SS Megatree

[rm357]

I finally won the battle with LSP and created a program that would render out to the LOR format. Unfortunately, the rain got to some of my strings first... I was one of the first orders.

My tree is 16 strands of 46 nodes + the star on top contains 71 nodes arranged in a 5  x 14 format + 1 extra and a central ball containing 7 square nodes.

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Basically I edited the tree in a video application (I do a lot of video work at my church) and exported 25 second sections that were imported into LSP as transitions. I tried to do each effect as a separate transition, but somewhere in the 8 to 10 transitions in the sequence and LSP started throwing an out of memory type error.

Looking forward to next year. Planning to replace the strings on the tree with the new IP68 ones and using what I can salvage from the tree in other places with some additional treatment... I also picked up some GE35 sets today that I'll be working on to see if I can use them along the eves.

The sign is just 8 rigid strips mounted on a PVC pipe frame.

RM

[Ron]

That's awesome.  Even with the problem strings the presentation is amazing.

So how tall is that tree?

Can you share a few things about your video transitions you created?  What did you use to create them and what were the settings for use in LSP, frames per second, length and anything else we might need to know.

Maybe we should create a LSP video transition sharing website.

Ron

[z327]

Amazing 

[Steve Gase]

Those effects look great, nice job!

LSP started throwing an out of memory type error.

I also had the out of memory errors frequently.  When I saved, then exited from LSP, and went back in I got past the problems.  I think there might be some memory leaks in LSP that need to be resolved.

[tng5737]

Great job on the tree!
I also have the earlier batches of nodes and lost about five strings due to rain!  Very disappointing - so I know how you feel.   Are the sign texts RDS generated or manually programmed thru the matrix animator?
If I remember correctly there was some talk about having a state-side source for the new nodes with better sealing!  Trying to decide whether to wait for that or get some of the newer nodes from Ray.

[NavyGator]

Looks awesome, good job.

Rich

[caretaker]

Very Nice!   
I had the same problem I had one string stick on, lost one SS controller and had several other strings have partial lighting after 3 days of rain we had. I decided to try to rescue what I had and took down my pixels and put up my old incandescents to have a show.  I have had a chance to check out my pixel strings and while several have a bad pixel I will replace those and re dip them this time taking a lot more time. Hopefully next year i will be able to have a Mega tree with effects as nice as yours.

[rdebolt]

Great effects!! Just goes to show how limitless our possiblities are now. Unfortunatley I don't have an artistic mind, but I do know what I like! Awesome job!

Roger

[rm357]

Believe it or not, the video I used for the transitions is relatively simple. It just consists of rectangles filled with a gradient and moved across the screen. Up/Down/Left/Right. For the spirals, I skewed the box at an angle such that it ran from corner to corner. The trick is following it with another box at the right interval so that the transition from one edge of the screen to the other appears seamless. I've created a video with the transition source in the upper right hand corner so that you can see what I used. In a few places the source and the tree are not in perfect sync - that was caused by the way that I had chop up the sequence to make <500 frame transitions and it being almost impossible to set perfect timing with a mouse...

I tried doing resolutions that more closely matched my tree, but in the end I gave in to editing in the DV standard video format - 720x480 at 30Hz. I rendered the sequences out of my video application to 240x160 with the DV rectangular pixels in Microsoft video format. This format worked fairly quickly in LSP while the others I had availble were much slower... I'm not sure what the best format to use is, but the DVIX format into an avi file was not available to me at the time...

Anywhere the tree is moving, but there is no video, was created in the matrix animator or just using the "on" effect and it's ability to support color gradients.

Looks like vimeo needs another 20 minutes - I'll post the videolink tomorrow.

RM

[rm357]

Here is the video.
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[RJ]

Very cool stuff!

RJ

[Ron]

Very cool, thanks for posting that.

Ron

[TheBanker]

Keep teaching us, some of us are reading intently.


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[dannyct]

That was a great setup. 

About the transition videos.  I would love to have a copy, if you don't mind to share those transitions? 

Thanks.

Believe it or not, the video I used for the transitions is relatively simple. It just consists of rectangles filled with a gradient and moved across the screen. Up/Down/Left/Right. For the spirals, I skewed the box at an angle such that it ran from corner to corner. The trick is following it with another box at the right interval so that the transition from one edge of the screen to the other appears seamless. I've created a video with the transition source in the upper right hand corner so that you can see what I used. In a few places the source and the tree are not in perfect sync - that was caused by the way that I had chop up the sequence to make <500 frame transitions and it being almost impossible to set perfect timing with a mouse...

I tried doing resolutions that more closely matched my tree, but in the end I gave in to editing in the DV standard video format - 720x480 at 30Hz. I rendered the sequences out of my video application to 240x160 with the DV rectangular pixels in Microsoft video format. This format worked fairly quickly in LSP while the others I had availble were much slower... I'm not sure what the best format to use is, but the DVIX format into an avi file was not available to me at the time...

Anywhere the tree is moving, but there is no video, was created in the matrix animator or just using the "on" effect and it's ability to support color gradients.

Looks like vimeo needs another 20 minutes - I'll post the videolink tomorrow.

RM

[Steve Gase]

I would love to have a copy, if you don't mind to share those transitions? 

me too?