April:

March:

February:

I continued working on my lightboard/user interface trying to link the light attenuation and color change from each block to each individual light, seperately controlled by the mouse and the user. I first had to figure out how to create each control block dynamically and then how to create each slider dynamically so that they could each be individually controlled and set. Once I figured out how to achieve that goal, the next step was to design the control blocks so they would line up neatly and all fit on a normal sized computer screen.

January:

I narrowed down a normal light plot of hundreds of lights to a mere 16 lights with the most common lighting angles. I then began to create a user interface by implementing the idea of a 3D lightboard. The reason why I chose to use sliders controling the lights similar to the operation of a light board is to make the lighting designer feel at home in this environment I have created. I needed to make my lightbord controls 3D so that the user could navigate from the lightboard looking down onto the stage to an audience perspective from the seats. If my user interface were implemented in 2D, the controls would be plastered on the screen and the camera could not move into where a hypothetical audience would be sitting watching the performance.

First Semester:

I sketched all the animations I anticipated needing or possibly using for my project. I then modeled two characters: one female Elizabethan and one male dancer. I imported them from the MAYA animation program into Virtools which is an interactive programing software. I then experimented with light in Virtools and how to adjust the colors of multiple lights pointed towards the same object/animation. It was necessary to tweak the lights so that they would not combine to form purely white light. After this, I figured out a way to rotate my figures in order to give the user a view of the costume and animation from every angle.