Qlab basics for creating, sizing images and video

[kellydaughter]

Very simply (although it never is), I am a graphic designer tasked with putting together a video projection for a theatre project. One screen, no sound- a combination of still images and animated gifs, short video. This will all play to a live musical staging.

Is there a tutorial that exists for such a task OR how large do I make these images? I don't have the exact measurement for the projected area but it will be a white theatre backdrop that will be "blocked" by black curtains and such. I want it as large as possible.

I plan on creating the text images in illustrator so that they are vector, but i still need the ratio or dimensions or is that up to me?? What is the pixel size for images and videos so that it is not too grainy - hi-def if not too large?

Any guidance is much appreciated - thank you!

[micpool]

The relevant thing is the resolution and ratio  of your projector!

Mic

[Joshua Langman]

As Mic said, the answer to your question is the pixel dimensions of your projector.

I am also a projection designer with a graphic design background. I routinely use InDesign to create images to use within QLab. Make a new INDD document and set the intent to "web" and the page dimensions to the pixel dimensions of the projector. Make all your images in one document. Export the document to .png format at 72 dpi and each page will be exported as a separate .png file. Drop these into QLab. Working in Illustrator should be similar. QLab supports transparency, so you can export .pngs with transparent backgrounds if that's helpful and layer them in QLab. I would NOT attempt to play vector-based images in QLab at all. I know that PDFs do very strange things and I haven't tried .eps or .ai, but I wouldn't expect them to play at all. So use Illustrator to build content if you'd like, but you must export to a raster image. If you then make a change and re-export, the image will be updated within QLab automatically. This should be familiar to you as the "links" concept in Adobe software. QLab's "bundle workspace" is the equivalent of InDesign's "package."

Feel free to ask more specific questions as they arise.

[Joshua Langman]

By the way, you should check out the documentation: http://figure53.com/qlab/docs/

particularly this video: http://figure53.com/qlab/docs/videos/intro-to-surfaces/

You'll see that the dimensions of your "surface" (the area you are filling with video) are entirely arbitrary, and do not need to match the dimensions of the projector raster. If you want to fill the full area available to you on the projector raster, then your surface dimensions should match it. But if, say, your projector is 1024 x 768 px (4 : 3 ratio), and your "white theatre backdrop" (probably a cyclorama, or cyc, in the jargon) has a different aspect ratio, then you use the longest side of the projector raster as the longest side of the cyc, and use conversion factors to determine the length, in pixels, of the shorter side. Figuring out the pixel dimensions of your QLab surface is the first step in creating content for a projection design.