Terminology

This page collects the concepts used throughout Light Stream Software and referenced across all articles of the manual. Terms are given exactly as they appear in the program itself.

Project and Workspace

Project: Everything you do in Light Stream lives inside a single project file with the .ls extension: fixtures and their placement, devices and patching, compositions with effects, layouts, 3D scene settings. A project is created in the Welcome to Light Stream window or with the File → New Project command — that's where you set the name, the folder, and the Frames Per Second for Project. A project is saved with File → Save or Ctrl+S.

Workspace: The placement and size of the program's windows. Any window can be dragged, docked to another edge, or moved to a second monitor; which windows are shown is set in the Window menu. You can keep several layouts: the Window → Workspace menu opens a list where a layout can be created (New), remembered (Save), applied (Load), and marked to open On Startup. See Workspace.

Mapping: The main working window and, at the same time, the pixel field itself where fixtures are placed and effects are drawn. The size of the field is the size of the "screen" that is later broadcast to the fixtures; every pixel of the field can become a pixel of a fixture. The term "mapping" refers both to this field and to the process of arranging fixtures on it.

Properties: A window with the parameters of whatever is currently selected: a fixture, a spline, a device, a port, a 3D object, a composition. If an effect is selected, this same window shows its settings and all of its parameters. Most of the settings in the program are made right here. See Properties.

Settings: General settings — language, mapping behavior, bindings, sound, network, export, performance. Opened via the Settings → Properties menu or Ctrl+P. The Main Layout Size button, which changes the size of the Mapping field, is also here. See Settings.

Fixtures and Addressing

Fixture: A luminaire or a group of LEDs that the program controls as a single whole. A fixture has a type from the library (how many channels, which colors, pixel size), a position on the Mapping field, and an address. Fixtures can be single or assembled into splines. See Виды и типы приборов.

Single Fixture: A fixture standing on the field by itself — one point with a single set of channels: an RGB pixel, a moving fixture, a dimmer.

Spline: A line on the field along which pixels of a single type are evenly placed. This is how LED strips and bars are defined: one line — hundreds of pixels addressed in sequence. A spline moves, scales, and patches as a single fixture, while its vertices are edited individually with the Edit Spline tool. See Splines and Single Fixtures.

Pixel: The smallest controllable unit of a fixture — a single LED or a single cell of a strip. A single fixture usually has one pixel, a spline has many. The number of pixels and channels per pixel determines how many DMX channels a fixture will occupy.

Channel: A single value from 0 to 255 sent to a fixture. An RGB pixel occupies three channels, RGBW — four, a moving fixture — as many as defined in its description.

Address: The number of a fixture's first channel within a universe, from 1 to 512. The fixture's subsequent channels follow it in sequence.

Universe: A block of 512 DMX channels — the amount carried over a single DMX line or a single Art-Net/sACN stream. A large spline occupies several universes in a row. The pair "universe + address" uniquely defines where a fixture sits in the data stream.

Fixture Library: A catalog of fixture types — built-in and user-created. Opened via the Settings → Fixture Library menu. The type to add is chosen from the library, and custom fixtures are also created there. See Fixture Library and Создание пользовательских приборов.

Devices and Patching

Device: The hardware through which the signal leaves the program and reaches the fixtures. Devices are added with the Add Device button in the Fixtures window and configured in Properties. The program supports Light Stream Player and Player V2 — standalone players, Converter 2, Converter 6, and Converter 8 LITE — Art-Net to DMX/SPI converters, as well as a generic Art-Net Converter with 1–16 ports for third-party nodes. See Light Stream Player Settings and Light Stream Converter Parameters.

Port: The physical output of a device to which a line of fixtures is connected. The number of ports a device has depends on its model; each port has its own starting universe, number of universes, and Port Mode — DMX or SPI. A fixture placed into a port will receive data from that specific output.

Patch: Assigning fixtures to device ports and handing out addresses. Done by dragging a fixture onto a port in the Fixtures window, or automatically if the Auto Patch checkbox is enabled. The reverse operation is Unpatch. See Patching Fixtures.

Art-Net, sACN, DMX: Data transmission protocols. DMX is the standard for controlling lighting equipment over a cable, 512 channels per line. Art-Net and sACN are ways to carry the same data over an Ethernet network, many universes over a single cable; which of the two protocols to use is chosen in the device's properties.

Compositions and Effects

Composition: A finished animation: a set of effects arranged over time, with its own duration (which can be made infinite and looped). The frame rate is shared across the whole project and is set when the project is created. A project can contain any number of compositions; each is exported as a separate cue file. The list of compositions is in the Compositions window, and the contents of the selected one are in the Timeline. See Compositions.

Effect: A source of imagery on the Mapping field: color, gradient, noise, text, image, video, particle generator, shader, and so on. An effect has parameters that can be animated with keyframes, and a place on the timeline. Effects are taken from the library in the Effects window. See Библиотека эффектов and Effect Settings.

Layout: An area on the Mapping field within which effects play. The Main Layout is the primary layout, it coincides with the entire field and does not move; additional layouts are created with the Edit → Create Layout command and can be of any size, so that different effects can be placed on different parts of the project within a single composition. Layouts are shared across all compositions in the project. See Creating and Modifying Layouts.

Timeline: A window with the composition's time scale: layout tracks, on which effects appear as bars that can be shortened, moved, and overlapped. Each effect's row has a Blend Mode and Opacity setting, and the row can only be expanded if key mode is enabled for at least one of its parameters. This is also where the playback cursor and the rewind, play, and stop buttons are; playback is toggled with the spacebar. See Timeline.

Keyframe: A mark on the timeline where an effect parameter has a set value. Between keyframes the value changes smoothly — this is how color, size, speed, and any other effect parameters are animated. Keyframes appear for a parameter only after key mode has been enabled for it in the Properties window — with the stopwatch button next to the parameter. After that, the parameter is shown as a separate row under the effect on the timeline; parameters without key mode are not shown on the timeline. See Keyframes and Effect Parameters.

Function: Another way to make a parameter change on its own: instead of keyframes, a Function is bound to the parameter — Sine, Linear, Noise, or Pulse — or an external source: DMX, MIDI, OSC, or a virtual controller knob. The binding is made by right-clicking the parameter in the Properties window.

Blend Mode: The rule by which an effect higher on the timeline combines with those below it: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Difference, luminance and alpha masks, and others. See Blend Modes.

Mask: An image on which the fixtures are marked as light points on a black background — a "stencil" of the Mapping field. Exported with the View → Export Mask command, so content can be prepared in external programs to exactly match the fixture layout. See Exporting Mask.

3D Preview

3D Preview: A window with a three-dimensional scene where fixtures are shown in their real placement on an object — a facade, a structure, an interior — and light up the way they will in real life. Used for previewing and for projections.

3D Object: A model in the scene: imported geometry (OBJ, FBX), built-in primitives — plane, cube, cylinder, sphere — or a 3D spline with fixtures. The list is in the 3D Objects window.

Camera: A point of view in the 3D scene. There can be several cameras; the view in the window and the projection onto the fixtures are built from the selected one.

Projection: A way to "project" a flat image from the camera onto fixtures arranged in 3D: the effect is drawn on the camera's screen, and each fixture takes the color of the pixel it falls on from that point of view. See Creating a Projection.

Linking 2D and 3D: Every fixture on the Mapping field can have a corresponding fixture in the 3D scene, and vice versa: the Magic 2D Button moves fixtures from the scene to the field, and the Magic 3D Button — from the field to the scene. See Linking 2D and 3D.

Export and Playback

Cue File: The result of exporting a composition: a frame-by-frame precomputed animation for all fixtures in the project, ready to play on a Light Stream Player without a computer. Files have the .cue extension. Exporting is done in the Export window in CUE Files mode. See Exporting Compositions and Importing Cue Files into Player.

GIF Preview: A small animated image of the composition, created during export along with the cue file. It is how the composition is recognized in the Player interface. See GIF Preview Settings.

Playlist: A sequence of compositions: what plays after what and for how long each is shown, with the option to enable random playback order. Playlists are assembled in the Playlists window and are used both in the program itself and on the Player.

Calendar and Events: A schedule: an event defines on which day and hour to start a composition or playlist, how often to repeat it, and with what priority; fade-in and fade-out are configured separately. Events are visible in the Calendar, Schedule, and Events windows.

Virtual Controller: A window (Settings → Virtual Controller menu) in which you assemble your own control panel from knobs: the +Slider and +Color picker commands add a fader or a palette, each of which can be given a name and a Range. Effect parameters are then bound to these controls, and a composition can be controlled by hand without touching keyframes.