You’ve selected fixtures (03.01) — now set their light. There are two tools for this: channel faders (precise, channel by channel) and quick panels (color/position/gobo in one click). Usually the quick panels are enough; the faders are for fine-tuning.
Channel faders
Vertical sliders for the channels of the selected fixtures: Dimmer, Red/Green/Blue, Strobe, Pan/Tilt, and so on — exactly the channels the fixture has in its profile.
- Drag a slider — the value goes straight to the fixtures and to the visualizer.
- Mouse wheel over a fader — hover the cursor over any slider and scroll: up — more, down — less. Handy for fine adjustment without dragging. Works over any slider in the program (channels, submasters, master, sound/effect sliders).
- Click the number above a fader — type an exact value from the keyboard (Enter — apply, Esc — cancel).
- With several fixtures selected, the fader moves that channel on all of them at once.
- Fixtures of different models — the program finds the right channel on each one. If Zoom sits on channel 12 of one head and on channel 9 of another, there is still a single “Zoom” fader and it moves both. The exception is gobo and colour wheels: on different models the same number picks different slots, so those keep separate faders (only wheels with a fully matching slot set are merged). Channels whose purpose the program does not know (“Other”, “Program”) also stay separate — give them the right type in the Patch if you want one shared fader.
Mode lists above the fader
On channels where one physical value sets different functions (shutter/strobe, prism, colour wheel rotation, zoom, focus and so on) a list of modes appears above the fader. The program takes the ranges straight from the fixture profile, so you don’t have to remember which number switches which mode on.
- A state mode (“Open”, “Closed”, “Prism on”, “Dimmer mode”) is picked with a single click.
- An adjustable mode (“Strobe”, “Pulse”, “Rotation”, “Fan noise from minimum to maximum”) — choose it in the list and the fader under it starts changing the value inside that mode. On a strobe, for instance, the fader sets the flash rate. The number above the fader is also the DMX value 0–255: the slider travels within its own section but shows exactly the number that goes to the fixture.
Until you choose such a mode, the fader travels across the whole channel, 0–255 — even when the value happens to sit inside an adjustable section. You can restore the full travel at any time: pick a regular mode from the list, click the number and type a value, or press “Reset”.
- Service commands (Reset, Lamp on/off) are protected: the program asks for confirmation and afterwards returns the channel to a safe position by itself.
- A closed shutter kills the beam in the visualizer, just like on a real fixture.
If a channel has only one function, or it is an ordinary continuous channel (Brightness, R/G/B), there is no list — a plain fader works.
Service commands: fixture reset and lamp
If the selected fixtures have service ranges described, a “Service” block with buttons appears in the control panel:
- Fixture reset — reboots a “hung” head: the motors run to zero and the fixture comes back to a working state. Precisely, without restarting the program and without cutting the power.
- Lamp off / on — puts the lamp out so it can cool down. On discharge lamps this noticeably extends their life.
The program asks for confirmation, holds the command for a few seconds and returns the channel to neutral by itself — otherwise the command would “stick” and repeat the next time the power is switched on.
Gobo shake
On many heads, next to the ordinary gobo positions, there is a shake (gobo shake) — the pattern trembles on the spot. Such positions are marked with a ⇅ icon in the gobo palette: pick the position, and set the speed of the shake with the fader of the gobo channel itself. Gobo wheel rotation works the same way.
Zoom, focus, prism, frost — the shape of the beam
Smart fixtures (mostly moving heads) have channels that change the beam itself, on top of brightness and colour. They are all set right here, with the ordinary channel fader — and, when the manufacturer split the channel into ranges, with the mode list above it.
| Channel | What it does | Which way |
|---|---|---|
| Zoom | Beam width: a narrow “pencil” ↔ a wide wash | Lower value — narrower beam (a dense shaft in haze), higher — a wider pool |
| Focus | Sharpness: crisp edge and gobo pattern ↔ soft blur | Set by eye for the distance to the surface |
| Prism | Splits the beam into several (usually 3 or 8) | Normally on/off; some fixtures also rotate the prism |
| Frost | Frosted glass: turns the beam into a soft wash | Smoothly, from 0 (clear) to 100 (softest) |
ℹ️ Do not confuse this with the interface scale of the app (Ctrl+↑/↓) or with zooming the picture in the visualizer — those are about the screen, not the fixture. More: Program menu and interface scale.
Quick panels: Color · Position · Beam/Gobo · Effects
Next to the faders are compact panels (they collapse into tabs when there’s not enough room):
| Panel | What’s inside |
|---|---|
| Color | 8 pure colours in one click, the “Palette” button for any shade, and the “Gradient” button — give every fixture its own colour |
| Position | A “pad” square: drag the dot — the heads turn (Pan/Tilt); direction icons alongside. For fine adjustment, simply select a head or group: in Program mode the arrow keys work immediately, even when Position is closed. ←/→ controls Pan, ↑/↓ controls Tilt, in 1% steps; hold an arrow for continuous movement |
| Beam / Gobo | Gobo stencils (circle, star, dots, triangle, spiral, lines) |
| Effects (FX Engine) | Two engines in one panel, switched by the buttons at the top of the block; a dot on a button means that engine is currently running. Movement — live pan/tilt (circle, figure-eight, zigzag, spiral, bounce and more — 14 shapes in total), heads only: static fixtures get a note explaining they have nothing to move. The Spread slider sends the movement along the heads as a wave; at zero they move together. When you switch it on, the head eases into the shape from where it stands instead of jumping. Intensity wave — fixtures breathe, pulse or blink on top of the light you already set, without changing its colour; works on any fixture, PARs included. |
The colour buttons are “pure”, not approximate
The eight squares in the “Color” panel are red, green, blue, white, amber (Amber), ultraviolet (UV), cyan (Cyan) and magenta (Magenta). The first six are real LEDs that fixtures actually carry; the last two are honest mixes (cyan = green + blue, magenta = red + blue).
The program looks at what the fixture can physically do:
- there is a separate white LED (RGBW) — the “White” button lights exactly that one and turns R/G/B off. This matters: a mix of R+G+B gives its own white, noticeably different in tint, and on a fixture with a white diode it is also dimmer;
- there is Amber or UV — the same principle, only the right diode lights up;
- there is no such LED — the colour is imitated with whatever the fixture does have (UV on an ordinary RGB PAR, for example, becomes violet);
- a fixture with CMY filters — the chosen colour is converted into Cyan/Magenta/Yellow automatically. You can select RGB fixtures, CMY fixtures and heads with a wheel together: all of them get the same visible colour;
- a fixture with a colour wheel — the wheel travels to the nearest suitable slot. If the wheel has positions made of two halves (“red + yellow”), the program compares your colour with each half: orange honestly goes to such a position instead of to pure red. The position square is then shown split into parts — as many as it has colours.
- a fixture whose colour is picked from a ready-made list (a single channel of the “Color Macros” kind: red, green, lavender and so on) — the program reads that list as an ordinary colour wheel and moves the channel to a suitable position. That is how cheap models and the short 1–3 channel modes of ordinary fixtures are built. The list of positions is visible in the Patch — if the manufacturer named the colours in its own way, correct the names there. On a fixture that can mix colour itself (it has red/green/blue channels) such a channel stays a list of modes above the fader and the palette does not touch it — otherwise the R/G/B faders would stop working;
- a fixture that cannot change colour at all (a strobe, a fog machine, a unit with a single white LED) — the program says so with a message and names the fixtures, so the click does not look broken.
Hover the cursor over a square and the colour name pops up. A white frame around a square means the fixture is shining exactly that colour right now; if no square has a frame, the current shade matches none of the buttons (it was picked from the “Palette”, for example).
Intermediate shades — pink, turquoise, warm white and any others — take with the “Palette” button: it opens a window with an extended set, a HEX field and a system eyedropper.
Everything above paints the selected fixtures the same. When you need the opposite — each fixture its own colour (a rainbow across the front, a sunset from the edge to the centre, a warm and a cold side of the stage) — use the “Gradient” button next to it: 03.03 Gradient: a Colour per Fixture.
Handy nearby
- Highlight (key H) — the selected fixtures flash to full: it’s easy to see in the room which ones you’re holding selected.
- Clear the programmer (key C) — discards unsaved edits and restores the active scene. Smeared on too much? Press C and you’re clean.
- Quick save to a scene — the button by the visualizer (08.01): the current light picture becomes a scene in one click.
A typical work cycle in Prog:
- Select fixtures (click/group).
- Set them up: color → position → brightness (panels or faders).
- Save as a scene.
- Repeat for the next picture → build a chase from the scenes.
