Here is my current project:
I am doing a lighting design for a shadowcast performance. The film is "Repo! The Genetic Opera". I am in charge of the lighting design with direction from the director.
Within 3 weeks, I have been able to program the ENTIRE show, with scary tight accuracy(so tight even I am happy!). This includes blackouts, movement, simple scenes, multi-step scenes and more. All in all, less than 150 scenes(and I'm trying to trim that down a bit), some of which I had to make Sub-Scenes(say, 51A, 51B, and in some cases like a 53C1 and 53C2 stuff like that).
Scenes have included following actors around the stage with moving yoke lights, spots, washes(mostly washes), color wheel spin functions, and plenty of goodies aided by the usage of the 3D Visualizer. I'm not even suggesting the work is done, but it's close. I'm now adding fog cues and perhaps a projection cue or three.
I set the show up in a "set and forget" manner. I can literally walk away once I start the show, it's that tight.
Coupled with using the Screen Capture from MyDMX to generate a base image, then blacking out the screen so I only see the lighting, and recording that from beginning to end using Snagit!(a 98 minute capture BTW), and then adding in the film, I have been able to make a working animatic.
The results have been simply amazing, and you can see proof at:
http://www.studio42.com/repo/
Download the bigger one, it's a later example of the same thing with refinements and tweaks, plus using a more complicated method for the production. The animatic requires things be layered specifically as well as using a chromakey function, dimming the main image and more. All in all, to render out, it takes 14 hours. But then it's ready for DVD.
The only drawback is two scenes where I am using sound active to avoid having to do any real work, but also because the scenes do not require anything other than a chaos/random/happy environment, which sound active should pull together. The 3D visualiser can't really handle that portion. The other issue is that I can't move the spots, but I'm working on proof of concept principles as the follow-spots will be manned during the event.
I still have lots of paperwork to do and a few scenes I need to tweak(add a half second to one to slice a half second off the following scene, and then stretch out a scene and shorten a blackout sequence.)
So, with some hard work(well, depends on who you are) and some imagination, MyDMX is definately a product that can be well suited to a professional live theater environment.
Back to work, animatics don't generate themselves!
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