CopperCreekLights 2014 display

Gilrock

Gilrock

Full time elf
Joined
Jan 4, 2013
Messages
445
Location
Tucson, AZ
Here's are videos for most of my songs this year. I'm not real happy with several things in my display but I was rushing last minute. I didn't really start seriously working on the pixel mega tree till mid November and the rgb's on the roofline were an after thought I did last minute a week ago. So my sequencing is primarily old data that I copied onto the new elements except I did overlay some Nutcracker effects here and there. Also I had different color icicles from top to bottom and a section out on the bottom I fixed this morning. I don't really like the videos either cause the leds are saturating and the focus didn't look perfect but after several tries I wanted to at least get something done. It was hard getting anything without cars getting in the way.

Let It Go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ5ZB3_5X-A

Gangham Style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SxmbsFZYVw

Amazing Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBKxjlQilfw

Reflections Of Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoU4qYlmC6E

Carol of the Bells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWNYAEZP7is

Wizards of Winter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-c1eyrLT6k

Sandstorm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nO3adUTYQs
 
Nice work! I love the dancing Psy on the right tree!
Are your trees 360 or 180/2D?
 
The right tree is a 12 ribbon tree that's flat. The left tree is 360 with 32 strings 42 pixels/string but I haven't finished putting up all the strings on it...I've got 20/32 done. It worked out real well to be able to lower the strings with a pulley when I add more. But you really won't be able to see the back 12 strings from the street so I didn't make it a priority. I had problems with the leds falling out of the grommets so for some of the strings I'm having to tie wrap the ribbon cable to the strapping. I had ordered 1000 grommets and the press came with 500 and the 500 were fitting better than the 1000.
 
By the way I didn't sequence Psy. I bought several sequences for the 12 ribbon tree last year because like usual I didn't decide to build that tree last year till Thanksgiving so I never leave myself much time for sequencing. I do most of my sequencing during December so my show improves during the month and then that's what I usually start with the next year. I do like Amazing Grace since I sequenced the entire yard for that one. Sandstorm I did completely also but I used a lot of the auto-sequencing features in Superstar and then mixed in my own stuff. Most of the rest of them I sequenced the arches, and circle. Except for a few songs the roofline is mainly data copied from arches.
 
Very Very nice job, one question during frozen how did you make the effects that are on the mega trees?


Thanks
Scott
 
ScottyJ said:
Very Very nice job, one question during frozen how did you make the effects that are on the mega trees?


Thanks
Scott
Click to expand...

Like I said I do things last minute so I didn't have time to program everything you see there. My wife asked me to add that song so I put it together in less than 3 hours. I bought the Let It Go sequence for the mega tree from http://www.superstarlights.com/Sequences/Videos.php (look at first video). The mega tree effects were all done in LOR's Superstar program. I know how to do it given enough time. I've done some nice stuff on one or two songs myself. I've joined the xLights development team so I'm working on creating some Nutcracker effects that are just as nice. The one thing missing in xLights is the ability to overlap effects on the same model and that's what I think makes the Superstar effects look so nice. xLights does let you have 2 effects but it doesn't quite work the same because the start and end times have to line up in each cell. In Superstar you can have the effects start at any point and another effect can start in the middle of the previous effect and they will blend.
 
damona said:
Nice Job, How big are the Mega Trees?
Click to expand...

Both trees are close to 16' tall. The one on the right is 12 ribbons 50 pixels apiece using the 12V WS2811 30/m strips. The one on the left has 42 pixels per strap with 4" spacing so the length is about 14' but they start a couple feet off the ground. The left tree was supposed to have 32 strings in a 360 but I only have 20 installed. You can't really see the back of the tree from any where so I've been too busy adding other things to my yard and probably won't put the rest of the strings up this year. Some of the straps were needing reinforcement to hold the pixels in the grommets and it takes too much time to fix them.
 
It's started to get a little crazy the last couple nights. Saturday night was the neighborhood hayride event. They normally don't come down our street but this year they came in one time with 3 large horse drawn carriages. Then people who rode by came back and lots of others were seeing my house as they were walking up to the event. We bought candy canes and glow bracelets to give out to the kids and we ended up with a small crowd at one point and a lady walked up and asked if this was the line for the hayride...lol.

Last night I didn't expect that many cars but it got really busy so we pulled out the table again and passed out more free goodies. Apparently my display is starting to hit youtube and facebook quite a bit from everyone coming by taking cellphone videos. One family was talking to us last night and then the lady tells me she works for KVOA our local NBC station and asked if we'd mind them coming out for a short satellite broadcast. I'm a little nervous it might generate too much traffic if they give us advertisement. We are just to the point where it almost gets too crowded for more cars to try to enter the culdesac. Luckily the few neighbors that have talked to us have been supportive.

My display already looks much nicer than the videos I took. I wasn't happy with the icicle lights not matching so I removed all the ones above the garage yesterday and found my cool white ones which matched the roof. I really like the coloring of the incan's better but I'm trying to migrate everything to led. I added a second layer of color icicles yesterday which really looked great. They had sorta a pastel coloring and gave it a disney type feel. I also trimmed the garage doors with blue C6 lights. My family thinks I'm crazy because I can't just buy the lights and hang them now. I made them tie wrap every C6 housing to the wiring so the lights would look like they are straight. It really makes a huge difference in the look to me. Then we had like 20 boxes of unused C6 white leds so we sprinkled them out across the open areas on both sides of the yard really filling it in great. And over the weekend I added a holidaycoro snowflake to the middle lower roof section which looks awesome. And I finally got my laser mounted so when Let It Go gets to the chorus I have most of the house going dark except the strobe effect going on the roofline leds and I fire up the laser which painted moving red and green dots on the entire house.
 
I enjoyed your shows. I might say from an aussie/british perspective a bit too much shock and awe. There was a lot happening. I could not watch all the effects at once. But that's me nit picking. You should be very proud, I wish I could od as well. R
 
Yeah there is a lot happening in several of the songs but a lot of that is because I haven't updated my sequencing as I've expanded my display. I've been copying data from one spot to another and then still had my original AC controllers turning on/off as much as it did when that was the only thing in the display. If you look at Let It Go I'd say that one was a more mellow display as I spent most of my time making that one the way I'd like it for this year even though I only spent a couple days on it.


The joy of the season was taken away from me this year. I lost my father 3 days before Christmas and I've had to fly back home. We couldn't fly my whole family so my wife and kids are keeping the display running. Luckily the FPP is running rock solid and she just checks that the inflatables all blow up properly each night. My display escalated in popularity a ton this year. The last couple days before Christmas when I was still home I took comfort in watching the joy it was bringing to so many families. I really didn't realize how much it meant to everyone till they would come up and tell me. Some say their kids make them come over every night. It really helped me take my mind off of things.


Gil
 
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