Fire effects: single channel versus three channels
Realistic looking fire
Original flames of a fireplace are in motion. So the lighting source should be.
The 3 channel “fire” preset of this flickerbox automatically alternates the dim level of each channel the way a real flame would behave – flickering shadows.
For TV effects even the color changes in RGB mode of an LED fixture.
As shown to the left three lamps – separately controlled by the LFX Master DMX – will initiate three different cast shadows of an object on a surface (here is simply a wall). show video sample
The gel “deep golden amber” is used to get the right color temperature, the attached 1/2 white diffusion softens the cast shadows of the three lamps, the effect looks natural.
Alternatively use CTS and other colored gels, or even better if used with LED: add a gel by adding a DMX channel with a fixed value.
If you remove the object you will not see any flickering shadows.
Besides the adaptation to the filament inertia the “Transitions” feature of the LFX Master DMX modifies the transitions between the channels (hard, medium, soft).
High power fire light
Choose the easy way to get a high power flickering fire light.
Let it burn with one or multiple dino lights!
You may use a DMX-512 based 3 x 5k dimmer hooked up at the DMX-output of the LFX Master DMX flicker generator.
Hints for practice
The distance between the gels to the lamps should be at least 20 cm the size of surface of the white diffusion gel should correspond to the original (or pretended) size of the fire source.
Instead of using three halogen lamps you could use e.g. a Parabeam 400 or some household type bulbs attached in a geled box.
See a sample video using three Kino Flo Select LED fixtures with flickering shadows.
If there are no objects in front of the background a single channel effect is sufficient.
See a sample video using a single Kino Flo Select LED fixture.
Or see a sample video using a single SkyPanel-C.
Use different effect gels on the three lamps – the color temperature would change either.
If the object is too far away from the background you will not see flickering shadows, normaly a distance of around 60 cm (2 ft) is ideal.