Show Structure ​

How Studio works gives the big picture. This page defines each part of a show, what it owns and how the parts refer to each other, so the rest of the manual reads precisely.

Show
├─ Universes ─ Fixtures (each at an address, in a mode; some made of cells)
├─ Groups ──── fixtures of any universe
│   ├─ Cues ── Scenes and Effects
│   └─ Chases ─ cue items on a timeline
└─ Master ─── rows of chases across all groups

Read it from the bottom up and it is how a show plays: the master starts chases, chases play cues at given times, cues write values into the channels of a group's fixtures, and every fixture's channels sit in a universe that is sent to your lights.

Every example on this page comes from the manual's demo show, the same rig as on the home page: four moving heads hung over a stage. Every live preview in the manual runs on it. This page defines each part and links to the page where you see it work. Here is the demo show in full:

Show ​

Everything you build: universes and fixtures, groups with their cues and chases, the tempo and the visualizer settings. A show is saved as a showfile, a JSON file the web and desktop versions share, so a show programmed in the browser opens in the desktop app and the other way round.

What's playing is not part of the show: cues and chases you started, faders moved in the universe view to check a fixture. Saving never stores them, and opening a show starts with everything stopped.

In the demo show: the show is called Manual demo and runs at 120 BPM, so a bar (4 beats) lasts 2 seconds.

Universe ​

A block of 512 DMX channels, sent to your lights through one output (a USB interface, an Art-Net or sACN node…). Studio counts its addresses from 0 to 511. A new show has four universes; add more as your rig grows.

Universes are how the rig is wired, not how it is programmed: a group can hold fixtures of several universes, and a cue doesn't care which universe a fixture is in.

In the demo show: one universe, Stage, holds the four heads; the patch bay lists them with their addresses (The interface). → Patching fixtures

Fixture ​

One light, patched in a universe at an address, in a mode. The mode decides which channels it has and in which order: a shutter, a dimmer, pan and tilt, colour, a zoom… A fixture takes as many addresses as its mode has channels, from its address on, so two fixtures must not overlap.

A fixture also has a position and a rotation on stage, in metres and degrees. They don't change the DMX it receives: they place it in the visualizer, so what you see there matches the real rig.

In the demo show: the four MAC Aura are moving heads in their Standard mode: 14 channels each (shutter, dimmer, zoom, pan, tilt, red, green, blue, white…). MAC Aura 1 takes addresses 0 to 13, so MAC Aura 2 starts at 14, MAC Aura 3 at 28 and MAC Aura 4 at 42. They hang 6 m up, 3 m apart (x = −4.5, −1.5, 1.5 and 4.5 m), turned 180° so they point down. → Patching fixtures, Fixture Library

Cells ​

Some fixtures repeat a set of channels: each pixel of a bar has its own red, green and blue; each head of a multi-head fixture its own pan and tilt. Each repeat is a cell. Scenes can give every cell its own values, and effects can be spread over cells, so they travel from pixel to pixel instead of moving the whole fixture at once. Channels that act on the whole fixture (a master dimmer, a strobe) belong to no cell.

The demo rig's heads have one cell each. → Cells, with a pixel bar to try

Group ​

A set of fixtures you program together, from any universes. A fixture can be in several groups: all heads, left side, outer pair. A group owns its cues and chases, and they only ever touch the group's fixtures, so two groups can play at the same time without fighting over the same lights, as long as their fixtures differ.

Each column of the group pool is one group, with its chases and its play buttons.

In the demo show: one group, Rig, holds the four heads. → Groups

Cue ​

Something a group does. A group's cues sit in its cue pool, one per slot, and a click on a cue plays or stops it. There are two kinds:

Every cue has a Duration in bars and a Loop Style (once, or until stopped). Scenes have a Start: from 0, or from the channels' current values. Durations follow the tempo: double the BPM and every fade and every effect runs twice as fast.

In the demo show: Rig has four cues.

• Warm wash (scene): amber pools in front of each head, at 90 %.
• Rainbow (effect): the colour cycles through the hues, one head a quarter-turn behind the next.
• Ballyhoo (effect): pan and tilt draw crossing circles, in blue.
• Sunset (scene): deep red to gold across the rig, beams fanned wide.

Watch them play: → Scenes, Effects

Chase ​

A timeline of a group's cues. Each cue item says "play this cue from here, for this long". Items on different lanes can overlap and play together: a colour effect over a position scene, for example. A chase has a duration in bars, plays once or in a loop, and can wait for the next bar to start. A group plays one chase at a time.

In the demo show: Rig's chase Story lasts 8 bars (16 s): Warm wash in bars 1–2, Rainbow in bars 3–4, Ballyhoo in bars 5–6, Sunset in bars 7–8. Each cue has its own lane. → Chases

Master ​

The column of rows on the right of the group pool. Row n of the master starts (or stops) chase n of every group at once, so chases placed on the same row work as one look for the whole rig: the lights on the left play their part, the lights on the right theirs, started on the same beat.

In the demo show: row 0 holds Story, the only chase. One click on the master's row 0 plays it, as the group's own play button would; with more groups, the same click would start each group's chase 0 together. → Playing a show

What owns what ​

Nothing is undone after you confirm a deletion, and there is no undo yet: save before a big clean-up, or work on a copy of the showfile.