Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Introducing the Artiste Lights

 The purpose of lights as we see it, is to draw the viewers attention to a particular area of activity at specific times. They can help to confine the area of concentration and focus, signalling to the audience what and where they should be watching and when.

We have chosen to create our own custom lights from scratch for maximum control, although there is a particular set of brand lights that we can also control via the Artiste Performance HUD. There is now nothing that the brand-name lights do that our custom lights cannot do.

Our lights, like most of the assets introduced, are the result of Palette transformation. You can think of a Palette as a transformer toy that can change into different functional creative performer tools and toys.

Because a light is a Palette, it benefits from being able to combine with many of the other features of a Palette limited only by your imagination

The following 7-minute video demonstrates some of the things you can do with our custom lights. Not included in the demo but definitely possible is the ability to raise and lower the lights or hide and show the whole light or fade the whole light in and out.


Friday, August 22, 2014

Introducing the Artiste Oscillating Beater



I have received positive feedback and encouragement from the first demo video on the Thrower. I will continue to provide more demo videos to help describe what the Artiste Performance Suite is all about.  It was always the plan.

Many people say they need visuals. That's how they 'get it'. I guess if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then a video must be worth a million words.


This new video demonstrates some of the capabilities of yet another one of the Palettes action-features. While this video doesn't match up in glamour and polish to the Thrower video, it does highlight what makes all of the action-features special. It also introduces another action-feature, the "FlashOnce" action-feature used to depict lightning. Next to the demo-video name in parenthesis is the action-feature number(s).


The key points to take away from this video are the advantages that the Palette-based solution has over single-purpose off-the-shelf solutions we have become accustomed to.

1) Customizable/Configurable - most Off-The-Shelf (OTS) don't allow you to change the characteristics or behavior. No way to adjust speed, color, size, etc. Most all of the Palette action-features are customizable giving you flexibility to add uniqueness to your creations that we call Palette assets.

2) Triggerable - most OTS don't allow you to 'start' them from chat. You have to manually trigger them to start their behavior. All Palettes are triggerable from the Artiste Performance HUD

3) Combinable/Compounding - Palettes, by their very nature, allow you to combine most action-features with other action-features, extending your abilities to be unique and creative and provide true ownership and asset-value.

4) Synchable - Because Palettes are triggered by the Artiste Performance HUD (and can also be triggered by other Palettes), you can synch them to start
a) with the same Palette but other action-features, or
b) other Palette action-features, or
c) HUD functions or
d) combinations of all 3.

5) On-Off-able - You also have the ability to turn OFF action-features as easily as you turn them on. And you can repeat this process as needed. Many OTS have no 'off' capabilities.

6) Cause-and-Effect - Because you can associate 2 different action-feature Palettes by manipulating their time and/or spacial characteristics, you can create cause-and-effect mini-stories inside of a performance to help tell the bigger story.


Soooo...speaking of combining (also referred to as 'compounding') you are asking yourself, "Can I "throw" an oscillating beater?" and the answer is a resounding YES!