Steven Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 This story will put things into perspective. Late this year, after the show had already opened, we decided to install a CCR that I hadn't used previously as an arch over the neighbor's walkway. We just plugged it in to make sure the hardware was working - I didn't have time for any configuration or sequencing.Our display has about 10 controllers, so the factory configuration of the CCR (Unit 1, legacy channels) caused it to show random colors in time with the sequence. I didn't have time to sequence it, so I left it that way for a couple of days. No one noticed it wasn't right. Even my wife said she thought it looked good that way.So I finally configured it and started incorporating it into the sequences, but did I even need to go to the trouble? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rise Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Yup. You're right. No one notices that on most of my songs, I just did random effects. The only ones that notice are yourself and another LOR buddy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Young Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 That's why, great visualizers not withstanding, I go out and try to view the display as a spectator would.I have found over the years that some of the things that don't seem as significant/apparent on the PC's monitor do appear very apparent to a viewer, and is the case in this thread, the opposite occurs, even more frequently!I think in many cases we over sequence, to get things perfect in our OCD brains, when 99.9% of folks would never, ever, appreciate the difference.The big question Steven is whether you feel better, now having sequenced it, and if you are like me, I am sure the answer is yes! Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwertz Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Since a lot of my controller connections are based on distance to a string rather than sets of strings from the same display group, mine probably wouldn't look that good. But it's completely believable and hilarious that it worked out that way for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLTSLC Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Unfortunately, in forums people, myself included , think everyone understands as much about these lights as the people here in the forums, when it's not at all. Most people have no idea the connections, and sequencing that go into the lights. I think it really depends on how good you want it to look and how much time you have to make it look great. People wouldn't necessarily notice the random, but they would notice if the lights 'beat' with the music Just mtc. Good luck with it (Plus I agree with Greg...knowing what we know - we expect more out of ourselves, and feel good when we put the effort ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcdonald307 Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I saw a big show live once (200+ channels I'd guess) that I'm pretty sure was sequenced random. The only way I knew it was "supposed" to be sequenced was all the blinking stopped when the music did. I noticed. Not sure what other people made of it.At the other end of the spectrum, this year I embedded a couple of names in morse code on my CCR arches (a tribute to family who past away this year). Though quite deliberate and time consuming to do, when people saw that they DID think it was random. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I don't quite understand the job satisfaction of just blinking lights randomly. If that's all a person wants to do why not just stick with incans with a flasher bulb and play music on the radio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLTSLC Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 George Simmons wrote:I don't quite understand the job satisfaction of just blinking lights randomly. If that's all a person wants to do why not just stick with incans with a flasher bulb and play music on the radio.+1 Agreed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonB256 Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 There were times during some of my sequences where the "focus" was on a specific yard element (non RGB) and I would put the pixels into Twinkle. The colors were great, non-distracting and saved lots of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drivemewilder Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Steven wrote: Our display has about 10 controllers, so the factory configuration of the CCR (Unit 1, legacy channels) caused it to show random colors in time with the sequence. So just plugging it in without sequencing will cause it to show random colors?! How is it "in time with the sequence?" What does this mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rise Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 George Simmons wrote: I don't quite understand the job satisfaction of just blinking lights randomly. If that's all a person wants to do why not just stick with incans with a flasher bulb and play music on the radio.I approached my first year as a test. With a "Let's see what I can do, if I can do it, and if I want to keep doing it" attitude.My CCR's were an impulse buy during the "Summer Sale" and I didnt' even plan on adding them to the show. My spiral tree was just to see how difficult it was to build and if I could do it. My satisfaction came from being able to do it. They were both a big hit, even with the random effects.Now that I have done it. I have a whole year to work on sequencing them. They won't be random next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 drivemewilder wrote: So just plugging it in without sequencing will cause it to show random colors?! How is it "in time with the sequence?" What does this mean?In the factory configuration, the CCR is set to unit1 in "legacy" mode. This isn't documented very well, but I assume it means that Unit 1, channels 1,2,3 are RGB for the first (of 50) pixels. Unit 1, channels 13,14,15 would be for pixel 5. Then, Unit 2 would be for the next 5 pixels (?). I didn't investigate further what exactly the factory configuration was, since I wasn't going to use it that way.Since it was set this way by default when I plugged it in, the channels I was already using on my 1st controller (unit 1) not only controlled the lights on my eaves and bushes, but also the first 5 pixels of the CCR, although not in a color-coordinated way. It looked random, but it was actually following the instructions I was sending to my other controllers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcdonald307 Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 OOOHHH! Now I get it! (after Steven's last post) Now I wish everything was still set up so I could change the Unit ID of a CCR to see what that looked like. (I might have to sneak a CCR back out and plug it in to try it anyway).Before, I was trying to think of a polite way to say "if you can't tell the difference between what you worked hard to sequence and something that is completely random, then your sequencing skills could use some improvement". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis Cherry Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 I have done that on some of my sequences when time is short and not enough time to take my new elements and program them.2011 was 10 Corostars and just used 30 channels of one CCR. Looked fairly good and know one knew the difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Czerwinski Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 At my halloween show several things happened. But the biggest laugh was when people were making requests for random songs so that the 4 faces would sing them. They had no idea that each segment of each face of each mouth movement in the song was manually programmed. They figured plug and play, and it's just listening to the music....The other was that a few times I used random twinkles and people thought that was the greatest thing, even saying they liked how it timed to the music perfectly....Well, I will admit there was alcohol at the parties too..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Ott Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Jay Czerwinski wrote: Well, I will admit there was alcohol at the parties too.....ROFLMAOThings always look better with alcohol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffandnicole Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 George Simmons wrote: I don't quite understand the job satisfaction of just blinking lights randomly. If that's all a person wants to do why not just stick with incans with a flasher bulb and play music on the radio.Well, the difference between job satisfaction and viewer satisfaction is that viewer satisfaction is so easy. Play a song, have some lights flash, and people are happy. Kids are overjoyed. The public is amazed at how we are able to coordinate lights to a random radio station.Job satisfaction in programming the lights is probably rarely achieved. It may look good enough, but we will nitpick at our own creation over and over again, wondering how crappy the display looks when the blue lights flashing to the beat 2 minutes, into the song were 0.04 seconds off. Well...at least that's the way I feel much of the time!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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