Create an Additional Mapping on a Display

Last updated 7 August 2026

A display comes with one mapping, and it fills the display. That is enough for most work — content lands on the screen and you never think about it.

A second mapping is how one physical screen serves content in more than one way. Each video channel chooses which mapping it renders through, so two channels can address the same display differently: one filling it, one placing content in a region, one following a wiring order that has nothing to do with either.

Surfaces work the same way. This page says "display" because that is the common case, but everything here applies to any scene object that carries mappings.

Before you start

  • A display exists in the scene
  • You know what the second mapping is for — a different content layout, or a wiring order that differs from the content order

Steps

1. Open the display's mapping controls

Select the display and find Mapping in the Inspector. Each existing mapping is one row: its name, then the buttons that act on it. The row marked * is the default.

2. Add the mapping

Three ways, depending on where you are starting from:

Control

Use it when

The type dropdown, then Create

Starting fresh. Pick the type below the mapping list — Planar, Linear Fisheye to Equirectangular, Dome, Cylindrical, Cubic, Spherical or Frustum Projection — then click Create. For a display, planar is the normal choice — the others describe projection geometry a flat screen does not have.

D on a mapping's row

The new mapping is a variation of the existing one. Faster than rebuilding, and it keeps you from disturbing the original.

Import Mapping

The unwrap comes from a 3D file, authored outside Backstage. The model must have the same number of vertices as the object.

3. Name it for its job

A new mapping is named after its type and a number — Planar 2. Rename it in the Name field while it is being edited. Names are how you will tell them apart in the channel's Destination list, months later: "Full screen" and "Lower third" beat "Planar 1" and "Planar 2".

4. Shape it

Edit the new mapping's position, rotation, scale and UV coordinates so content lands where you want it, then click Apply.

Edit Mappings

5. Use it from a channel

In the Sequencer, select a video channel and open Destination. Every display and surface in the scene is listed with a checkbox. Tick the display, and a dropdown appears beside it holding that object's mappings — pick the new one rather than the default.

Done when: the channel's track in the Sequencer names both, as Display 1 : Planar 2, and the content has moved to where the new mapping puts it — while a channel still on the default mapping is unaffected.

The default mapping is not just "the first one"

One mapping on the display is marked the Default UV-Mapping, and that designation is load-bearing in two places beyond content:

  • Pre-slicing through Media Manager uses the default mapping. Change which mapping is default and you change what a pre-sliced media set is cut against.

  • The Pixel Map Raster pins which mapping's unwrap addresses the display's physical pixels — which is what lets you wire a wall along one unwrap while serving content through another.

So adding a mapping is safe; changing which one is default is not, on an installation that already relies on either of those. The default is changed with the button at the left of a mapping's row.

Pin a Pixel Map Raster Mapping on a Display

Common Mistakes

  • The content did not move — the channel is still assigned to the old mapping. Adding a mapping changes nothing until a channel selects it.

  • Every channel moved, not just one — the default mapping was edited rather than the new one. Check which mapping is selected in the Inspector before dragging anything.

  • The shaping was lost — edit mode is not left implicitly. Click Apply before selecting another object, or the changes are discarded.

  • A pre-sliced media set no longer lines up — the default mapping changed. Pre-slicing is cut against whichever mapping was default at the time.

  • The wall lights up in the wrong order — the Pixel Map Raster is pinned to a different mapping than you are serving content through. That decoupling is deliberate; check both.

  • A non-planar type on a flat screen behaves oddly — Dome, Cylindrical and Spherical mappings describe projection geometry. On a display, use planar unless you have a specific reason.

Display — the Display reference: all mapping controls, plus splitting

Create a Sequence and Add Content — where a channel picks its mapping