Scenes
Last updated
Last updated
A Scene is nothing more than a list of property changes. A Scene does not have to be just a route change or even include a route change. You could create a Scene that sets memory slots to specific values or that includes memory slot changes, VMix changes, fader changes, and button state changes. Any property available in the system can be a part of a Scene.
To create a new Scene or view and edit an existing Scene, click the Scenes icon in the navigation bar to open the Scenes page:
Reference | Notes |
1 | The SceneName column lists the name of the Scene. Scene names may be preceded by a number and an underscore in some cases, indicating Scenes created by PathfinderPC_Core Client related to a specific router number. |
2 | The IsActive column displays either True or False depending on the state of all entries in the Scene. This column updates dynamically with each Scene’s current state. This property is also available to Logic Flows so a Flow can perform actions depending on the IsActive state. See note below. |
3 | The Activate button executes all changes within a Scene. |
4 | The Clone link creates a copy of the Scene. This is useful if you need to create multiple Scenes with the same items but different values for each item. |
5 | The Edit link will open the Scene Editor and display the data for an existing Scene. |
Note: The IsActive state depends on the state of all entries in the Scene. For example, if an xNode involved in the Scene is powered off, the Scene change will not be completed and the IsActive state will not change to True.
Begin by clicking the Scenes link in the left navigation pane in the Pathfinder Core Control Center. On the Scenes page, click the plus icon to create a new Scene.
Type a Name for the new Scene. To add events to your Scene, click the plus icon.
On the Import Ios dialog, select the router from the Import From drop-down list to populate the Destinations list.
Select the destinations to import, using the SHIFT key to select multiple destinations. When all destinations have been selected, click Import.
Note: Items from different routers may also be a part of the same Scene by clicking the plus icon again. Select the additional router from the routers drop-down, select the additional IOs, then click Import to bring them into the Scene.
After the import is complete, the Requested Value column in the Scene Editor will reflect the source that will be taken if that Scene item is executed. By default, it will be set to the current source routed to the destination. This can be changed by highlighting an item and clicking the RequestedSource link. This will open a list of sources present on the selected router so you can select an alternate source as the value for the route point in that Scene item.
Clicking the Destination link will allow you to select a different destination for the Scene item if you selected the wrong one and need to change it.
Clicking the minus icon will delete the item from the Scene.
Once all items for this Scene are set, click Apply to save the changes and return to the Scene list, at which point the Scene will be available for use.
In addition to Route Points, any property in the system can be a Scene item. After clicking the Add button to add a new Scene item to a Scene, you will also find an Endpoints button to switch the route destination dialog to a property selection dialog.
This is the same dialog used to select an endpoint in logic flows. In the example below, we are adding a program buss assignment property on a Fusion console to the Scene.
The Ios button will return to the route selection dialog.
The Select button will select the property and import it as a Scene item into the Scene. The system will remember whether the last item imported during a given Scene editing session was a property or route point and return to the last used dialog. You can switch back and forth using the Endpoints and IOs buttons from the corresponding dialog.
After importing a property, it will have slightly different links in the Scene itself. In this case, you will see a RequestedValue link and a Property link.
Click the Property link to change the property you selected if you selected the wrong one.
By default, the value used for the Property item is set to whatever it is at the time the Scene item is created. This can be changed by clicking the RequestedValue link.
This will open a value selector. The value selector may be different depending on the type of property you are manipulating. For example, if the item is a color property, it might present a color selection dialog. If the property requires text, a text box may be presented. Or it could present a drop-down of possible values. In the case above, the program buss assignment could either be on or off, so select the option you want the Scene item to set. Note this does not change the current state of the console in the system unless the Scene is activated. At this point, you are only editing what would happen if you activated the Scene.
The Scene editor also has “move up” and “move down” buttons.
These are used to organize the order in which a Scene sends its messages to the equipment when activated.
The order of items in a Scene is generally irrelevant because the system does not wait for a change to complete before sending the next change message. Changes are usually sent as a block so the actual changes may not happen in the equipment in the same order in which they were sent.
If the execution order is important it is possible to add pause items into the Scene. This will cause the Scene to pause as it iterates through the items for a defined duration, measured in milliseconds. To add a pause, click the Scene editor plus icon. From the Import Ios dialog, click Pause.
Type the Pause duration in milliseconds and click OK to add the Pause item to the Scene.
Like all items in the Scene, you may select a Pause item and use the Up and Down arrows to manipulate the order of the Scene messages and configure when pauses occur in the Scene execution.
Once all items have been added to your Scene and have been ordered correctly, click Apply to save your changes.
Once a Scene has been created, the list of Scenes will show whether the Scene is active or not in the IsActive field.
If you expect a Scene to be active and it is not, you can see what items failed to change by editing the Scene.
The Requested Value column will show the expected value for each Scene item for it to be considered active, while the Current Value column will show the current value of the Scene item.
Note: To refresh the CurrentValue data, you must exit and re-enter the Scene editor.
There are several properties that may be used with Scenes in Logic Flows. When an End point is selected each Scene has an ActivateScene property that can be set to true to cause all Scene items to be executed.
As a Start point, two properties are available: IsActive and SceneState.
The IsActive property will either be true or false depending on whether all items in the Scene are currently at their requested value.
The SceneState property extends this slightly with three options: All, Some, or None. This will change depending on the Scene items’ value, whether all items have their RequestedValue, some do, or none do.
Scene changes may be activated using Logic Flows using the ActivateScene property. This property is write-only and is only available when editing End points. For example, we could create a Logic Flow that executes a Scene change every time a specific LCD button is pressed.
Virtual mixing routers are inherently different in how they function from other routers. For details on Virtual Mixing Routers, see their section in the Routers section of the manual. With Virtual mixing destinations you do not change the source that is routed to the destination. Instead you add sources that will be mixed together by the mixing destination up to the supported quantity of the destination. As a result it uses different routing properties than a normal router. For example, AddSource adds a source to the mixing destination, and RemoveSource removes a source from the destination freeing that slot up for another source. Therefore when importing a destination to a scene, you need to be able to define whether the change will add or remove a source. To support this, a drop down will appear in the import destination list when creating a scene item.
The Mixing property drop down allows you to select whether the operation will add or remove a selected source to/from the destination. For example:
In this example the scene will add Source 1 to the destination when the scene is executed.
The AddSource and RemoveSource properties of a Virtual Mixing Router destination are write only properties. You are applying a source to the property to change the underlying routing state, but the property itself will not have a value. Whenever you use write only properties in a scene, the state cannot be determined and therefore the IsActive property will never become true on such scenes. In a future version we may add some special code to handle the situation of virtual mixing routers such that the scene will detect if after the source is applied whether it exists on the destination and adjust the value of the scene line accordingly. But for now scenes will not become IsActive using these virtual mixing properties.
