Make a Custom Gobo for VectorWorks

Spring is almost here so it must be time for the Third Annual Design a Gobo Contest by Apollo.  This year I am entering three gobos and in there preparation I really needed to test them before I submitted them. This past fall our department did a production of Charlotte’s Web and the lighting designer needed a solution for clouds with very little throw distance. In the past I had put a boom right next to the cyc and had some success getting them to look good. This time I was not so lucky and went to find a skewed cloud gobo for just such a throw. Fast forward to last week when I saw Apollo’s recent contest announcement and quickly started designing. But if I was going to do this I needed to do some virtual tests to make sure my designs worked.

To create the gobos I used Photoshop, the contest called for a 2.6″ image and I used a 600 dpi resolution. I created what I wanted the clouds to look like then used the transform tool to skew the image on the template I had created. I then saved the files as a jpg.

Large Skewed Clouds From a Boom

Skewed Clouds from a Boom

In order to do the test I needed to use the gobo function that comes in spotlight. Here are the steps to create a custom gobo from my photoshoped images.

1. Create a surface to project the gobo on, in this case I created a 32′ line then extruded it to 18′ high.

2. Place a focus point in the middle of the cyc, make sure you change the standard 5′ high to the middle of the cyc @9′.

3. Insert the appropriate instrument for the throw you have chosen. For this test I used a 36 degree 6′ high three feet from the cyc. Make sure you put the name of your focus area in the instrument information. This will focus the beam of light.

4. To create a custom texture, go the the resource browser and right click. You will get a drop-down menu and first select new resource on (your file name) then select renderworks texture.

Right Click in the resource browser

5. Now you are in the texture screen fill in the name of your gobo and change the sizes to 2″ and the in obj size to 4″

6. In the transparency drop down menu select image  projector then find the file you saved in Photo shop. If its a color gobo you may want to also go to the color drop-down and select filtered image. Chose the use transparency resource. This will use the same file you chose earlier.  Then click ok on the dialoug box.

7. The easiest way to insert the gobo is to double click the lighting instrument then click on the light information tab. At the bottom you can select what gobo you want to use. Before you leave this dialog box make sure you select focus the light, by selecting the drop-down for the focus point you created.

8. The final step is to go to a view that best shows off your work like an isometric view. Then change your view to a final renderworks option. Make sure you don’t have the black background selected for some reason it does not work with this option on.

You will need to change your point of view to a 3d view or simply hit the #1 key on the keypad and you will now see your gobos. In this case I put both skewed gobos from the side and a Rachel’s sunset projected from the front.

The second part of this story is the Rachel’s Sunset Gobo, as the name may imply it was designed by my 9 year old daughter Rachel. She designed the pattern on my iPod touch on the way to school one morning and I liked it so much I decided to enter it into the gobo contest. She used SketckBook MobileX, the free version of a paid painting program by Autodesk. She put the finishing touches on by importing her texture into Light by Digital Film Tools, which uses pre selected textures to enhance photos. I then took the rectangular image and transformed it into a square then cropped it into a circle.

Rachel's Sunset Gobo

So that was a couple ways to create your own gobo and test it out in VectorWorks. All three gobos were uploaed to the Third Annual Design a Gobo Contest this morning.  Voting will begin May 5th and go until June 2 so make sure you take the time to check out all the contest entries and vote.

Virtual Lighting: It’s not just for pretty pictures! Part 3

This is the final part of a three part series by Guest Contributor Steve Smith.

Most lighting designers stop utilizing virtual lighting once they get into the actual theatre working with actual lights.  I have found myself in many instances focusing lights before all of the scenery is loaded in.  In this situation lighting visualization has saved my butt on many occasions.  One example of this was a design I did this fall for Into the Woods.  The set design called for several organic foliage headers hanging over the stage to create the look of overhanging tree tops.  In my virtual simulation the headers were all created to the exact specifications from the drafting provided by the scene designer.  In my virtual theatre all the lights make their shots without obstructions.  So I can focus the real conventional lights just like I focused the virtual lights and have the reassurance that when those foliage headers do get hung,  I know that my lighting is going to work.  Of course there will need to be some minor adjustments and shutter cutting but you know the lighting will at least be salvageable!

I also find this invaluable with setting focus palletes for moving fixtures.  I aimed each mover to the desired position on stage.  Then I look at my “live WYSIWYG” screen to see if the mover is hitting the header or if it made the shot.  In my design for Into the Woods, I focused 31 moving lights to several different focus palletes before the header was hung.  Everyone thought I was “real lucky” when the headers were hung that none of the lights were blocked!

Using Live Front View to Focus Moving Light Under Foliage Header

Hanging foliage headers were not loaded in for focus

Into the Woods

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Using Live Section View to Focus Moving Light Under Foliage Header

Hanging foliage headers were not loaded in for focus

Into the Woods

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

A few years ago I used this technique for a production of “Man of La Mancha”.  The set calls for a huge hanging drawbridge type staircase that is suspended over the stage and lowered for the dramatic entrance of Don Quioxte.  I was very new to lighting visualization at the time but I was able to draw a simple rectangle in the position of the drawbridge and use my virtual live view to miss a set piece that wasn’t there yet.  My design was 95% dialed into the computer and I had run cues for several rehearsals before the stairs were even hung.  I can’t imagine how nervous I would have been if it weren’t for this use of virtual lighting.

Don’t get me wrong, I love using lighting visualization to make pretty pictures.  The results of finished renderings is nothing short of breathtaking and puts the design team at ease to know what the lighting design is going to look like.  But don’t overlook the other more practical and collaborative uses of creating a digital world for the purposes of creating a lighting design.

Steven Smith received his MFA in Technical Direction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now serves as the Lighting Designer for the Department of Theatre and Dance at Minnesota State University,  Mankato

Virtual Lighting: It’s not just for pretty pictures! Part 2

This is part two of a three part series by Guest Contributor Steve Smith.

Another use for lighting visualization is what I call the “reality check” where I try to answer for myself as well as the design team “what’s this idea gonna look like?  Will that even work”?  We have all tried a wacky idea at one time or another and found that it didn’t work out the way you thought.  The timing of that “it’s not gonna work” moment often comes at the eleventh hour when you transition from “disillusionment” into “panic”.  I have found a good way to avoid these states of panic is to do a “reality check” sketch to see what your idea might look like.  (Of course the best case scenario is to go into a theatre and actually try the idea but sometimes that isn’t an option).  I am working on a production of 42^nd Street that opens in April.  There is a “Dream Ballet” section that calls for some kind of shadow dance.  The scene designer worked up a preliminary ground plan of his set that included a line set labeled shadow drop.  In many design teams that would be the end of it until tech week when the set is loaded in and lighting cues are experimented with.  That’s a few days before opening.  Not a good time to have an “I don’t think this is gonna work like I thought it would” moment.  So I worked up a very crude lighting sketch from that ground plan and played with rover lights in a virtual environment.  I soon discovered that the position of these rover lights both in front and behind a translucent drop could be a lot of fun.  The distance between the drop and the back of the set was shorter than I would have liked but with experimenting I found that shooting the rover diagonally gave me the desired distance and a decent “larger than life” shadow the director wanted.   Since lighting programs like WYSIWYG take into account things like beam spread, throw distance, the physics of light; you know with greater certainty that your idea will actually work.

Preliminary Sketch: Shadow Ballet Backlight

42^nd Street

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Preliminary Sketch: Shadow Ballet Front Light

42^nd Street

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Steven Smith received his MFA in Technical Direction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now serves as the Lighting Designer for the Department of Theatre and Dance at Minnesota State University,  Mankato

Virtual Lighting: It’s not just for pretty pictures! Part 1

This is part one of a three part series by Guest Contributor Steve Smith.

Many of you have seen Lighting Designers use lighting visualization programs such as WYSIWYG to create finished renderings of what their lighting ideas might look like.  This is a great way to collaborate with a design team and it sure beats going to a meeting empty handed waving your hands in the air and describing what the lighting could look like.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

Finished Rendering from The Robber Bridegroom

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Production Photo from The Robber Bridegroom

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

I have found other uses for lighting visualization besides making pretty pictures.  One important application for lighting visualization is in the preliminary design phase.  Just like a scene designer showing preliminary sketches, I will often bring in very crude preliminary sketches so that I can have a linear process that the design team can see.  If a set designer shows a full stage sketch and describes how a small internal scene that could play on an isolated platform downstage left, I like to show the production team what that might look like.  If the set designer hasn’t discussed color yet I will keep things in grey scale.  If the costume designer has shown research but hasn’t shown sketches yet, I will use generic mannequins rather than “real people”.  Although it is a creative collaboration I don’t want to inadvertently influence another design area.  These crude lighting sketches are far from a finished rendering and serve a different purpose than showing a pretty picture.  I am currently working on two designs right now where I have used lighting sketches.  On a production of Beauty Queen of Leenane which opens in March, I wanted to show several ideas; firelight coming from a wood burning stove casting large shadows on the scenic walls, low angled light coming from a black and white television, and moonlight coming from an implied downstage window casting a long window shape on the floor in a big diagonal streak.  These ideas had come up in a meeting where the scene designer had presented a white model of the set.  I was able to bring in my rough sketches and play with brightness settings in the meeting and “tweek the looks” to the satisfaction of the director.  I like that kind of organic collaboration.  A lighting design where the design team sees your process from start to finish and helps shape that journey is more likely to result in a painless tech rehearsal week because there are relatively few surprises and everyone feels that they were a part of a cohesive design team.

Preliminary Sketch: Keylight from woodstove

Beauty Queen of Leenane

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Preliminary Sketch: Keylight from television

Beauty Queen of Leenane

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Preliminary Sketch: Shaft of Moonlight Through Implied Window

Beauty Queen of Leenane

Lighting Design: Steven Smith

Steven Smith received his MFA in Technical Direction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now serves as the Lighting Designer for the Department of Theatre and Dance at Minnesota State University,  Mankato

Review: Moire Gobo Library v1.2

Lamps:4/5

Pros:

• More than just a gobo catalog.
• Large Library which includes Apollo, GAM, InLight and Lee Gobos.
• Great search feature allows you to search multiple companies at once. Find the exact gobo you want quickly.
• Ability to bring gobo image in and out of focus
• Twin Spin-add two of your favorite gobos on top of each other and spin in the same or opposite directions. Great way to come up with new rotator effects.
• Recent list that can be loaded with current show gobos.
• Works with ISwatch to add color to the gobo
• High resolution black and white gobos included

Cons:

• No way to compare two gobos
• The focus feature is great but it would be better if it could replicate the optics of the instrument.
• Twin Spin feature lacks the ability to change the focus of the gobo, flip the image or choose which one is on top.
• Missing Rosco Gobos-Rosco has not participated in this application and has launched their own iphone application.
• Color gobos and dichroic glass gobos not in the library

Suggestions:

• Favorites list for show specific  gobos
• Inventory-ability to keep up on what is in stock with a visual reverence would be a great feature.

Listen to the Full Review:

Listen!

Review: iSwatch

4/5 Lamps

Pros: Quick and easy way to find or compare color filter media. Gives CMY and RGB values which could be used in other for other software applications.

Cons: Still missing the Apollo color line. 9.99 is still a bit high for this application. The wavelength data needs the wavelength numbers across the bottom and transmission listed on the side for reference.

Tip:Compare a color to Rosco 00, then take your swatch book and place a swatch of the first color over the clear side to see how close the program gets.

Full Review:  I purchased this application in the heat of the moment. I was in tech and needed a cut of R97 natural density.  I checked my stock and didn’t have any. I thought I mights have some in GAM or possibly Lee. I needed to know quickly what the equivalents were in those other companies, so I decided to bite the bullet and purchase iSwatch by Wybron Inc. I have found this program to be a very useful product and a very compact way to get gel information quickly. It eliminates the need to carry three or four swatch books around.  It will never get rid of the swatch book, as in most lighting visualization software the rendering of the color is never 100percent the exact gel color and it does not take into account color temperature of the lamp of the instrument.

It is an easy to use, you can search using a simple search function or choose a gel company and browse by gel number. Once you find the gel iSwatch offers a wealth of data. It gives you gel transmission, wavelength data, CMY percentages, RGB percentages and similar colors. If you tap a similar color it will compare it to your choice in both color and wavelength data. iSwatch will also pick a the best complement to that color and compare both colors wavelength data. There is also a button to compare your color to any other color in the library.

Many of the cons of the program were fixed with the latest update, but a few still remain. There are many lighting designers that use Apollo Gel and as such it should be included in the program. The wavelength data needs the wavelength numbers across the bottom and transmission listed on the side for reference.  After a few spot checks, the wave length data is slightly different than those in the gel books, to me this is a minor flaw. The final con is the price, it is a  a valuable program but 9.99 is a bit much for this  iphone application.

If you don’t mind spending the 9.99 its a must have for the iphone. It wont replace your swatchbooks but its got a lot of great information in one place.

Update: Version 1.4.1 added Apollo Gel to the application.