Shape Generators

[Grum]

I frequently read posts and talk to LDs who dislike the use of shape generators and think that using them in your programming is in some way inferior and therefore people who use them are not "real" LDs.

 

Why?

 

What is the problem with using yet another tool that allows you to program your show qucikly?

 

More and more shows are using more and more movers shurely the ability to get 20 lights all doing a circle in 30 seconds is far better than plotting a 10 step chase requiring you to make 200 individual adjustments to your rig?

 

I accept that there are some (OK, a lot of) people that just stick a load of different shapes into memories and end up with results that look worse than if they'd just left the units on sound to light mode not caring where the light points as long as its moving.

 

Is it just that on some older desks it is not so easy to edit the shapes?

 

I'm a chamsys owner-operator myself and find that this tool allows me to put a show together pretty quickly and it's so easy to edit shapes that if they don't look right when I change venue I can edit them within minutes. Having said that I do have to say that I try and stay away from using shapes unless the show specifically requires a that kind of look or when I'm doing a college show where I've got 20 different pieces to program in a morning and the director just wants the lights to "move about a bit".

[DonkiDonki]

I spent several years stuck using a HighEnd Status Cue desk at the time every one else was introduced to Hog's and Pearls, you could say I was rather jealous of those guys and their shape generators as the Cue was a fairly powerful desk but had no shape engine at all.

 

I did not appreciate the benifits of this particularly until after a few shows where fellow lampies would pop there heads into control and ask what desk I was using... They could tell instantly the show was not on a Hog or Pearl as at the time everyone was using the same effects all the time. Having no effects did force you to think more about the quality of your static positions a lot more.

 

One show in particular was a large outdoor event to celebrete an aniversary in Africa. We arrived a week before the show to setup a reasonable amount of kit only to be surprised to find another event company (on about 10 times our budget, and with the kit to show it) already setup for the same show; and they had been building for 2 weeks already!

It turned out that it was a bit of a power struggle between two local officials trying to out-do each other so we had no choice but carry on and build our show around the other crews kit and wait to see which of us would actually run the show. (It seemed a no-brainer to us, as they had 5 times the kit as us and while we only had a week to build & program they were finished building and had all week to plot the show) Unfortunately as the issue involved politics, none of us knew what the hell was going on.

To make matters worse for us, a lot of the power & rigging positions we had planed to use were taken up by the other crew meaning it took us a lot longer than planed to rig and only left me one night to plot our show - not good.

Something funny happened as I plotted our show. The other LD had vastly more moving lights than me, lasers all over the place and ran it off a Hog2, but the centerpiece of the event (a castle) was only lit with a few City Colors. We had rigged a lot of generics to bring out the features of the castle but only had a small number of movers.

 

As I finally began to plot our show, which luckily I had a good idea of what I wanted to achieve, we noticed a lot of activity from the other teams control area...

Firstly I programmed a few states with the generics on the castle, I must say I was rather pleased with the results for a fairly low budget. As soon as I had lit the castle, the other teams rig fired up..... Their studio colors lit the entire castle, but it was very "flat" and looked a bit sad compared to the generics, suddenly they were swinging around their movers and eventually trying to copy my look from the generics. (somewhat rude as this was using up what was our last bit of programming time)

After that, pretty much every state I created was emulated by them soon after.

 

The difference was, that they had so many toys, their show was all about waggling loads of heads about and flashing lasers where as our tight budget had forced us to think about squeezing every last ounce of effect from every bit of kit. I'm sure that it actually helped with this that my lighting desk didn't make it easy for me to rely on lots of waggly effects.

 

(Once the politics had been resolved the other team ran the live show and we let them use our generics....)

 

 

 

Sorry if I rambled on a bit there.

The point is that once you rely on all the flashy effects that a good desk and a few movers give you, it's easy to forget how much more you can achieve with carefully plotted static looks. And often building movements from those type of looks can look much better than the stock effects.

 

 

That said, if your rigging a show on a one-day hit and are going to have about a hour left to program before the show starts, god bless effects engines ;)

[Stee_cri1]

firstly can I say DonkiDonki that was a great story I always like reading things like that.

 

Secondly I would agree with what you are saying, I think that alot of people believe they are LD's becuase they can hang a few movers and hit go on i.e. a pearl and thats that. Not the case though is it, alot of thought and imagination needs to go into making a good show and being able to get the most of out your heads and you generics is the key.

 

Yes for parts of shows ie awards evenings shape generators are great because they can be used as people eat etc but not all the time that is why the ie peal have a chase button on as well as an unfold button so you can create and edit you shapes.

[Krais]

Great story DonkiDonki, and a good reminder even for an amateur LD like myself that more lights doesn't solve a problem, and can actually just make a flat rig flatter.

I've just finished in panto, and being amateur the rig was <50 lanterns. I had 4 Robe 575 spots and 4 acme scanners, and made good use of them in the musical numbers.

We only have access to a Fat Frog, which I appreciate is lacking some of the functionality of the more professional desks. I spent a day just plotting the moving effects, point by point. Ok so I used one of the built in shapes for one scene, but the get boring very quickly.

 

My question to this discussion is, as an amateur group, are there any tools which are likely to be in our price range which would suit the type of show and equipment I described above, which would help speed up programming basic sequences?

[Grum]

My question to this discussion is, as an amateur group, are there any tools which are likely to be in our price range which would suit the type of show and equipment I described above, which would help speed up programming basic sequences?

 

That depends on your budget but personally I cannot reccomend Chamsys highly enough. I wasn't sure at first (tried the software without any control surface) but then I got the PC wing and less than a year later I invested about £12000 in the MQ100 pro and haven't looked back since. You get the all of the same functions on the free download as you do with the full desk it's just not so easy to get to the buttons you need.

 

Donkidonki, great story but I'm not sure that it answers my question. I know that you don't need loads of movers to make a stage look good and I accept that people often think that just throwing kit at a job will make the end result better.

 

What I don't get is the way some people seem to specifically hate the use of shape generators rather than programming multiple steps to achieve the same result. I'm not a fan of movers moving for the sake of it but I also don't see the problem of using the full features of my desk after all if these features are so bad why do manufacturers keep improving their effects engines??

[GreatBigHippy]

I think there is a certain degree of elitism in the argument against them. I will personally use the tools available to me to produce the effect I want with the minimum amount of effort. You can get the old "HA, shape generators! In my day we had to program using a pegboard and three twigs!" statements but I don't think I have ever heard anything directly against their use.

It can get boring if you use them all the time but if they produce the effect you want and cut a half hour from your programming time then do it. Spend your saved time on more worthwhile exercises!

At the end of the day, you are the artist. Use the damn things however you wish. ;)

 

theHippy

[niclights]

I agree it is just elitism. No different than being anti-mover or LED etc.

 

I've worked from 2-preset non-memory desks, through 'battleship' pegboard type and have controlled movers via traditional desks with basic chase/memory function etc. It's great to have the background knowledge but it doesn't stop me using shape gens where they are the right tool.

 

They permit things that were virtually impossible before. The obvious being a smooth circle & CMY rainbows, but also things like phase offset. And while some consoles can give you very advanced timings for cues and chase steps, making it possible to create similar effects, these would doubtless be 'lazy' too.

 

Yes, they are over-used and often look incredibly boring, especially to the informed. And, yes, you can do things with chases that can't be achieved by shape gen and may well look better. But, like any function, it is up to the operator how they are used. A top-end console with endless options doesn't automatically mean a good show just as a two-preset manual desk doesn't mean a bad one.

[Jamtastic3]

I find that alot of the time at gigs, most movers are stationary but are symmetrically designed by the beams. Most of the generator effects happen with the shutters, iris' and gobos/colours. You don't usually find that much crazy generator effects applied to the pan and tilts.

 

I do like a good ballyhoo mind you ;)

[richardtank]

Most of my time is spent lighting club nights. In this environment I find that shape generators speed up the time it takes to get some movement going. However, I think it's important that some custom chases are in there as well. It's much easier to fill a club with light if you plot your own chase. At one of the other clubs they have a Pulsar Masterpiece so I obviously have to do everything manually there.

When it comes to live music it's not often that I have much movement, but I do normally use something like a 'Pan Tilt' and sometimes the circles that the Avo desks produce. I also like some of the other functions such as dimmer and colour shapes.

I think this argument boils down to the good old answer of shape generators being useful when used correctly and in the correct situations.

[gareth]

Personally, I think it's "horses for courses".

 

There are times when a shape generator or effects engine simply won't do exactly what you're looking for with it's off-the-shelf effects (if it's something very precise and specific), and a purpose-built chase or sequence is the answer.

 

On the other hand, when time is against you and you need to get some interesting sweepy shapes going on with some moving lights for a particular look, then a shape generator is a godsend.

[David Lee]

I agree with Gareth. Shape gen is great for the standard Awards sting etc but if you need specific cues then they are no use. I also used to programme movers on "traditional" theatre boards and Sirius 24/ 48 way desks. The shape generators of a Pearl or Hog are a godsend when you have a very limited time to get an awards show up and running

 

Donkidonki - another person who has used Status cue. I loved that desk. Great for programming, and you could drag and drop scenes into a chase stack - a favourite thing of mine ;)

[Guest lightnix]

Ah, shape generators - the lazy operator's friend...

;)

 

Seriously though, it's not just about the amount of work you're doing. If anything, I found it much harder work to make shape generators look tidy, compared to chases built from preset foci and "clever" use of timing. Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but using a chase gives me a greater feel of control over the output - a bit like the feel of a manual car, compared to an automatic.

 

Another issue I had with SG's (although it may not be so bad, now that processor speeds have increased a bit), was that there often seemed to be a slight hesitation when you came out of a memory built from shapes into a static memory - especially with movement cues. Shows programmed from memories alone always looked "crisper" and more precise to me.

 

SG's are great for sketching out ideas and demoing them to the client, but I would rarely consider using them for "real" programming, unless I was really pushed for time. There's nothing you can do with a shape generator, that you can't do with a chase IMO - and more neatly and tidily, at that ;)

[mikienorth]

The 'wow' factor of any effect comes when you use it little, and well.

 

The beams of light moving, although commonplace today, still has the power to 'wow' people.

 

I've said this before recently on here in the topic, 'moving lights, are their halcyon days now over?' by Lightnix.

 

The light moves, great. Use it sparingly, as to stick a shape generator on, fiddle with ratios/offsets, and unit distribution, just gives you the same as anyone else.

 

Rig them in interesting ways - the recent topic about sticking them on their sides is a good example.

Spend as much time as you can making nice beam patterns in the air and nice looks where the lights hit the set, floor and people. When doing this, think a little about if you live move from one to the other how is it going to look.

Use an effects engine to move around these positions in varying times and ratios, and you get much much tighter move effects, that do what you want, rather than bending a shape to fit, a you crush something, it always looks bent, no matter how you straighten it.

 

My favourite look of late has been iris chasing or intensity chasing using shape generators, but the beams don't move.

 

Lazy programming always shows, even to the uneducated punter. Want your show to stand out? Use less movers more generics. Or use your movers as generics, then suddenly do something just once or twice in a show. the normal punter can and does notice what they think to be good lighting, it tends to be different and unique to be classed as good.

 

I agree that a shape generator can get you out of the brown, but I am never satisifed with the results any more. Once I was, but I grew out of it. Living with a 500 series did that...

 

I have another programming problem, in that I consider myself an untidy programmer. My subs and grouping is often scrappy and untidy. This makes me take too long to program sometimes. I have learnt this recently (The last month) and am finding that by being a bit more rigid in my creation of groups before I do anything else, my programming is much quicker and neater. If you program better, you get more time to light better.

 

I'm also beginning to enjoy and tolerate the congo, after nearly a year of fighting it and hating it, but learning a new langage is like that, and another story.

 

Shape Generators, useful? Yes, but not on Pan & Tilt, really.

[dosxuk]

SG's are great for sketching out ideas and demoing them to the client, but I would rarely consider using them for "real" programming, unless I was really pushed for time. There's nothing you can do with a shape generator, that you can't do with a chase IMO - and more neatly and tidily, at that ;)

 

AVO Pearl, three groups of fixtures in a nightclub, each programmed with two faders on one facet. One fader has shapes variable in speed, the other size. First page circles, second pans, third tilts. Fairly easy to operate, and teach people how to use them. All the shapes are set up to use the current p/t position as it's start point, which allows us to do a pan shape while recalling a tilt position using timed fades.

 

So, if shapes are the cheats way out, how can I make a chase which allows me to vary the speed of three shapes (one per fixture group) at the same time? And how can I make a chase which I can vary the size of?

 

IMHO Shape Gen is another tool, which if overused is not going to be pretty, but it's a valid part of the toolbox. It's not always the quick easy way, sometimes it will be the best solution for a problem.

[mac.calder]

A shape gen is just another tool. It does not have to be used for moving lights in a pattern. For example, I have a light wall, 16 channels of low voltage lights that "cover" (not quite) the back wall of the stage in a very "Chicago"-esq way. Using the shape generator takes 3 seconds to write some very effective lightwall effects (marching etc), which programing could take upwards of 10 minutes.

 

I also use them a lot when I have guest entertainers on, because here is how my average lx plot for them goes.

 

* Guest Entertainer arrives 10 minutes after the rehearsal is meant to start, then begins talking to the orchestra about the charts - I have not got a set list yet.

 

* 15 minutes later I have a set list in my hand, and I look for songs I recognise. Not many there.

 

* We start rehearsing, each song getting maybe 1:45 of play before they move onto the next (sometimes not even in order), or they will rehash the same section over and over again because the orchestra messes up. In that time, I get an idea of the music, and write 3 or 4 cues for that song, then move onto the next one (don't want to get too far behind otherwise the end of the show looks crap because it does not match the music).

 

* The rehearsal ends half an hour later, I have 10 or so minutes to tidy up the transitions between songs, use any notes I have written to pad out the show a bit, then to go through and label everything.

 

Then I have to open doors.

 

If I am lucky, I get a cue sheet with basic LX instructions - like "Fast" "Slow" "Blue" "Intimate" etc.

 

Shape Gens are a life saver when it comes to throwing a show together.