First Year Using Vixen for my Haunted House

[Ericthemannn]

I used vixen a bit different then most people would, I made a show(Haunted House) inside my garage consisting of 3 major Animatronics 1.Zombie in a box, 2.Radio Prop 3.The Last Minute Drop Prop. I made a custom Plug and play Light Box and a simple parallel port relay controller channels 1-4 were dedicated to lighting channels, 5-8 were dedicated to f/x and prop activation. Each prop had its own program installed in each of them using the Efx-tek prop-1 RC-4 etc... Here is a video of the seance room, I will post video of the finished product / walk through in the near future (I have to get all the footage from friends and family)! We had a line that wrapped around the corner this year, and won first prize in the community haunt decor contest! Special thanks to everyone who helped make Vixen what it is today.

Seance Room 2009

[BuzzKill]

Love the zombie in a box. Can you give a little more detail about how you got the prop to move? You could enhance the radio with some pulsing orange LED's behind the grill or dial to give that ye olde time tube glow as the dial is spinning.

Am currently using bike pumps as a "pop-up" only prop. They are not terribly reliable to use. 1/2 the time they don't activate properly.

I have a huge 8' spider I would like to jump forward about 1' and raise up about 1', and make a hissing noise. If I get adventurous enough, maybe make it give a puff of air too. Just enough to get your attention. And I have a couple other goodies as well.

I have not used the prop-1 boards but would like to get started with them. I have the cowlicious board already I used for a talking skull and for one of the bike-pump pop-ups.

Great haunt!

[Ericthemannn]

Love the zombie in a box. Can you give a little more detail about how you got the prop to move? You could enhance the radio with some pulsing orange LED's behind the grill or dial to give that ye olde time tube glow as the dial is spinning.

Am currently using bike pumps as a "pop-up" only prop. They are not terribly reliable to use. 1/2 the time they don't activate properly.

I have a huge 8' spider I would like to jump forward about 1' and raise up about 1', and make a hissing noise. If I get adventurous enough, maybe make it give a puff of air too. Just enough to get your attention. And I have a couple other goodies as well.

I have not used the prop-1 boards but would like to get started with them. I have the cowlicious board already I used for a talking skull and for one of the bike-pump pop-ups.

Great haunt!

I know of a friend that made exactly what you have described! and you can use the efx-tek EZ-8 to program and create all of those effects! Click Here For Video

I love the Cow audio boards as well, just so simple to use, I turned the radio prop into the audio recorder for the isd chips. the radio prop has red light behind the tuner but its hard to make out with the f/x red light on it. and i modified the audio on it to go with the seance audio that came out of the 5.1 receiver. I'd sway away from the bike pumps, just seems a bit janky and unsafe for me no offense though.. I get a lot of my supplies from various places online like www.monsterguts.com and www.Evilusions.com are both great sites. It may cost more to do it this way but its worth while when its finished, (I do it piece by piece so it doesn't cost to much) I'll post some video of the zombie when i have a bit of free time and explain what i did a bit. its a great prop and will last for years! Thanks for the reply it means a lot buzzkill

-Eric Garthwait

[djulien]

I have a huge 8' spider I would like to jump forward about 1' and raise up about 1', and make a hissing noise.

Any pictures or videos available? Also, was it DIY or off-the-shelf?

don