DMX w/ LOR - Lights, Lights, Lights! Read Only. No more posting. - PlanetChristmas! Forums. Read Only. We've moved to http://talk.planetchristmas.com - The Forums of PlanetChristmas have moved to http://talk.PlanetChristmas.com
You can see the Chauvet Colroado3's I used on the house, lawn and trees in a couple of my videos. I also controlled a snow machine and fog machine via the iDMX-1000 interface.
Ryan, you can see both my intimidators in my video. The 1.2 does the sweeping effect across the house at around 8:15 to 8:45 and during the slower parts the 1.0 shines on the light flurries ball. It's hard to see in the video even though the balls of snow are very obvious in person. If you look at the house during the slower parts when the wash is on, you can sort of see the falling snow.
Click on the 2007 link of my site below to see the video
Greg
Oh BTW I am using the LOR iDMX1000
Last edited on Monday January 7th, 2008 09:35 pm by LightsByGreg
My opinions on lighting as an art/science follows:
Whatever you do with DMX, don't forget it is a Christmas light display, not a rock show. Don't do something just because you can do it or just because it looks cool.
You can certainly have elements of a rock show in your light display, but those elements should never be the focal point for sake of being the focal point.
The basic qualities of light in a display are intensity, color, direction and movement. Use these qualities to accent the lyrics of the music or enhance the mood of the music or to bring the viewer to the meaning of the music or to bring focus to a scene, a feeling or a moment. Most importantly your lighting composition must reveal objects and scenery in proportion to their importance, by building a visual picture.
Your lighting concept should be fundamental. It should capture the intrinsic qualities in the display and relate and describe them in terms of light.
Substance over form. Don't make it a project of filling up the little 1/10th timing squares on a software program.
Charles
Last edited on Monday January 7th, 2008 11:16 pm by Charles Belcher
your totally right. lol-i'm thinking about LOR for my traveling light shows for my company http://www.acpentertainment.com My CHRISTMAS show will have like 2 scanners, prolly intimidator 1.2's because thats what I am going to use in my traveling shows.
You can see the scans and light flurries to a lesser extent in the video for the Christina Aguilera song from my display. The flurries really looked cool in person, I used a multiple snowflake gobo on a mirrored ball in front of each of my two Focus Spot 250's and rotated the gobo so the flakes appeared to tumble a bit as they came down.
I am waiting for a friend to transfer the other two angles of my display to a dvd for me so I can edit it in. One of the other angles will show the dmx aspect of the show much more clearly.
Oh, the wash on the house is dmx too, four American DJ P64 Led Pro par cans.
My opinions on lighting as an art/science follows:
Whatever you do with DMX, don't forget it is a Christmas light display, not a rock show. Don't do something just because you can do it or just because it looks cool.
You can certainly have elements of a rock show in your light display, but those elements should never be the focal point for sake of being the focal point.
The basic qualities of light in a display are intensity, color, direction and movement. Use these qualities to accent the lyrics of the music or enhance the mood of the music or to bring the viewer to the meaning of the music or to bring focus to a scene, a feeling or a moment. Most importantly your lighting composition must reveal objects and scenery in proportion to their importance, by building a visual picture.
Your lighting concept should be fundamental. It should capture the intrinsic qualities in the display and relate and describe them in terms of light.
Substance over form. Don't make it a project of filling up the little 1/10th timing squares on a software program.
Charles
Ryan, I have echoed these exact thoughts to you before in another thread to you before. They are some good words of wisdom and trust me Charles knows his stuff.
Like my Intimidators I just use for color wash on the house and accent to the snow machine. I have certain steps that I have on a certain song where they will spin around on the yard and color wash the yard in a fixed position and then they pan up as they fade away at the end of the song which is a pretty popular step in closing a song with DMX lighting and it looks really nice. It is how you get out of the effect without having a sudden turn off because like mentioned you don't want them to be your focal point. If you add some I will share some of my DMX steps with you to get you started.
Just don't over do it. Like I like to say, if you do things right, no one will ever know you did anything at all.
Charles, I just read your post and WOW that is real deep. Thank you for providing such an inspiration. I remember when I looked at your videos I didn't see much at first because usually skipping through can give you a general idea of a display. However, your display has so much detail, so much substance that it really changes the way I think about a light show. Thank you so much!
Everyone has their own style in lighting design. It is very, very easy to be swayed by technology. It is only a tool to get the desired look and feel of a display. You should use it and not the other way around.
I tend to lean towards the artsy side of design. That is why I prefaced my message to Ryan with "my opinion".
I know several of us have learned first hand, that this motor cannot handle having the mirrored ball on it's side in 'light flurries' style. I know MikeZ's burned up and I also torched one.
I wan't meaning light flurries style. That is the only product i know that rotates a mirror ball like that. I was meaning for anyone who wants to hand one traditionaly. (Im going to as soon a i figure out where to put it).
Last edited on Wednesday February 6th, 2008 03:19 pm by AaronS102
I was about to chime in on the American DJ DMX motor and Brett brought up the problem I had with the motor. I used a .45 rpm gearmotor from http://servocity.com/html/dayton_gear_motors__12v_.html last year and it worked very well. I used them at one of my commercial installations as well with no problem. You'll lose the directional capability, but the speed is perfect for falling snowflakes http://www.lightsondisplay.com/2k7.html and can be stopped for stationary gobos.
I am trying to figure out how I could incorporate one of these into the star on my ztree this season. I want to point it downward and use it during certain times in the show.
bhays wrote: I am trying to figure out how I could incorporate one of these into the star on my ztree this season. I want to point it downward and use it during certain times in the show.
Looking at the manual, it expressly states that exposing this unit to rain or moisture voids the warranty. So how would you weather proof it? Otherwise this could be a very cool effect at times.
Last edited on Wednesday February 6th, 2008 07:12 pm by zman
zman wrote: Looking at the manual, it expressly states that exposing this unit to rain or moisture voids the warranty. So how would you weather proof it? Otherwise this could be a very cool effect at times.
That's what I have to figure out. I will come up with something, though...I did for my moving heads. First, I need to determine if a 3 watt led source will be bright enough to be effective, need to know what that converts to in incandescent watts to get a better idea.
