Isadora to Lights
Stream an Isadora Stage or Virtual Stage over NDI so Spectralite can drive lighting fixtures from an interactive Isadora patch.
Isadora patches usually react to an input such as a sensor, a performer, or a cue from stage management. When you publish a Stage over NDI, the fixtures respond to the same input as the video. No operator has to follow along.
Turn on NDI for a Stage
Open Output > Stage Setup and select the Stage that you want to send. In the External Outputs section of the Stage Settings, tick NDI. That Stage now publishes over the network.
For a feed that exists only to drive lighting, use a Virtual Stage instead. A Virtual Stage receives video and has a stage number like an ordinary Stage. It has no display hardware behind it, so it suits output to Syphon, Spout, or NDI. Isadora supports up to 48 Stages across both kinds.
TroikaTronix covers Stage Setup itself in Quick Start with Stage Setup, and the NDI side in Basics of NDI Input and Output.
Pick up the stream in Spectralite
Open Edit > Inputs > NDI. Turn on NDI input enabled and Auto-discover sources.
Put the video on your fixtures
Add a Timeline layer with the built-in NDI Input effect. To decide how the pixels drive your rig, place an NDI Input node in the Node Editor instead.
Sending control values as well as pictures
A Virtual Stage can carry control values in place of a picture. Render one solid rectangle per fixture group, and let your patch set each brightness. Each rectangle then works as a control channel. When you point each fixture at its own rectangle in the Spectralite layout, the patch drives the fixtures individually.
Keep a Virtual Stage for control values small. It only needs one distinct region per group, and a small stage costs almost nothing to encode.
Related
- Receive video from another app: shared performance and troubleshooting.
- Layout Editor: assign each fixture a sampling position.
- Node Editor: shape the sampled values.
- Connect Your Software: guides for other applications.