your venue is looking at doing more of in the future I would highly recommend taking a look at purchasing the necessary equipment for a QLab 3 license that includes video. I know it's expensive, but it's something to think about.

 

[islander1]

i often do these graphic effects using photoshop and for this one it may only take about about 5 to 10 frames to make this transition. I then make the frames into an animated gif.

 

[Joshualangman]

If you go with QLab, note that the free version can probably do everything you need, and if not, you can rent it for a few dollars a day. But yes, you need a Mac.