Digital Lighting
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In a world where special effects are drawing people to the theatres, and over-the-top spectacle is becoming the norm, the modern lighting designer not only has to handle basic lights, but color scrollers, moving lights, and video. While projection might seem out of place in the live theatre, if thought of as just another lighting device that controls color, patterns, shapes, and motion, one can see why the aspects and features video offers can be useful to a lighting designer. High End Systems makes two products that when used together create a new type of effect they're calling digital lighting.
The first product is a software package called Catalyst. Combing images, video clips, and digital gobos, a designer can create many visual effects using the software. They can further alter their creation using a number of color filters, modifying the iris size, proportions, and dimensions as you would in a standard graphics program. The server aspect of the software can render the effects on the fly, sending a video signal out to the instrument in real time. The designer has four layers to work on (similar to preset bays on a traditional lighting board) and can fade between and combine layers as needed. The layers are important because it allows the designer to keep a constant theme but at the same time gives them the freedom to make variations and new concepts throughout the show. Because the Catalyst system is integrated with the lighting system through DMX, it's very natural for traditional designers to use...