Lighting from the cue list
The lights in the same list as the sound, fired by the same GO: Cuerunner sends DMX over the network itself, as sACN or Art-Net, to whatever node or dimmer rack the rig is on.
1. Patch the rig
The Lighting view, then Patch. Choose a type and a mode, a universe, and how many: Patch puts them one after another in the first gaps that fit, or from the address you type. The built-in types are a dimmer, RGB, dimmer + RGB, RGBW, RGBA, RGBAW + UV and a basic moving head in 8- or 16-bit; anything else is a type you make from a channel list, an Open Fixture Library definition file read in, or a GDTF file — the format fixture makers publish their own fixtures in, on the GDTF Share and on their own sites — with Import GDTF file….
A GDTF import brings every DMX mode the fixture has, each channel at its own width, where each one rests, and the functions across a channel's travel: a shutter that is closed, open and then strobing says which on its fader as you move it. A 24-bit channel is driven on its top two bytes, and the import says so. A fixture whose mode is split over several DMX breaks — separately addressed parts — is refused with a sentence saying so: patch each part as a fixture of its own type. The formats reference has the whole mapping.
Two fixtures sharing a slot, and one that runs off the end of its universe, are listed above the patch in amber before the show finds them. Identify flashes a fixture for three seconds — light and colour full, a head centred — so you can find it in the rig.
Groups are fixtures a cue drives as one: a level on a group reaches every member that has that parameter, so "the wash to blue" is one line in a cue however many fixtures are in the wash.
2. Send it somewhere
Network, then Add output for each universe: sACN to its multicast group or to one receiver, or Art-Net broadcast or to one node. A universe can have both. sACN carries a priority, for a rig where a console sends too; Synchronise holds every universe's frame until they can all change at once. Interface pins the traffic to one network card — a machine fact, kept with the machine rather than the show. Find nodes asks the Art-Net network who is there.
3. Build a look and record it
Faders has every fixture's parameters live, over whatever the cues are doing. Set the look by eye, then Record into cue (or New Light cue): the faders' values go into the cue and the faders let go, so the next GO shows the cue rather than the faders on top of it. A look can also be built and trimmed in the cue's own Light tab.
4. Run it
A Light cue's Fade is how long its look takes to arrive, on the curve it names. What the cue does not name stays where the cues before it left it — tracking — and a later cue that sets the same parameter takes it over: latest takes precedence. A cue whose intensity is highest takes precedence adds its intensity alongside the others instead, and the light is as bright as the brightest of them. The Tracking tab shows, parameter by parameter, what the cue moves, what it sets to where it already was, and what it leaves.
- STOP stops a fade where it has got to. The light stays on.
- A Stop cue with a fade-out releases a Light cue: what it holds fades home.
- A Fade cue aimed at a Light cue moves its intensity to a share of what it set — 0.5 is half.
- Effects keep a parameter moving after the fade — sine, triangle, square or saw. On a group, spread starts each member at its own point, which is a chase.
5. Watch it, and the consoles beside it
Monitor shows every slot of a universe as it goes out, ten times a second. Listen to this universe in Network hears another console's sACN or Art-Net: it shows under each slot, and with Merge in it is merged into this show's output, highest takes precedence.