Re: Stary Sky effect
Doing a little research on covering a high ceiling (think gymnasium) with a night sky effect. Have Led washes, Source 4s, projectors and smartfade or computer control. Was wondering if anyone might have some ideas on how to make things look aurora style with stars. What I might need in addition to what I listed to give a good look. I have seen the Bliss lights which look cool but would like the "stars" to be white. Was thinking a gobo might function for that? Thoughts.
Our high school did Almost, Maine just about a year ago. We had a starry sky drop (that looked like crap but I digress), and we had a few aurora glass gobos in S4 LEDs. I'm with Rob on this one. I would use the S4s with gobos for the stars, and if you feel like it, the projectors.
For the aurora effect, if it's a gymnasium, you might be able to get the idea across by lighting the trusses with color using the LEDs. If you don't have trusses, you might be able to get by through some kind of barn door deal.
Another idea, if you have enough S4s, is to shutter off the bottom and use silk diffusion on the top side of the beam (see the attached photo). I offered that option as a cheap alternative to the glass gobos, but I was the sound tech on that show and the lighting tech was not open to ideas. You might even consider drawing some vertical lines on the silk diffusion with a gel pen so to try and get the illusion of the vertical flame-like part of the aurora. I don't know if it works for certain, but I'd love to see it work. If you use the S4s for both, I'd suggest keeping the smaller angles to the stars if you are trying to get them more "pinpoint."
The LEDs are simple to get to change colors for the effect, as you can just set up an infinitely repeating sequence on the SmartFade and that should do it... I think. I know the SmartFade ML color FX are a bit of a pain, so you might find that sequences work better as the effect. The same technique should work with different colors of conventionals (though it would mean that you'd have two different gel frames in each fixture).
Just some random thoughts on the concept. Can't wait to hear what you work out.
