Creating a Projection

Projection — a virtual projector in the three-dimensional scene. It shines the picture of effects onto the fixtures that fall within its beam, and colors them according to where the fixture stands in space, not according to where it lies on the Mapping field. This is the second way to feed animation to fixtures, independent of layouts.

Projection is especially useful on volumetric objects — a facade with several walls, columns, an arch, a Christmas tree. Unfolding such an object into a flat mapping without distortion usually doesn't work: things that lie next to each other on the mapping may in reality face different directions. Projection solves this differently — a wave, a beam, or a running stripe passes through the object in real space, like actual light from a spotlight.

This article covers how to create a projector, aim it, and where it appears on the timeline. For effects inside a projection, see Добавление эффектов на проекцию; for its parameters one by one, see Настройки проекции.

What you need before you start

A projection shines onto fixtures in 3D, so before creating it the scene must already have something to shine on:

fixtures or splines in the 3D View window — placed manually, coming from an imported model, or transferred from the mapping (see Adding 3D Splines and 3D Toolbar);
these 3D objects must have a link assigned to the mapping fixtures — see Связь 2D и 3D. An object without a link does not light up in 3D, and a projection on it will show nothing either.

Decorations — walls, cubes, imported models — do not block the projection beam and are not lit up themselves: a projection only affects fixtures.

How to create a projection

Open the 3D View window (menu Window → 3D View).
In the window's toolbar, click the Add Projection button — it is in the last group of buttons, next to Duplicate and Spline Cloner. The program shows button names as a tooltip on hover.
The projection appears at the center of the scene and is immediately selected. It is named in order: Projection001, Projection002, and so on.
Aim it at the part of the object you need and set the frame size — how to do this is described below.
Add an effect to its group on the timeline — see Добавление эффектов на проекцию.

A new projection is created for the whole project at once, not for a single composition: its own projection row appears in every composition — both those already assembled and those you create later. The effects inside this row are separate for each composition. Layouts work the same way (see Creating and Editing Layouts).

Creating a projection is undone with Ctrl+Z and redone with Ctrl+Shift+Z.

How a projection looks in the scene

A projection is drawn as thin gray lines in the shape of an elongated box. It has:

a frame outline — a rectangle at the spot where the projection itself stands. Its size is set by the Width and Height parameters;
a beam box — four lines running from the frame in the direction the projector shines, with a closing rectangle at the end. The length of this box is set by the To parameter;
one more cross rectangle inside the box — the start of the effective zone, the From parameter.

Only fixtures inside this box light up. A fixture that ends up beyond its edge or past the end of the beam gets nothing from this projection.

A selected projection's lines turn white, and the frame outline shows a translucent picture of what it is currently projecting — this immediately shows where the effect lands. Deselect it, and only the lines remain.

A newly created projection stands at the center of the scene as a horizontal frame and shines downward, like a ceiling fixture. The frame is square, and the effective zone covers almost the entire scene in height, so the effect is visible right away on fixtures standing beneath it.

Displaying projections in the scene is turned off entirely with the F4 key (menu View → 3D View → Auxiliary 3D Objects): projection and camera lines stop blocking the model. The projections themselves keep working and remain in the 3D Objects list.

Aiming a projection

A projection is moved, rotated, and scaled with the same tools as any scene object (see 3D Navigation):

Enable the Select and Move tool and click the projection — or select its row in the 3D Objects window, if the projection's lines are hard to catch with the mouse.
Use the Move (Q), Rotate (E), and Scale (R) buttons on the toolbar to choose what the manipulator does, and drag the axis you need.
It's more convenient to enter exact values in the X, Y, Z fields on the same toolbar: in move mode this is the position in the scene, in rotate mode it's the angles in degrees.

A projection is aimed so its frame looks at the object head-on: what you see from the projector is exactly the picture that lands on the fixtures. The easiest way to check this is to select the projection and look at the translucent image in the frame.

Useful techniques:

Rotation Snap on the toolbar lets you rotate the projector in even steps — for example by 90°, to point it straight at a wall.
The Lock parameter in the Properties window (General section) prevents the projection from being selected with the mouse in the scene. A configured projector with lock on won't shift by accident while you're placing fixtures nearby; it can still be selected by its row in the 3D Objects window.
The Visibility parameter in the same place hides the lines of one specific projection without touching the others.

Frame size and effective zone

Select the projection — its parameters are shown in the Properties window.

Section	Parameter	What it sets
General	Width, Height	The dimensions of the frame outline. This is the width and height of the "spot" with which the projector covers the object
Projection	From, To	The near and far boundaries of the effective zone along the beam direction. Fixtures closer than From and farther than To are not lit
Texture Size	Width, Height	The resolution, in pixels, of the image in which this projection's effects are rendered

Usually you start with Width and Height: stretch the frame so it covers the needed part of the object entirely. From and To come in handy when other fixtures stand behind the lit object — a beam limited in depth simply won't reach them.

A detailed breakdown of all parameters, including texture size and how it affects detail and calculation speed, is in the article Настройки проекции.

Projection on the timeline

Each projection in a composition has its own row in the Timeline window's list — it works the same way as a layout row:

The row's Name matches the projection's name in the scene. Rename the projection, and the label on the timeline changes too.
The triangle on the left expands the row and shows the effects lying inside it. The program remembers the collapsed or expanded state in the project.
The checkbox turns the whole projection on and off: with the checkbox cleared, its effects don't play and aren't included in export. This is a convenient way to temporarily switch off a projector without deleting the effects you've set up.
Effects inside the row are arranged in time, stretched, and shortened the same way as in a layout — see Arranging Effects in Time. Their parameters' keyframes work too.

A projection row exists in every composition of the project, and the effects in it are separate for each composition — just like layouts. What plays in a projection reaches the fixtures on equal footing with regular effects: in the mapping and 3D preview, in Art-Net, and in exported *.cue files.

How to put an effect into a projection and what to do with it next — see Добавление эффектов на проекцию.

Renaming and deleting

Renaming: The name is edited in the 3D Object column of the 3D Objects window. Clear names — Facade, Columns, Roof — pay off as soon as there is more than one projection in the project: they let you find the right row on the timeline.

Deleting: Select the projection and press Delete. The program asks separately: Delete projection "Projection001"? — a configured projector can't be erased by accident. Along with the projection, its rows and all effects inside them disappear from every composition's timeline. An accidental deletion is undone with Ctrl+Z.

If a projection isn't lighting anything

Nothing changed on the fixtures. Check that the projection's row on the timeline actually has an effect in it, and that its bar covers the spot where the time cursor stands.
There's an effect, but the fixtures are dark. They likely aren't inside the beam box: select the projection and check whether the frame covers the fixtures you need, and if necessary increase Width and Height or loosen the From and To limits.
Only some fixtures light up. The rest are standing beyond the frame's edge or beyond the far boundary of the effective zone — or their 3D objects aren't linked to the mapping fixtures. An empty Mapping column in the 3D Objects window shows this right away.
The projection disappeared from the scene. Display of auxiliary objects is turned off with F4, or Visibility is cleared for the projection itself. It doesn't stop working either way.
Can't find the projection row on the timeline. It exists in every composition, but the list may have scrolled — scroll it all the way down.