Programming lights

Programming is how you make looks and play them back. Select fixtures, set their values, store what you like as groups, presets, sequences and effects, then run them on playback strips, the Live page or the timeline with your songs. Everything here is in the Lighting window: the Stage layout for looks, Playback for cues and Live for running the show.

Select fixtures

Click a fixture on a stage view, the Plan or the Fixtures list to select it. On the Plan: "Click selects, Shift adds, Command toggles; a box left to right takes what it encloses, right to left what it touches". A group selects its fixtures in its order. The order matters: fans and effects spread over the selection in that order.

The selection and its values are the programmer. Nothing you set there is an undo step; it is what you store that the show keeps.

Values

The Values panel shows every attribute the selection has, in sections: Intensity, Position, Colour, Beam, Gobo, Focus, Control, Shapers and Video, with a Pan and tilt pad, a Colour mix with Hue and saturation, and Shutter/Strobe where the fixtures have them. Until you select something it reads "Select fixtures on the stage or in the patch to set their values."

Drag a value and the rig follows on every frame of the drag. A value that differs between the selected fixtures reads Mixed. Right-click a value for:

The panel's keys:

Right-click a fixture for Park and Unpark: a parked value holds over everything until you unpark it.

Fan

Fan spreads a value across the selection, for example pan from -30° to 30° over a row of heads. Set the Fan width, the Fan centre and the Fan mode. Add stop holds a value at one fixture of the fan; Remove fan ends it and leaves the values as they are. Use spacing spreads by the fixtures' places in the group layouts, not by their order.

Groups

The Groups panel stores selections. "Select fixtures, then + stores them as a group." "Click to select its fixtures, double-click to rename" (on Windows, click again to rename). Right-click a group for Update from selection, Add selection, Duplicate, Rename, Delete, Split left and right, Tags and its layout, and choose Group of groups to make a group that follows other groups. Under Automatic groups the panel also lists groups Cliqer makes for you: "Automatic group: click to select its fixtures".

Each group has a 2D layout, which fans and effects can follow. Find Fixtures builds one from a camera.

Presets

A Lighting preset stores values to put back on any selection. The Presets panel sorts them in pools: Intensity, Colour, Position, Beam, Gobo, Focus and All. Set values, then Store as preset (or Store Lighting Preset when the pool is empty: "Set values, then store them as a preset."). Click a preset to put it on the selection. Right-click for Update, Rename, Duplicate, Delete, Move to a folder, and Folder to add one.

Sequences

A sequence is a list of steps, each a look with its timing. In Sequences choose Add ("Add a sequence"), then record steps from the Values: "Add one, then record steps from the Values."

The Editor shows the picked sequence's steps:

Each step has a Fade in, a Delay and a Trigger: Go waits for you, Follow goes on by itself after its Wait. Snap sets, for each attribute, whether it fades or jumps (Jump).

The sequence's own settings:

Choose Put on playback to play it: "Put the sequence on a playback to play it".

Playbacks

The Playbacks panel holds the strips that play sequences and effects. Drag a sequence or an effect onto it ("Drop a sequence or effect here"). Each strip has:

Pick a strip and Space is Go, Shift+Space Back. Strips sit on pages: the page keys switch them, Add page adds one, Release page lets go of a page's strips and Move to page moves a strip.

A strip's settings:

Lighting snapshots

A Lighting snapshot saves what runs now, every playback, and puts it back later, fading on the playbacks' own times. Use Save Lighting Snapshot ("Set the lights, then save a snapshot.") and Update Lighting Snapshot. Include Grand master makes a snapshot set the grand master too. A song in the setlist can recall one: see Songs and the timeline.

Effects

An effect moves a value over time across fixtures. The Effects panel has the library, Search effects, and the effects In this show. Click a library effect to run it on the selected fixtures; Add to show keeps it.

The library has Colour, Position, Zoom, Iris, Dimmer and Shutter effects. Position paths include Circle, Ellipse, Figure Eight, Infinity, Butterfly, Petals, Pan Sweep, Tilt Sweep, Snake, Saw Teeth, Wander, Crowd Sweep, Square, Triangle, Diamond, Spiral, Cross, Swing and Star, and patterns include Comet, Ripple, Rain, Fire, Scanner and Sparkle.

Choose Edit on an effect to set its Shape, Size, Speed (Speed in Hz, or Free of the tempo), Spread, Wave, Fade, Steps, Step levels, Random order, Invert, Blend (Replace or Overlay), Play once or Repeat, and Start on press. Use selection puts it on the fixtures selected now. Put on playback puts it on a strip.

The Live page

The Live layout is for running a show by hand. The Buttons panel has a card for each group:

Its buttons fire presets, effects and playbacks: "Click to play it. Hold Option to flash it". Turn on Edit to add them ("No buttons. Turn on Edit to add some."): Add button, Move to group, Add group from selection. Buttons of an attached set are one choice: "Buttons of one set are one choice: firing one releases the others", with Next and Previous.

The Page master panel holds the page master over the page's groups and the tempo, in BPM.

Songs and the timeline

Lights can run on the Timeline Editor with your media, on the plans that have it.

Light tracks

Choose Add Light track in the Timeline Editor's bar. A Light track holds light clips: a Go to a step of a sequence, a Release or Flash of a sequence, a Look, or one attribute drawn as a curve over a group or fixtures. Arm a Light track and play the timeline: your Go, Flash, Release and effect presses become clips on it. Clips can snap to the song's beats, and a section's clips can be copied to the next section of the same kind or repeated every few bars.

Auto show

Pick the Song (the audio clip "the bars, beats, sections and Auto show follow") and choose Analyse. Then Auto show makes "a light show from the song, previewed on the Stage before Take":

1. Pick a Style: Energetic ("Bright, on the beat, strobes on drops"), Smooth ("Slow fades and moves, few accents"), Club ("Fast chases, a strobe on every bar of a drop") or Concert ("Steady light on the singer, moves on bars").
2. Choose Preview on Stage. The show plays on the stage views while the rig keeps what it runs.
3. Choose Take to keep it, or Discard. Rerun this section makes the section at the playhead again; Whole song goes back to the whole song.

Auto show runs on your computer.

A show from words

Type what you want in "Say the show you want: warm and slow, big on the chorus" and choose Say the show. Cliqer's AI writes the show ("Making the show...") for credits, and it previews like an Auto show, with Take and Discard. On a group track the box asks for the looks instead ("Say the looks").

Setlist

In the setlist each song can set the lights as it starts: Lighting for this song picks a Lighting snapshot, or No lighting change. Save lighting to this song saves what runs now as a snapshot for that song.

Notices

Windows and macOS

Values, groups, presets, sequences, playbacks, snapshots, effects, the Live page, Light tracks and Auto show are on both, with the same words.

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