The West London demo room of Kinesys was home to a Green Hippo Automation Masterclass with an international flavour. Welcoming attendees from Finland and the Netherlands, as well as the United Kingdom, Green Hippo partnered with Kinesys to deliver Masterclass III – Automation.
The two-day course, which took place earlier this month, enabled delegates to take a deep dive into integrating moving elements with Hippotizer and SHAPE 3D projection mapping. Occupying the Kinesys base, conveniently located 20 minutes from Heathrow, students benefited from a venue fully-equipped with chain motors, rotators, trolleys and truss – this was a true hands-on experience where participants experienced using actual hardware to practice key skills including object alignment, parenting and automation scripting.
Both days saw students spending the mornings absorbing theory in the training room, moving in the afternoons to the demo room for hands-on, practical sessions. Day one included a section on automation history and terminology as well as basic usage of Kinesys Vector and K2 systems – no prior knowledge of Kinesys systems was required for this course, though a good understanding of Hippotizer and basic SHAPE functions was recommended – closing with rotation and translation ‘in real life’. The second day’s topics included 3D basics and texture mappers, moving on to (Epson) projector alignment, setting up multi-axis automation with parenting, and automation visualisation.
At the end of the Masterclass, delegates left with their automation skillset significantly expanded and ready to be put into practice in the field. Only approved Green Hippo staff deliver its official training sessions and they always come fully qualified, including ‘real world’ experience – this latest Masterclass training team counted Product Specialists Lanz Short and Zep Mouris as well as Nigel Sadler, Special Products Director at Green Hippo. Both days involved access to an impressive selection of kit as detailed below.
Automation Masterclass – equipment roster
Demo room Automation Stations
- 2 x ‘flying’ tvs that could move up and down, left and right and rotate 30degrees.
- 1 x up and down moving screen
- 1 x cube that could rotate and travel left and right
- In the middle of the room there was a 3m circle truss, with a screen stretched across it, that could go up and down and tilt left right forward backwards
Kit Demo Room
- 3 x Hippotizer Taiga+ Media Servers
- 2 x Hippotizer Montane+ Media Servers
- 3 x Epson Projectors, EB-L1405U (8000 lumen)
- 5 x PCs (supplied by Kinesys) to control motors
Kit Classroom
- 6 x Hippotizer Laptops, projectors
- 3D models with which to practice 3D mapping
“We had great feedback from the guys on the course and it will undoubtedly be happening again. The team at Kinesys provided a friendly and comfortable environment for users to experience and learn the processes involved with show automation and Hippotizer Media Servers.”