2012 Videos of Lipton Lights

[sielbear]

Quality of the video isn't perfect - these LEDs are so bright that I'm blowing out the tops.  Don't have a fancy camera with fixed aperture, so deal with it!

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Adding a new version of The Grinch tomorrow - will try to get an updated video of it.  I'm going to have The Grinch appear on the megatree every time the chorus mentions him...

[frankr]

Love it!  Wish the camera was able to keep up with the mega tree but still looks great!

Frank

[sielbear]

Yes - I'm going to get some close up of the megatree.  It is SWEET in person!!

Thank you for the scripts again this year.  Could not have done the show without them!

(Still working on All I Want for Christmas for you - not forgotten!!)

[sjb]

Looks Awesome. Great Job

Steve

[SteveMaris]

Awesome. Great job.

[sielbear]

Ok, adding the Grinch on the Megatree is a HUGE success.  Going back to modify some of these sequences to add different photos / scenes / words.  Kids seem to LOVE finding the Grinch on that song...  Think I'll have to add Santa at some point too...

[SteveMaris]

Ok, adding the Grinch on the Megatree is a HUGE success.  Going back to modify some of these sequences to add different photos / scenes / words.  Kids seem to LOVE finding the Grinch on that song...  Think I'll have to add Santa at some point too...

Great version of the song as well. (Grinch)
First one that I could listen to the whole song,  and not get annoyed.

[sielbear]

Thanks! I actually removed 2 verses and a lot of instrumental. Shortened the song by about 2 minutes. Almost all my songs are 2-3 minutes this year as 1.) I get bored sequencing a song longer than that and 2.) the audience gets restless with full length songs, generally speaking.

Of course, the audience thing may be more of a statement regarding the quality (or lack thereof) sequencing!!

[Charleene Glenn]

Great job, really enjoyed it! Tnx for sharing! Merry Christmas:-)

West Tawakoni, TX

[Jeffl]

That is just nuts.  Some of this I don't even understand how you did it. 

Very Cool!

[taybrynn]

Fantastic display ... Very impressive !!!   

[sielbear]

Thanks guys -

I posted a high-level "how-to" on my site.  It's the presentation I gave at Lone Star Holidays this past summer (2012).

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Also check out the "Technical Vids" page.  I've basically done a picture in picture view for you to see what the Video I generated looks like when applied against the house.  I'll try to do another of these this year.

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Essentially I'm creating some base videos with generated "noise" or other clips I like or create.  I use solid colors for flashes of light or for static parts of the display.  I use the noise patters to give an almost textured feel to the show.  I then exported the clips (in 25 second segments) for use in Light Show Pro. 

In LSP, I imported my custom transitions and essentially automated the entire show with the transition tools in LSP.  With 12k channels, it is completely impossible to try and create a show manually.  I'm sure some people can do and in fact, do it very well, but I'm not one of those people.  I reached my limit around 300 channels. 

Obviously a downside is I don't (currently) have individual elements dancing around the yard, etc.  The whole show sort of operates as ONE thing.  As I get better (and I'm improving), I'm able to do some more creative things with both the video effects creation and with mapping effects to the show.

This year for example, I took a screen shot of my display elements as drawn in LSP.  I imported that photo into Sony Vegas where I could start to see EXACTLY which elements would come on at which times with certain effects.  Using this, I can do things like bring in a photo of the Grinch during the chorus of The Grinch.  BTW - tonight was the first night having the Grinch suddenly appear on the MegaTree.  I'm HOOKED.  The kids LOVED it.  This one night absolutely made my whole season.  This little girl was SOOOOOO excited that she saw the grinch in the Christmas tree.  Worth it!

I generated some of the crazier effects with the Winamp virtualizer called Milkdrop.  I basically played back a song and let the visualizer create the cool color effects.  I used a piece of software called Fraps to record the output in realtime.  I then imported those videos into Vegas - same principle as above.  I could then lay in the effects onto different parts of the display.  The swirly pink / purple effects in some of the songs came from the iTunes visualizer.  Same concept as winamp.  Basically creates some cool organic effects. 

Take a look at the powerpoint if you're interested.  It's a very different way to sequence.  This is my second year doing it, but the MegaTree really brought this method to a new level.  You can just see so much detail in the tree.