Gallery: 2011's Most High-Tech Holiday Light Shows
01fountain-valley-california-lights
[Clark Griswold](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ar-__ub0rc) ain't got nothin' on the guys and gals who put together these five stunning light spectacles. Some are created by talented professionals, while others are labors of love from holiday-obsessed hobbyists. Either way, here's a look at some of the most stellar, highest-tech light displays we've seen this 2011 holiday season. If you've stumbled across any other great lighting specimens, please share them in the comments section below. Happy holidays from Gadget Lab. *Above:* __56,100-LED memorial light show set to "The Little Drummer Boy"__ Damion Rodriguez developed this intense lighting display at a friend's home in Fountain Valley, California, to honor another friend who passed away in May. Rodriguez used 15 [StellaScapes](http://stellascapes.com/) E16-II controllers and 220 StellaGreen Strings in this luminous spectacular that boasts some 56,100 LEDs. Each individual LED is capable of producing 16.7 million colors by mixing 256 levels of brightness and 256 levels of red, green and blue. The setup was programmed to music using [MADRIX](http://www.madrix.com/) Ultimate on a custom-built Core i5-760 computer running at 2.8GHz with 8GB of RAM. "I'm by no means an expert or formally trained in anything. All my knowledge is self-taught or gleaned from reading and listening to others," Damion Rodriguez, the display's creator, told Wired via e-mail. The designs and patterns of his spectacle are extraordinarily varied. "Some are basic EQs, and some are plasma color washes with custom palettes masked onto another effect, 35 layers deep," Rodriguez says. "The roof is sometimes a marquee with a text ticker scrolling across, with another swirling helix effect that color-fades to the music on the megatree. I'm still adding new effects every day, tweaking existing ones. Currently, I have a bank of 82 combined effects for my patch." Rodriguez notes that the lights in this display are so intensely bright that most cameras are unable to accurately capture their dynamic range -- instead, cameras capture just a bunch of blown-out white dots. Rodriguez used a Canon 5D Mark II for this YouTube footage, and still, he says, there's "tons of texture and detail in the effects on the roof that just looks like white points of light." The entire show lasts for 81 minutes, and runs nightly from dusk until 10 p.m. With such a long, bright show -- set to music, no less -- I asked Rodriguez if the neighbors put up a fuss. "The neighbors love it!" he says. "We've had nothing but praise from them." The only time anyone complained -- asking for the lights to go off around 11:30 pm -- was when Rodriguez was pulling all nighters to set up the rig.
02angry-birds-lights
__An interactive *Angry Birds* game__ Of course. What holiday would be complete without some sort of impressive, over-the-top homage to everyone's favorite green pigs and angry, feathered friends? This particular light show employs more than 20,000 lights, and runs on two computers using 10 Light-o-Rama 16-channel controllers. According to the YouTube uploader, here's how you use the controller to play: "Left button shoots left, right button shoots right, center shoots center. How long you hold down the button (pulling back the rubber band) determines how high the shot goes." Audio from the game is broadcast on 99.1 FM, and the controller's cord is long enough that people can play in their cars on the street.
Getty Images for Saks03saks-fifth-avenue-3-d-light-show
__Fashion meets technology in the Big Apple__ The 2011 Saks Fifth Avenue Snowflake & Bubble Spectacular employs a state-of-the-art, six-projector display system to clothe the facade of the fashion retailer's New York City flagship store with an assortment of 3-D bubbles and snowflakes. This is the largest display Saks has done in recent history. The projection is inspired by a children's book titled “Who Makes the Snow,” and the concept was designed by the same marketing firm that developed the projections for the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 World Cup. In developing their pageant, the show's creators mapped the building facade’s many intricate details into a computer. This allowed them to concoct a bright 3-D projection that seemingly changes the features of the building itself. The visual effects -- some of which you can see in the video above -- include bubbles rising from the building's windows, virtual snow gathering upon window ledges, and the illusion that the entire building front is freezing over. For the debut night of Saks' light show, students from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre performed as the light show displayed on the multistory building behind them. For those interested in the fashion side of things, each display window features one-of-a-kind dresses from design houses such as Alexander McQueen and Proenza Schouler. *Image: The Saks Fifth Avenue Holiday Window Unveiling 2011 on Nov. 21, 2011 in New York City. Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for Saks*
04dubstep-lights
__A family's dubstep holiday spectacular__ In Meridian, Idaho, a 16-year-old and his dad created this dubstep light show set to First Of The Year (Equinox) by Skrillex. The spectacle was built using 35,000 LEDs and 64 Light-O-Rama channels, and took [over two months](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/cadger-christmas-light-show-2011_n_1157940.html) to complete. The enthusiastic 16-year old wrote on YouTube that he enjoys "making my lights flash a lot." The family who built the display invites visitors to come check it out in person, and bring a donation to the Idaho Food Bank. Directions are reportedly on the [family's website](www.cornellchristmas.webs.com), which unfortunately, was down at press time.
05the-u-s-s-enterprise
__Where no man has gone before__ The city of East Peoria, Illinois, holds an annual [Festival of Lights](http://www.cityofeastpeoria.com/index.cfm?pageID=71) show, which this year includes a stunning light rendition of the USS Enterprise of *Star Trek* fame. The Enterprise above is 57 feet long, 22 feet wide and 14 feet tall, and is illuminated with [52,000 lights](http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06346/744695-37.stm). A redditor by the name of [wolfman](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/nfb9t/the_enterprise_done_up_in_christmas_lights/c38nibx) believes this impressive light structure joined the Festival of Lights in 1989 in honor of the last *Star Trek* film that featured the original crew. Many of the event's light displays, possibly including the Enterprise here, are actually floats for a parade that are on display for the rest of the Christmas season. Other nerdy sights for the show include an X-Wing from *Star Wars* and Batman's Batmobile. *via [Reddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/nfb9t/the_enterprise_done_up_in_christmas_lights/)*
