Getting Started
Key principle: Sources emit light waves. Fixture attributes receive and output DMX.
Yep. Light is so beautiful that you create lighting effects with...light!
Sources
Click the add source button and play with the different sliders. Begin by setting the power to 100%. Then move the range slider up and down and see how the source power goes from really far right to only the source's cell. Do the same thing with the horizontal(x) and vertical(y) sliders. You can also move the source around by dragging it directly with your mouse. See the direction buttons? Click it! This is the way to control where the power goes which is handy when you want to target only certain attributes. Finally, put the delay slider in the middle and then move the power slider and see how your change propagate slowly. This is very useful to achieve all sorts of delayed effects like activating a line of lights, one light at a time.
You can experiment a lot by manually moving sliders. Once you get a sense of your effect, you'll be able to automate it by linking any sliders to input values or to the scripting engine.
Adding Attributes To The Grid
The most important thing to know is that you can select multiple attributes in the list - if you're used to standard Windows list control then you already know how to do it. You have to use a combination of keyboard keys and mouse click:
CTRL-A: Select all attributes
CTRL and click an attribute: Add this attribute to the selection or remove it if already there.
SHIFT and click an attribute: Select all attributes from the last selected to this one.
As the fastest way to select attributes is using the CTRL-A shortcut, it is a good idea to first narrow down the list by typing some keywords in the search box. For example, if you want to select all intensity attributes, instead of selecting attributes one by one, you can type "intensity" (only "int" should do) in the search box and then click the first attribute and press CTRL-A. For more complex selections, you'll come to like giving your fixtures a group name so that you can select them really fast.
Once your selection done, there are two ways to add all attributes on the grid:
"Painting" mode: Click on the grid and hold the mouse button while you move the mouse around. If you want to keep "painting" even after all attributes have been added, you can hold the CTRL key.
Array mode: When multiple attributes are selected, you can click the array mode button. Then you specify the with of your array and just click on the grid where you want the array to begin. If you hold the CTRL key at the same time, attributes will fill all available space from the (0,0) cell up to the clicked cell.
Modifying Attributes' order: Want to reverse the order of your attributes to do a special effect? Select your attributes on the grid and go in the Edit/Attributes menu. You can flip the attributes horizontally, vertically and even randomize the order.
Grid Edition Tips
CTRL-Q keyboard shortcut: Toggle between source and attribute edition mode. Since you can put a source and an attribute in the same cell, you have to be in the proper mode to select the item you want.
You can select multiple items on the grid by clicking on an empty cell and holding the mouse button while you move the mouse. This creates a selection rectangle. Once the selection's done, you can remove items by clicking on them while holding the CTRL key.
You can move all selected items at once by clicking on a selected item and dragging it.
You can copy/paste the selected items. Mostly useful to create multiple identical sources.
RGB, CMY And The HSI Representation
Whatever your fixture color mixing capability is (RGB, RGBW, CMY...), you always end up working with hue, saturation and intensity attributes. This representation is more handy to create effects. In order to see some light, you have to put the intensity attributes on the grid and send them power. Otherwise, the default intensity value is 0%. Note that 50% is full color and 100% is pure white (really intense light) .
If your fixture has a dedicated dimmer channel, then the default intensity value is 50% and the dimmer is 0%, meaning you have in this case to add the dimmer attributes on the grid to see something.
