Routing Windows

Last updated 7 August 2026
Route displays, projectors and mixers to outputs.

Scene objects and outputs are created independently of each other; routing is what connects them. Until a display or projector is routed to an output, it produces no signal — which makes these windows the usual answer to "the scene looks right but the screen is black".

Each routing window is a matrix: sources down the left, destinations across the top, and a click at an intersection makes or breaks the connection.

Window

Connects

Video Routing Window

Displays and projectors to video outputs. Every available GPU output appears here, whether or not anything is routed to it

Audio Routing Window

Audio streams to mixers and audio outputs

NDI Routing Window

NDI sources on the network to hardware NDI devices — input slots on other Backstage servers, or converters

Surface/Projector Assignment

Which projectors cover each surface. This decides which projectors contribute to a surface's image, before any of them is routed to an output

Outputs created in the Outputs window appear in these matrices as destinations. Creating an output does not route anything to it.

Common Mistakes

  • The screen stays black although the scene is correct — nothing is routed. This is the first place to look.

  • A projector shows content but the wrong part of it — routing is right, but the surface assignment or the mapping is not. Routing decides where the signal goes, not what is drawn on it.

  • A warp disappears — un-routing a projector from an output discards its generated warp mesh. Export it first.

Outputs — creating the destinations these windows route to

Scene Objects — the displays and projectors being routed