Thread: Liquid sky / Laser vortex

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I finally found a camera that could almost take a picture of my liquid sky effect. Basically, it's the same concept as a laser vortex, but in a flat line instead of a cone.

I have a red laser set up just above my head at one end of the garage and a combination green & violet laser at the other end. Because of the UV filter in the camera, the violet only shows up a couple of brief blue flashes. It looks MUCH better in person. The violet and green wash each other out a little and make more of a white sky with green and violet highlights.

When you look one direction, you can only see the green and violet sky. When you look the other direction, all you see is red.

[ame=http://s154.photobucket.com/albums/s268/Fravak/Props/Liquid%20Sky/?action=view&current=DSCN0290.flv][/ame]

Here's the red laser setup:



The board is the mirror assembly from a Laserjet 4 printer. The small board on the side is a voltage regulator that puts out the 3.2 volts the laser module requires. I had to modify the mirror board to run whenever the power is turned on by adding a resonator between pins 8 and 9. When it was in the printer, it looks like this board had some other input to tell the motor how fast to spin. The resonator now makes it spin one speed. Very fast. When the laser hits the spinning mirror, it creates a flat line.



Here's a shot of the green / violet laser board. Same basic thing except there's two lasers aimed at the spinning mirror.

this came out very good.
I have always loved the liquid sky effect.

I really like the look of the red laser. didnt expect it to show up so well.

another benifit is that you dont have to worry about the laser making direct contact with you eyes. since it is over your head.

I thought about trying this effect vertically behind a door way. I thought that might have a good effect.

My original plan was to do it vertically. If you have it at a slight angle, it works well. Straight up and down washed out the effect and all I had was a line on the floor. The first thing my kids/test subjects did was to look down at the line on the floor and then straight up at the laser. I was doing it with a 5mw green, so no eyes were burned up.

The red laser is a 12mw 635nm, so it looks 20x brighter than a regular laser pointer. That's a big reason I wanted to make sure there was no way for anyone to look directly into it. It's pretty intense. The video doesn't do it justice.

What you can't tell from the video is there's about 30 feet between the two lasers and I'm walking between the two. I'm going to be doing this above a haunted swamp/forest area. As you walk deeper in, the sky will be red. It will be white as you turn around and walk out towards the less evil areas. It's wild how you can only see the one color you are facing.

what I was trying to describe was have the laser behind the door to the left, hidden behind the wall.
Let he laser shoot over to the right side and let it hit the wall on the inside of the room. that is where the line will appear. but it wont be visible from outside the door.

I was thinking of doing this in a doorway only I would have to pass through, where my compressor, etc are. Just for effect. not expecting others to pass through it.
But it would make a cool place for a monster to jump out from behind.

Very cool. I would have no idea or the talent to even pull something like that off.