Wouldn't it be wonderful if you were able to design the lighting for your worship service while you were resting comfortably at home? Or imagine being on a flight across the country when you learn that your Sunday worship program has changed. A new performer will be appearing to sing a worship song that was not previously planned. Now you can program the cues right now on your laptop at 30,000 feet, driving in the car, sitting [with] the laptop by the fire—anywhere—and see what they will look like for tomorrow's service.
Lighting visualization software will allow you to do precisely this. Virtual lighting technology allows the designer to actually “see” the lighting effects on a computer monitor. This software is used in many professional theaters and houses of worship. I have personally used visualization software in theaters around the world, including The Royal Opera House in London and the Norwegian National Opera House in Oslo.
Due to its high computer processing requirements and high cost, this visualization technology has only been accessible to theaters with large budgets and very powerful computers. That situation is starting to change, though. With a new generation of graphic processors available in low-cost computers, a typical lighting designer can now afford to purchase and use this technology.
Elation and Capture Sweden are offering their new Capture Polar visualization software to lighting designers, theaters, and houses of worship throughout the world. Due to its high power capability and affordable cost, this is a significant development in bringing virtual lighting design to the masses.
With Capture Polar you can design your entire lighting rig on your computer, add a wide variety of lighting fixtures onto user-defined lighting positions, focus the lights by clicking and dragging, assign channels, colors, and gobos to each fixture, and create stunning lighting cues all in a virtual space. The software will also print out lighting storyboards, the light plot, and associated lighting paperwork and forms. It will even create movies to share lighting transitions and effects with other members of your creative team.
In my virtual lighting design classes at California State University Long Beach, my students and I have become very familiar with lighting visualization software. We've learned that well-designed virtual lighting software has a simple user interface and is powerful and accurate enough to simulate real world lighting effects. Capture has achieved this, and so much more. Its user interface is quite intuitive, and allows the designer great freedom to create.
In practice
it is also a simple computer-aided drafting and lighting paperwork program. So you basically get three programs in one.
To test the learning curve required for this software, I asked six graduate lighting design students to learn the software in a week on their own. I was surprised that they all had very few problems. They found web tutorials on YouTube and even read the manual. In addition, there is an on-line user forum with helpful members of the community answering technical questions. Although I would not recommend it for complete lighting novices, this software is very easy to learn and use for moderately skilled lighting designers and technicians.
Due to the rendering requirements of multiple lighting fixtures, it is imperative to use a very powerful computer with a sophisticated graphics processor. We tried running Capture on different configurations of Windows and Mac OS machines. Several of the students' personal computers would run the software, but quite slowly. This was due to their low quality integrated graphics processors. Not surprisingly, the best results came from the computers with top-end graphics cards. The good news is that high-end graphics cards no longer cost an arm and a leg to purchase. You just need to make sure that your computer will support these hardware upgrades.
Once we found the ideal hardware specifications to run the software, we experienced no slowdowns or hang-ups. Ideally, you would not have to have any other software running while using Capture Polar due to the demands it can put on your processor, but that rule applies to just about any 3D CAD program as well. We found the rendering of the moving lighting beams to be quite smooth, even when using multiple moving lights and haze (which demand a great deal of processing power).
We also found that building a lighting plot in Capture Polar is extremely easy. The program has a large fixture library that offers just about all the popular conventional and moving lights, along with some generic lights. For churches with older lighting inventories, it even has some lights that I have not seen in more than 20 years. Capture Polar's libraries include basic 3D symbols that can be easily manipulated to create floors, walls, and set pieces. There are also libraries of people and furniture, along with many predefined lighting pipes, trusses, video projectors, lasers, and special effects.
When you use any lighting visualization software, it is essential that you first have accurate 3D drawings of the church and any set pieces in it. This includes accurate locations of the lighting positions. Capture will import existing 3D drawings from Vectorworks or AutoCAD. However, it will not import any lighting fixtures from these programs.
Capture is designed to be an “all-in-one” lighting design program. You place the lighting fixtures within the virtual world of the drawing. You then focus and assign their color and gobos to create your lighting systems.
The lighting plot is automatically created as you hang and focus your lights. In fact, you can see the plot automatically being created in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Capture Polar includes flexible drawing aids to label lighting positions along with supporting many other drafting conventions. It automatically creates the associated lighting forms and paperwork and constantly updates all the data when changes are made. In other words, Capture Polar is not only a 3D lighting visualization program; it is also a simple computer-aided drafting and lighting paperwork program. So you basically get three programs in one.
Notable specifics
What makes Capture Polar exceptionally useful is when you connect a hardware or software lighting controller to it. Using ArtNet, Capture Polar will show you all your lighting cues in a virtual world. It will sync with any controller that outputs ArtNet, including PC and MAC versions of many lighting controller interfaces (Like Hog PC and MA lighting control software). This allows you to actually program the lighting before you even hang a light in the church. You can show your creative team what the lighting cues will look like long before you start the actual technical process. Once you program the lighting on your computer, you just email or drag the board file onto a USB drive and plug it into your lighting control desk. This is where Capture Polar really shines.
Capture Polar is also an excellent educational tool for students and designers alike. The program allows you to try out the features of almost any lighting fixture available without having to actually procure and hang the fixture. My students are assigned many lighting design projects using virtual lighting software, and it has proven to be a very effective, enjoyable process for them.
Capture Polar comes in several versions: Student, Solo, Basic, and Extended. We highly recommend choosing the Basic or Extended versions. Although you can indeed design lighting on the Student and Solo versions, you cannot print plots, paperwork reports, export DWG files, insert video screens with content, or control automated scenery. The Basic and Extended versions are much more powerful, and will fit the needs of most lighting designers. It is important to note that the Student version is free, so you can download it from the Capture Polar website and try it out for yourself.
We are living in an amazing world where technology is allowing us to be more creative. I see Capture Polar [as] a bargain, considering how much time you will save in knowing how the lighting will look before you start hanging and moving your lights. Capture Polar also makes a lot of sense for churches with lighting fixtures that are rarely moved from their positions. You can create one lighting plot in Capture Polar and just change the cueing from service to service. You can then just email the file to your light board programmer, he plugs it into his lighting controller, and voila ... ready for performance.
MSRP $599
