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Teaser... since we're posting them

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LightsOnLogan View Drop Down
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  Quote LightsOnLogan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Teaser... since we're posting them
    Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 2:10pm
Since we're posting teasers...
 
mms://media.lightsonlogan.com/lightsonlogan/Fifth_web.wmv
 
I plan to reshoot the video since I've tweaked the sequence since this one was shot:
 
1. After the orange spot crawl near the end (great effect): the moving spot cycles colors on the house.  This portion of the moving light has been moved into a yard crawl / color cycle and only the slower color changes are kept on the moving spot (the fast ones are removed since the Q-Spot can't vector the color wheel fast enough and gets confused as seen in the one spot of the video).  I bet a Martin Mac could do it... but those things are $$$$$.
 
2. The RGB mix of the floodlights for the color orange are more orange than greenish/yellow now.
 
The rightmost f...fly decided to wig out when shooting this video and there's one ACx16 sticky channel in there too.
 


Edited by LightsOnLogan - 23 Dec 2009 at 2:12pm
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  Quote deweycooter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 7:16pm
I *really* like that Q-Spot... now I just need to figure out how to sneak it past the wife.
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  Quote LightsOnLogan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 10:23pm
I'll post some more video of some of the Q-Spot effects tomorrow. 

It is really fun to select a snowflake gobo, rotate the gobo, select the prism (splits the rotating snowflake into 3 rotating snowflakes), and also set rotation on the prism. 

Even in songs where I don't "use" the Q-Spot to move around and do fancy stuff, I set up little things like that unique to the specific song.  Another example is where I select a Christmas tree gobo on gobo wheel 1, select a radiating line glass pattern on gobo 2, and rotate gobo 2 while keeping gobo 1 in focus.  It adds a ripple like animation effect to the projected tree.

The gobos are size "E" and Rosco has a ton (thousands) to choose from.

FWIW, it is worth it to spring for the 300 to get the extra DMX channels in advanced mode.

The only downsides I've had with the Q-Spot:
1- The color wheel gels are not interchangable... you are stuck with the stock colors (white, blue, green, yellow, magenta, pink, orange, and UV [blacklight])... NO RED!  You might be able to put a gel into one of the gobo wheels, but that will restrict your flexibility in other ways somewhat. 
2- DMX lamp mode... you can send commands to the lamp mode channel to turn the lamp on and off.  This is good because you can command the lamp on in your open sequence and off in your nightly close sequence... except it has bugs.  If you command the lamp off via DMX and the power goes out before the next on command, then the lamp is stuck off and you have to manually navigate the panel menu to turn it back on.  I wound up just putting the Q-Spot on a 15A appliance timer instead of using the lamp mode commands.
3- Color wheel vector speed... way too slow!  It takes 0.2 seconds to switch colors, so you'll have to lead them by about 0.1s in the sequence.  If you need to go from one end of the wheel to the other though... that takes over a second.  You will need to plan your sequences around the color wheel changes.
4- The rotating gobo wheel is easy to install new gobos in, but the fixed gobo wheel is a real pain.  There are no index marks, so it is a lot of trial and error getting the gobos aligned at the proper angle.

Other than that, I love the Q-Spot.  It is built quite well (the thing is 60 pounds) and has worked flawlessly in the harsh environment.  I put it in a homemade "container" for weatherproofing.  Basically, I made a cylinder out of acrylic and bolted an acrylic lid above that.  That all sits on a plywood base with an intake vent in the back and fan exhaust in the front.  If you can spring for Lexan instead of acrylic I would recommend it though... the acrylic reduces brightness by about 20% and throws a reflection of that 20% off in another odd direction.  The transmissive properties of Lexan are supposed to be much better.


Edited by LightsOnLogan - 23 Dec 2009 at 10:27pm
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  Quote LightsOnLogan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 9:01am
Q-Spot Cuts as promised:
 
mms://media.lightsonlogan.com/lightsonlogan/qspot_web.wmv
 
 
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Jonathan View Drop Down
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  Quote Jonathan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 9:45am

I still can't get your videos to work for me.  Unhappy

~Jonathan
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  Quote deweycooter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 10:06am
can you open in windows media player?
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  Quote Jonathan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 10:39am
Nope.  It asked me to choose a program and that's the program I chose.  It thinks about loading it for a few seconds, then displays the failed message.
~Jonathan
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  Quote LightsOnLogan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 12:03pm
Jonathan,
 
I'm not sure why you can't get the mms link to work.  Here's an alterneate location where you can download them for offline viewing (higher resolution also):
 
 
 
Originally posted by Jonathan

I still can't get your videos to work for me.  Unhappy

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  Quote Jonathan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 4:50pm
Me neither, but the zip file worked.  Maybe Firefox was in a bad mood or something.  That looks great!  I really like the 4 f...fly arches, especially with the closer spacing you have.  I may do something like that next year, but I don't have spacing for 4 of them in their current location. 

Your DMX Q spot is a nice touch.  I could use something similar that has Christmas gobos.  People keep telling me that the chimney needs something and that would be perfect for it. 

After the madness ends, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your songs.
~Jonathan
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  Quote LightsOnLogan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 7:43pm
It should calm down enough later in the week to shoot some video again.  Waaaayyy too much traffic tonight.
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