Generator Rex 2012 Halloween Show at the happyholidayhome

[thebaronn]

Generator Rex was the theme for this year! The props were done early this year (a first) but just when I thought I was done, my pixel shipment from Ray Wu showed up 10 days before Halloween! Of course I had to change everything around to incorporate them into the display!

I already had 5 E682s from Jim at Sandevices and they were programmed and ready to go (If I can do it, anyone can). I set up a matrix on my garage with 3840 RGB pixels. 5 Panels, 48 pixels high and 16 wide (yes, I stole the idea from Jim, he told me that building a santa house was very limiting...) and figured I had enough time to add them to Halloween, so I changed the show around (for good or bad, I have no clue). Now it was time for me to use my LightShowPro!

So I had been running the show with LOR S3 all month because I had given up on Ray and the pixels.

When It was decided to use the pixels I had to import 6 files from S3:

1. This is Halloween-Marilyn Manson

2. Gangnam Style

3. Addams Family

4. Beetle Juice

5. POTC vs Tiesto mix

6. Halloween show

Import went well, with the only exeption being that I had to move the timings forward .1s for each song. I Started with transitions and stuff, but realized I was too far behind, so I would just concentrate on the Halloween show. So for about 40 hours (round about, oct 28-30thish) I created small video clips. These clips matched the music and were very specific. I exported all of them using a divx codec and they were at 15fps. I got off work on the 30th (I was lucky to be able to create videos at work) and was home at 10pm. I started adding the matrix video. In the 10 minute sequence there was about 5min of video rendering to the matrix. On the 2nd to last render, it did nothing. It went to 100% but it did nothing. I figured that was a sign to go to sleep. I went to sleep feeling really good, only had to render 2 more videos and I was done, and every lined up good (when the section was played). I woke up a few hours later and opened the files......nothing. It said 100% in the green box and still nothing. Ended up going back 10 versions (I saved after every matrix animation) before one would open. I installed the new LSP version that came out that day, and that did not help. Then I started getting "out of memory problems" then I posted a quick something and peteandvanessa said I should take off "optimize continuously" and I did. I could just optimize the whole thing later, cool(only if it worked that way) I started over saving a "new timeline" and kept going, eventually, same thing, I did a render, nothing happened and that was it. I couldn't open the file. I back tracked and took a different approach. I listed the animations in order of importance "had to haves" vs "just because I have a matrix". I did the important ones and everything was fine. (in the sequencer) I wanted to do a video of the Halloween shows from the last 4 years and the characters at the end of the show, 5 clips 10, 10, 13, 13, and 10 seconds each and I kept getting the out of memory problem. So I gave up on that. So the sequence was done, never tested (as a whole) but done. (but that was one of the great things about S2, I never had to test, It was pretty much bulletproof). 630, showtime! I had 3 people slated to film, 2 flaked. I think the most incompetant one (when it comes to electronics) actually showed up... (I started optimizing at 6pm.........from 610-615 it was stuck at 89%, then gave me an out of memory error (in the task manager it would jump from about 200K to 1.4million k), no show (worst case senario I revert back to the boring S3 sequence with no pixel panels). I used the scheduler (my first time!!!!) and imported the 1 song (figured if I only get 1 thing to work I want it to be the Halloween show!) It imported it, optimization took forever!!! But by a miracle it started playing! Start!!, We had no real rehearsal with sound and lights just a dry walk through, I announced over the loudspeaker that this was the first time the show has worked, bare with us. We did the show to a crowd of about 50 and I was impressed for a wednesday Halloween, especially since I had no trick or treaters until 6pm. We did a bunch of shows and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. The most we had was for the 730 show. I would guess 200-300 people blocking the street. During the 2nd and 3rd videos, they did not match up at all, they were both about 2 seconds slow(I need to mention that apparently it was the whole sequence that was behind, the video is just the most noticable)..... But for some reason the others were right on, very odd, and annoying because the first 2 were very important. But the best reaction from the crowd was when a cannon/laser shoots accross the screen! Anyway, we did 5 shows (I had the scheduler just keep repeating). I explained to the crowd that I was going to try a different way to run the show so the video lined up better (gamble, gamble) and I restarted the computer and the sequencer gave me the out of memory when trying to optimze the whole thing. I hit ignore about 20 times and it kept popping up so I gave up. We went back to the scheduler and did 3 more shows. Then we turned down the volume and I opened the sequencer and we did a re-shoot of the 2 sections that didn't line up in the scheduler, but did in the sequencer (no problem optimizing for 1-2 minutes, but the whole thing dies...) then one final show after 850 for 3 kids that "came all this way to see the show" Hey, man, I can't fault the kids for bad parents!(hehe!) We had a lot of compliments, like my mom says "only you know what was wrong, they just see a video screen and say wow!" The original camera never turned on that night...... So we had to use my backup camera. The comedy of errors continued. I was unable to remove the video from the Everio with the USB cable or the DV cable. I was going to have to capture it manually, but I decided to remove the Hard Drive and connect it manually to the computer, and it worked! So, after a lot of editing, here is the video! Hope you enjoy it!

Edited November 10, 2012 by thebaronn

[digdeepfundraising]

thats crazy well done i love the way people come up with different ideas with this hobby

good job

[PeKu]

Outstanding creativity!!!!!!