Toyota Gets Projected With Avolites

Lighting designer Mark Hanna specified an Avolites Diamond 4 Desktop PC (D4PC) – system to run a four week long promotional show for Toyota at Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent.
The star of the show was a 3D holographic projection of the new Toyota Auris family saloon, which spun in mid-air, complete with life-sized human test driver. This was produced by Musion, working for producers Brandwidth.
Hanna was required to light the stage and backdrop to the three minute looped show that ran throughout Bluewater’s opening hours. It was a very specific lighting task requiring great attention to detail to ensure that the 3D effect appeared as authentic as possible.
Hanna wanted a reliable PC-based system that could be left to run the show to timecode for four weeks. He wanted to programme the show on 'a proper desk', for which he used a Diamond 4 Elite. The show was then transferred to the laptop running D4PC via a USB key, and set up to be triggered via timecode from a video feed.
Lighting fixtures utilised included JTE PixelPARs which were used to uplight the backdrop and Martin Professional MAC 300s, 500s and 600s used for back-lighting the foil. These were supplied by a combination of PRG and AC Lighting.
This is the second time that Bluewater has used the D4PC system. The large array of fixtures utilised for their 2006 Christmas show was also run from the virtual D4 console, again under timecode control. For this project, the kit was supplied by DPL, and the installation and programming was undertaken by lighting designer, Pete Watts.
Avolites D4PC is a fully functional 'Virtual' Diamond 4 Console offering a fully featured playback system for situations like this when a full console is not required.
It’s also great for offline programming, editing or adaptation of shows. At the heart of the D4 Desktop system is a PC, running MS Windows XP with available USB ports.
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