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Seasons Greetings - You got to see this
- Thread starter California
- Start date
Returning to confirm that this did become an Internet classic.
CBS News did a feature on it on 12/9, and Snopes has additional details:
The animation that recently made Carson Williams of Mason, OH an internet celebrity was actually his 2004 production. It used 16,000 lights controlled through 88 Light-O-Rama channels. The music was Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter".
For 2005 he used 25,000 lights, was featured in a beer commercial, and on about 12/7 was shut down by the local police due to traffic congestion.
The version I referenced in my first post is hosted on Google.com and therefor has been checked to not contain viruses or malware.
If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it as a classic of performance art.
CBS News did a feature on it on 12/9, and Snopes has additional details:
The animation that recently made Carson Williams of Mason, OH an internet celebrity was actually his 2004 production. It used 16,000 lights controlled through 88 Light-O-Rama channels. The music was Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter".
For 2005 he used 25,000 lights, was featured in a beer commercial, and on about 12/7 was shut down by the local police due to traffic congestion.
The version I referenced in my first post is hosted on Google.com and therefor has been checked to not contain viruses or malware.
If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it as a classic of performance art.
Immediately after seeing this, the most-asked question was, how did he do that? The answer is in your post, the Lite-o-rama controller, but I didn't know that until I recently spent part of an evening at Fort Pierce, Florida's riverside Marina Park. There, the city installed a light show on 50 or 60 palm trees, each one with 8 zones of light, and programmed the thing to some Christmas music by Mannheim Steamroller over enormous speakers. All of the wiring was underground, so viewers could walk among the trees, sit on benches, and be right in the middle of the show. It was incredible.
I was able to walk up to the trees, look in among the lights, and see the controllers and the brand name. I came back and looked them up at this link. 8 channel controllers start around $200; 16 channel controllers can go up to $300 indivdually; packs of 5 are cheaper. This is definitely something I'm seriously interested in, because the combined 7-1/2 acres that is mine and my daughter's family has almost 1/4 mile frontage on a state highway, and we're planning to do some Christmas lights that will attract a little attention. We'll start small, but add to it each year. This kind of animation will be part of it right from the start.
I was able to walk up to the trees, look in among the lights, and see the controllers and the brand name. I came back and looked them up at this link. 8 channel controllers start around $200; 16 channel controllers can go up to $300 indivdually; packs of 5 are cheaper. This is definitely something I'm seriously interested in, because the combined 7-1/2 acres that is mine and my daughter's family has almost 1/4 mile frontage on a state highway, and we're planning to do some Christmas lights that will attract a little attention. We'll start small, but add to it each year. This kind of animation will be part of it right from the start.
Don, thanks for the links and the information. I would love to do something fun with the lights too. We have 600+' of frontage. One year I ran extention cords down into the valley area and lit up selected trees down there, but with controllers hooked up to everything, it could make for a fun show.
And now that I have my subsoiler modified to bury cable I could actually run a lot of the wires underground in the summer and just have weather proof boxes at various points to connect everything up to.
And now that I have my subsoiler modified to bury cable I could actually run a lot of the wires underground in the summer and just have weather proof boxes at various points to connect everything up to.
If you go to the Light-0-rama link I mentioned, and prowl around a little, you'll find where you can download a demo copy of their software. Runs on a PC and connects to the controller via serial cable to an adaptor they sell; I think they have a USB adaptor, too.
According to what I read, any one of the controllers can accept the programming and then control the other controllers. They're daisy chained together using Cat 5 or phone cord. Each controller, and each channel on each controller, gets a unique address. That address controls an electric outlet into which you plug your string(s) of lights. There is a amgerage limit you have to watch, but it takes a lot of Xmas lights to build up significant amperage. Some of the things you can control for each channel are on, off, fade, shimmer and twinkle (shimmer is structured; twinkle is more random).
The actual programming interface is very much like a midi sequencer for music, if you've seen one of those. Each channel is shown on a separate horizontal line, which is divided into timed events. Each on, off, fade, shimmer or twinkle is an event. The sequence can be animation or can be tied to music. If you tie it to music, there is an interface to tap your mouse (or a key) in time with the music, with each tap becoming an event. For example, "tap tap taaaaap tap tap taaaaap tap tap tap tap taaaaap" Then, you go back and assign events to the time spaces, and do the same thing for each channel. Like all computer stuff, there are also other ways to skin the same cat.
According to their site, Light-o-rama completely sold out, this year. They're promising new hardware, wireless connectivity and pre-programmed sequences for next year. I think I'll plan to get in my order, early...
According to what I read, any one of the controllers can accept the programming and then control the other controllers. They're daisy chained together using Cat 5 or phone cord. Each controller, and each channel on each controller, gets a unique address. That address controls an electric outlet into which you plug your string(s) of lights. There is a amgerage limit you have to watch, but it takes a lot of Xmas lights to build up significant amperage. Some of the things you can control for each channel are on, off, fade, shimmer and twinkle (shimmer is structured; twinkle is more random).
The actual programming interface is very much like a midi sequencer for music, if you've seen one of those. Each channel is shown on a separate horizontal line, which is divided into timed events. Each on, off, fade, shimmer or twinkle is an event. The sequence can be animation or can be tied to music. If you tie it to music, there is an interface to tap your mouse (or a key) in time with the music, with each tap becoming an event. For example, "tap tap taaaaap tap tap taaaaap tap tap tap tap taaaaap" Then, you go back and assign events to the time spaces, and do the same thing for each channel. Like all computer stuff, there are also other ways to skin the same cat.
According to their site, Light-o-rama completely sold out, this year. They're promising new hardware, wireless connectivity and pre-programmed sequences for next year. I think I'll plan to get in my order, early...