# Rain Effect



## jimmyzdc (Sep 24, 2007)

Hi guys! 

Been a while since I have been on the forums but after a year off from Halloween from a recent house move I'm slowly coming back into it. I was playing around with setting up my Firefly Lightning controller last night and it looks great on the house. But I was thinking what would really add to the effect would be when the lightning flashes you see simulated rain on the part of the house that lights up.

I was thinking it might be something similar to the Haunted Mansion Queue area but reversed. So in the queue are you inside the house and you see the rain in the windows when the lightning flashes. I wanna do something similar but when outside you see the effect on the house.

Anyone have any ideas or can point me to any direction on where I can find out how to create this effect??

Thanks!


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## Lord Homicide (May 11, 2012)

I'm glad you asked this... I was looking out the window last month and thinking I need to make about 15 of those. I'll do some research.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

Are you looking to have the rain effect on just the window exteriors or on the walls and such too?
If you are considering using actual water via misters or sprinklers, be aware of the potential mess as well as laws against wasting water. Here, in southern California, the severe drought would eliminate using water for the most part. You could use a fountain style pump to have water cascading down false windows, only to be channeled back into the reservoir to be fed back into the cycle again. That would allow you to have water coursing down the window panes so that it will appear when the flash of "lightning" occurs.
If you are talking about seeing the sheets of water (constant downpour of rain) visible in the air itself, you might look at using a mirror ball or mirrored drum with a light set in sequence with your lightning box, and have those projected onto some scrim cloth. The rotating ball or drum would give the motion of the rain and have those tiny "raindrops" illuminated only for the brief flashes of lightning. You could increase or decrease the amount and speed of the "rainfall" by adjusting the rotational speed, and the number of visible mirrors on the drum or ball You can start with a completely covered drum or ball, and then use painters tape to cover individual mirror squares to give a more sporadic appearance to the "rain". Remember that your ball or drum would need to be rotating so that the "rain" is falling downward, not "falling" upwards or horizontally.
I hope all of that made sense.


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## MansionHaunter (Sep 20, 2006)

I'm thinking the projection idea is the best; fontgeek's suggestion of using a mirrored drum would work really well.

The way they do it in the Tiki Room (and I believe the Haunted Mansion) is to use thin strips of mylar that are stretched somewhat tight, illuminated by a point source at an angle, and blown around by a fan. This makes little random reflections along the length of the mylar strips that look like raindrops falling. I did something like this behind one of my characters in a haunt a few years ago, using a gold reflective doorway curtain and yellow and red lights from below; this was to simulate fire behind the character and it was relatively effective.


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## nimblemonkey (Aug 21, 2011)

I like the idea of the mylar strips- Do you have a video of the effect?


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## WingThing (Nov 14, 2014)

Mylar strips are they twisted so they spin with the fan?


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## Hellvin (Jul 6, 2008)

There is a similar rain effect in Epcot's "Living with the Land" pavilion. In that one, I always imagined that they used threads of fishing line with just enough slack to flutter around in the breeze created by the fans and then upward projecting lights glint off the line.





(about 0:35 to 1:15 you can see the storm and falling rain generally to the left of screen)


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## MansionHaunter (Sep 20, 2006)

*Mylar strips*






the video above, around the 1:05 mark shows the effect in use; not as spectacular to see in this video but you get the gist.

The strips are free-hanging; i bought a gold mylar doorway garland from Party City and hung it such that the fan directs a glancing blast of air on it, and set red and orange lights beneath.


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