twinkling stars

[willbb123]

I'm designing a show and the director wants twinkling starts projected onto the cyc. We have star gobos and twin spins. We also have some breakup gobos. I've played around with a few different combinations of the stars and the breakups but have not found anything I like. I was wondering if anyone could help me out with creating this effect.

[GridGirl]

Rather than a Twin Spin I think I'd be looking at animation wheels - much more likely to give you the effect you want. A variable speed one is probably a good idea as then you can alter the effect if necessary.

[RichardFoster]

Your best bet with the twin spins may be to put two very light breakups or spiral patterns in them in opposite directions and put the stars gobo in the static gobo slot. Play around with exactly where the focus point is and test the effect of moving the static gobo towards and away from the rotating ones. I know you won't get much movement but you can often turn the gobo holder around to move the gobo slightly.

[daniel.anderson]

Are you willing to experiment with the stars?

 

i.e. are you willing to have physical stars there with the use of LED's

 

Recently I and a few colleagues made something we call the LED-octi-squid which consisted of the following:

 

150 Bright white LED's

2-300m of Cat-5 Ethernet cable

4 x 12v transformers.

The unit is most easily described like a human body.

 

You start off with the groin plate, where you have 4 12v transformers, which then each have a leg, 4 feet on each leg, and then 4 toes off each foot. On the end of each toe, you have 1 LED.

 

From the groin plate, to the leg, they run in parallel, then from the leg to foot also runs in parallel, then from the foot to the toe, it changes to run in series.

 

Because you change them to run in series, you can make them twinkle and not having a group of four on at one time.

 

I might be able to dig the plans up from somewhere PM me if you'd like them, but you've got the have the time to make it. It took us about 2 weeks of 14hr days, 6 days a week to finally finish it off. All in all I think we did a total of about 1400 solders.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Dan.

[willbb123]

Thanks for all the help

 

Your best bet with the twin spins may be to put two very light breakups or spiral patterns in them in opposite directions and put the stars gobo in the static gobo slot. Play around with exactly where the focus point is and test the effect of moving the static gobo towards and away from the rotating ones. I know you won't get much movement but you can often turn the gobo holder around to move the gobo slightly.

 

Can you give me an example of what kind of light breakup will work. We are getting really close to the shows so I might have to make any gobo that I dont have in stock.

[JoeIOW]

Hi, we done a production in the summer and used a projector to project an animated image on to a cyc. It worked really well and looked great, bear in mind the projector needs to be of some quality. We used a Epson HD Widescreen one.

 

Joe.

[themadhippy]

No chance of a star cloth and quaze or a white star cloth instead of a cyc cloth

[willbb123]

Hi, we done a production in the summer and used a projector to project an animated image on to a cyc. It worked really well and looked great, bear in mind the projector needs to be of some quality. We used a Epson HD Widescreen one.

 

Joe.

 

Our theatre has an amazing projector, which is blinding when you are on stage. I think they may be using it for some animation effects.

 

Thanks for all your help. I have spoken with the director and all he really wants is the stars spinning not twinkling.

 

Thanks again for all your help.

[dbuckley]

Drifting a little :) ...

 

I've done somthing similar to what Danial did but using a 6x6 matrix controller and bunch of lamps poking through an 8x32 foot expanse of hardboard. With a 6x6 matrix, there are 36 circuit "positions" and we used five scattterd lamps per circuit position for 180 lamps. The (12v) lamps and holders were culled from strings of christmas lamps, and there were therefore a lot of joins to make, though we didn't solder; lot of twisting and tape. When you strip that much wire the hand you dont hold the tool in gets red raw and consequently very sore...

 

It is quite a powerful look, and very different to the fibre optic starcloth. I've contemplated resurecting the effect but using a net of lamps, so it could go in front of a simple black or even a normal starcloth.

 

And I still have the matrix controller I built... quite heavy, in a 12x12x4 box, with a 1000W 24 volt transformer inside...