Performance controls
A Performance controls panel holds faders and buttons of your own. Use them to change a look while it plays, without touching the clips: the changes aren't saved in the show or kept in undo, and they work while editing is locked.
Add the panel with the layout button in the header: split a panel and choose Performance controls. See Screen layouts.
Variables
A variable is a number your formulas can read by name, set up once for the show. Define them under Show settings, or from a panel's Edit view. Give each one a name, a range, and the value it starts at:
| Name | Min | Max | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|
energy |
0 | 1 | 1 |
Then use the name in any lane or effect formula, and the formula editor offers it as you type:
sine(beat / 4 + x) * energy
0.5 + (sine(beat / 8) - 0.5) * sweep
The formula decides what the fader means, so one variable can calm a chase, narrow a head's sweep and dim a color all at once, across as many clips as you like. smooth(1, energy) eases a move over a beat.
Variables are saved with the show, up to 32 of them, but their values aren't: each one goes back to where it starts when the show opens. A name can't be one the formula language already uses, such as beat or sine. A variable a formula still reads can't be removed or renamed; change the formula first.
In blind mode a window following blind moves blind's own values, so the lights don't change.
Build the controls
Press Edit in the panel, with editing unlocked. + Fader and + Button add a control; give each a label, a type, and what it controls:
- Fader: stays where you leave it. Spring-back fader: returns to where it rests when you let go, for pushing a look at a drop.
- Button: fires once. A button on a variable or fader sends it to the top of its range.
- Toggle button: on, then off with the next press.
- Hold button: on while you hold it. On a clip or scene it plays them only while held.
A control can move a variable, a track's fader or the grand master, launch a clip or scene, tap the tempo, stop everything, or black out. Faders run across the top of the panel and buttons below, each in the order you put them.
Controls come in named sets, saved with the show. Each panel shows one set, so a window can have one for the drop and another for the house lights. A control whose variable, track or clip has gone stays in the panel, greyed out, until you point it at something else.