Create New Show

Seeing Blender error messages.#

Some operations might take a while, end with an error or produce some information into the console, it is thus advisable to always observe the console output.

If you are on Windows, open the system console via Blender - menu - Window - Open System Console. If you are on other systems, run Blender from the terminal, to see the messages: open a terminal app on your computer and start Blender from the command line. You will then see all details and errors printed to the terminal.

Manual Editing of Fixture Data#

Upon Create New Show BlenderDMX Addon creates a DMX collection in which the BlenderDMX data is stored. Fixtures imported from GDTF reside here and these have their own node trees for them. Manually editing or deleting data from the DMX collection, in fixtures’ geometries or node trees will likely cause the addon to stop working. Generally, avoid such manual edits. After enabling the Addon, it shows up at the 3D View, as a DMX tab on the right side, which shows a single panel:

New Show#

By clicking Create New Show:

• A new DMX collection is created on the Scene;
• DMX Data Structures are created on the Blender File;
• All DMX Panels are registered, offering full control of fixtures and channels;

When the Blender file is saved, all of the DMX data such as Universes, Fixtures and Addresses are stored with it. When you open the file, the DMX panels should already be available.

Manipulating the DMX collection manually might corrupt the project file, be careful.

Setup#

Beam Volume#

Simple Beam#

Display a semi-transparent cone representing the light beam of the current active fixture. It works by enabling Blender’s native Show Cone feature of Spot Lights. This can be set to None, Selected fixtures and All fixtures.

Disable Beam Outlines#

Don’t display light-related overlays on the Viewport. Useful for scenes with dozens of lights.

Viewport Denoising#

Denoise image using temporal reprojection (can leave some ghosting).

Volume Box#

Create/Update Volume Box#

Create a box around the whole scene with a haze - a Volume Scatter shader, to simulate ambient fog/haze.

Enable Volume Scatter#

Toggle the visibility of the Volume Box.

Density#

Density of the Volume Scatter, basically the density of fog/haze in the room. Default is 0.1 .

Noise Scale#

Noise Scale of the generated fog.

Multiply Beams Intensity#

Allows to make beams more (value bigger then 1) or less (value smaller then 1) bright to quickly test various intensity settings.

Beam Lens Diameter in Cycles#

This allows to adjust how beam rendering in Cycles looks when rendering gobos - whether beam looks really nice and fills the beam lens (Full width), but gobos can be a bit blurry, or, gobos are really sharp, but beam starts in front of the lens (Reduced). If set to Custom, one can set the “beam radius pin sized for gobos” attribute on each light beam to True/False either manually or via the following quick set buttons:

Custom Cutoff Distance#

Distance at which the influence of the light will be set to 0. Value bigger then 23 will break gobo rendering in Eevee Next. Select desired fixtures and press the button to apply the value.

NOTE: Read more about how to render lighting beams in BlenderDMX Addon.

Laser collistion collection#

See Laser

Custom Cutoff Distance#

Eevee Next tries to automatically calculate the clip start/clip end based on the maximum projection (Cutoff) distance. This automatic calculation causes gobos to stop working, thus the Cutoff distance is set to 23m in BlenderDMX Addon which allows the gobo projection to work. If longer beam projection is needed, the cutoff can be adjusted manually.

Viewport#

Background#

A background color. This picker alters the World Shading, by directly altering the Color Node attribute.

Pause Renderer#

During GDTF and MVR import and also in 2D View, rendering is paused, to prevent issues and to speed things up. This toggle is here in case it needs to be manually re-enabled.

Display 2D View#

Switches the view to the TOP view, hides 3D models of fixtures and shows 2D symbol from GDTF. This 2D is aligned with 3D. Clicking on 2D will make 3D model of selected fixture visible and it can now by positioned and rotated. The 2D symbol will be also positioned and rotated in Z axis.

Display Device Label#

Shows a label with Device name/DMX address/Fixture ID above the device in 2D or 3D.

Display Pigtails#

Show/Hide the Pigtail - position where the fixture’s wiring connections are, typically indicating where back of the fixture is.

Allow Selecting Geometries#

Normally, only Base and Target of the fixture can be selected. The Allow Selecting Geometries option allows to select any part of the fixture. The BlenderDMX Addon uses a DMX collection in which the BlenderDMX data is stored. Fixtures imported from GDTF reside here and have own node trees in there. Manually editing or deleting data from the DMX collection, in fixtures' geometries or node trees will likely cause the addon to stop working. Generally, avoid such manual edits. If you break a fixture or its collection, the BlenderDMX Addon might stop working correctly, and even Fixture → Edit might stop working. You can force-delete fixture via the Fixture list.

Logging#

You can enable increased level of logging via this menu. Normally, only Errors are logged (displayed in the terminal and written to a log file). By choosing Warning, Info or even Debug you get more and more details. If you experience issues, it is good to start Blender from a terminal to see what the logging output shows and set increased level of logging.

You can also further filter the logging by selecting the highest level of logging (Debug) and setting the Log filter, to only log specific parts of the BlenderDMX Addon, like data related to MVR-xchange protocol, DMX Data or data related to Fixtures.

If you experience some issues or crashes, try to increase the logging level to Debug and replicate the action leading to the error, then look into the terminal and into the “blenderDMX.log” logfile if you see anything obvious. Eventually, take the error message or the full blenderDMX.log log file and ask in the Discord group.

Import#

• GDTF files can also be imported via Import GDTF Profile or via Blender - File - Import. You can read more about GDTF here.
• Full scene can be imported with the Import MVR Scene, or via Blender - File - Import. You can read more about MVR here.
• Import Project data - project data (GDTF files, gobos, MVR textures and so on) can be Imported from previously Exported zip file with Project data.

Export#

• Project data (GDTF files, gobos, MVR textures and so on) can be Exported to a zip file, for a later Import or when sharing the .blend file with someone.
• MVR export of the complete scene including the fixtures and scene objects.

NOTE: Gobo images, MVR 3D models, MVR textures and so on must be kept within the addon directory. The Setup - Export/Import Project data allows to Export/Import project data.

Extras#

Clear Project Data#

Clears the assets directory.

Copy data from addon to user directory#

Copy custom data from BlenderDMX addon directory to BlenderDMX extension user directory.

Remove DMX from blend file#

Remove DMX from the Blender showfile

User Guide#

Opens this documentation in web browser.