Stars appearing magically all around viewers.

Why fiber optic when LEDs embedded in the drywall would likely be easier and less expensive?
An awful lot of soldering or crimping of tiny, fiddly, connections and then there's the control to contend with.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I never thought anyone would think individual LEDs. Buy it in wired strings. Who cares if half or more are left unseen - cheap. And seems simpler to control LED and get some twinkling and such than fibre optic. Wire is certainly easier to cram into shallow space behind drywall than fibre optic. Plus who will do the fibre optic today?

This is not a low budget project. Buy a string or two and a sheet of drywall and experiment. I kind of like the stretch wall idea - a fabric on a track and spline system. But maybe "hard" walls are really needed.
 
So after learning how Disney does the illusion on the Tower of Terror in which they have scrim painted to appear very convincingly as the walls/trim of the hotel hall with fiberoptic stars behind the scrim which become apparent when the set lights illuminating the scrim are turned off, I think that is essentially what I will do. This allows me to get a reasonable good approximation of the effect without having to do large permanent modifications of the room. So what I will do is to buy this product which is a black cloth embedded with three different sized LEDs to mimic stars which can be customized to any size.


It includes the power supply and is quite a value compared to attempting to cover the same area with commercially available panels embedded with fiberoptic fibers and light engine, and ALOT less work than trying to custom make drywall panels with fiberoptic fibers penetrating, and then painting.

I will secure this onto the stucco wall and make small holes in the fabric ( have to be careful not to damage wires to LED lights though) in the stucco wall for power/electronics including flame lights for the 3D moldings of boiler room grates over the LED fabric. Then I will place a scrim over the entire wall to cover the LED fabric and stretch this to cover the entire wall and secure. Then I have a commercial artist to paint a Boiler room scene on the scrim. I will have to do some testing to use paint that will not obscure the LEDs when lit. It will be challenging I think for the artist to be as convincing as Disney, since viewers in the room will be about 6-7 ft away and closer than riders are to the set in the Tower of Terror, but at worst the viewers will get the ambience if not believe the actual boiler room set is real.

Anyway that is my plan after ALOT of thought and consideration for cost, time, hassle, actual modification of existing room, permanency of changes and effect of property value.
 
Last edited:
Here is demo of the LED star cloth. It has been mounted on a wall, and a mesh photo mural of the Tower of Terror boiler room will go over it, concealing it until the lights in the room go off, revealing the stars.
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


Here is the image that will be printed on a mesh and mounted over the star fabric . It was taken by Todd Hurley; I purchased the high resolution version which can be enlarged to about 13ft long and 9 feet high and still look good.

Screen Shot 2019-10-05 at 4.41.45 AM.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Here is demo of the LED star cloth. It has been mounted on a wall, and a mesh photo mural of the Tower of Terror boiler room will go over it, concealing it until the lights in the room go off, revealing the stars.
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

@Tower of Terror Theater Will the stars twinkle or do tricks like shooting stars?
Have you ever acquired a sample of Black RP Screen to experiment with?

Some guys build 'Man Caves', basement bars, fancy six car garages; You've got your very own Tower Of Terror Theatre, COOL!
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
The LED "stars" are DMX controllable, but the existing twinkle programs that are preprogrammed did not look realistic to me. The static patterns looked more realistic. My technical/creative partner has a friend who is more experienced with DMX control and he will come take a look to see if he can get a more realistic twinkling of the stars; if not I am satisfied with a static pattern.

As far as the "holographic," display I really had tried so many things and invested in multiple things (UHD short throw projector, standard throw projector, multiple holographic films) only some of which were returnable, that I decided to JUST STOP and make a choice and go with the peppers ghost approach which clutters the theater, but gives an acceptable , in my humble opinion, result.

Thanks!
 
The LED "stars" are DMX controllable, but the existing twinkle programs that are preprogrammed did not look realistic to me. The static patterns looked more realistic. My technical/creative partner has a friend who is more experienced with DMX control and he will come take a look to see if he can get a more realistic twinkling of the stars; if not I am satisfied with a static pattern.

As far as the "holographic," display I really had tried so many things and invested in multiple things (UHD short throw projector, standard throw projector, multiple holographic films) only some of which were returnable, that I decided to JUST STOP and make a choice and go with the peppers ghost approach which clutters the theater, but gives an acceptable , in my humble opinion, result.

Thanks!
@Tower of Terror Theater
Further to your stars; perhaps I shouldn't have said twinkle, I wan't envisioning any of the blatant on / off patterns.
I meant something far more subtle with each star twinkling, varying in intensity without obviously turning on and off; each star twinkling to its own drummer, not obviously matching, or in synch' with, any other stars: The kind of gentle, not particularly attention taking, variations you'd often see on a clear, cloudless, night lying on the dock at your summer cottage staring up at the night sky.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
@Tower of Terror Theater
Further to your stars; perhaps I shouldn't have said twinkle, I wan't envisioning any of the blatant on / off patterns.
I meant something far more subtle with each star twinkling, varying in intensity without obviously turning on and off; each star twinkling to its own drummer, not obviously matching, or in synch' with, any other stars: The kind of gentle, not particularly attention taking, variations you'd often see on a clear, cloudless, night lying on the dock at your summer cottage staring up at the night sky.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
You describe exactly what I am hoping to have the stars appear on the LED cloth. I will post what it looks like once the photomural is up and perhaps I can get the stars to appear as you describe with some DMX programming help.

Thanks Ron.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back