Exorcist and DMXorcist are currently marketed by SkullTroniX but within 6 months will be marketed directly by the developer, Phoenix Animatronics. SkullTroniX will market the products until the existing inventory is gone. After that point sales and support will come from the developer.
Exorcist and DMXorcist are Haunt/Show Controllers that work in conjunction with VSA animation software. Here's how it works:
VSA is Brookshire Software's animation software. VSA can control many kinds of devices commonly used in haunted attractions, stage shows, and theme parks.
In fact, using supported interfaces VSA can control pneumatic props, servo driven props, lighting, sound systems and much more. If there is anything you need to control, especially if it has to be synched to a sound file, VSA can handle it. VSA supports many different hardware interfaces. It would be hard to find a stage or haunt device that could not be controlled by VSA. VSA has a simple visual interface for creating events synchronized to sound files. In fact, we use VSA to control the lighting in our haunted house even when there are no other animatronic props or sound files involved in a scene.
So now you know that VSA handle device control (also known as "output devices" to us). Just remember that VSA controls OUTPUT.
But VSA doesn't have many ways to start or stop shows (routines) or the ability to synch to video, or to play multiple VSA files at the same time. VSA also only supports stereo audio. Sometimes we need more sound channels.
Enter the Exorcist. Through a combination of software and hardware, the Exorcist product provides multiple input triggers, additional sound players, video players and infrored remote control. So think of Exorcist as the missing INPUT half of VSA. But Exorcist does much, much more. Exorcist provides sound output with additonal sound channels and video output channels.
The Exorcist software provides a simple "pull down menu" approach to automating the playing of VSA routines with or without additional sound channels and video output. But the best way to understand the Exorcist is by example.
The main differences between DMXorcist and Exorcist:
- Exorcist can work with all of the supported output devics of VSA, including DMX devices.
- Exorcist support a maximum of 128 DMX channels
- Exorcist is limited to one VSA routine using the DMX interface at a time.
- DMXorcist allows up to 512 channels of DMX
- DMXorcist only supports DMX devices
- DMXorcist can play up to 8 separate VSA routines simultaneously (or with different start/stop times) on the same DMX interface by combining the data into one DMX data stream.
An example of when you would need DMXorcist vs Exorcist: You have two SkullTroniX skulls (and lights) in different rooms and want them to be separately triggered and to play different VSA routines. Because this requires multiple DMX routines playing through a single DMX interface you need DMXorcist.
Here are a few scenarios to show the power of the Exorcist:
Scenario 1. A scene has multiple stage lights that need to be synched to a piece of music. The music and light show needs to begin when someone walks in front of the scene. This could be solved by just having someone stand at the computer and then pressing the ENTER key at the right time. But with Exorcst a simple mat switch can be plugged in to trigger Exorcist to play the routine. But what if there are multiple people walking past? They can't all be allowed to trigger the same routine. Exorcist can solve this by setting a timer that must finish countdown before the routine can be retriggered.
Scenario 2. The same as Scenario 1 but we add a pneumatic prop. But we don't want the pneumatic prop to activate if people are too close. So we add another mat switch to the floor. Using Exorcist's simple functions we set a rule to allow activation when the first mat switch is triggered EXCEPT when the second mat switch has also been stepped on.
Scenaro 3. We now add a video projecting onto a GhostBust. Just load the video into one of Exorcist's video channels and it will trigger and synch the video to the rest of the show.
These are actually very simple scenarios compared to what Exorcist is really capable of. For more details check out our support forum.
The Exorcist and DMXorcist products are available in several versions:
Exorcist Manual