How Backstage drives lighting
Backstage can drive lighting over Art-Net or sACN, and it can do it in two quite different ways. Which way fits depends on whether the lights are showing content or being controlled — and that question, not the protocol, is the one to answer first.
Two routes out
|
Route |
What it sends |
Use it when |
|---|---|---|
|
The Art-Net output |
Rendered pixels. The output reads colours from a framebuffer, exactly like a screen, and sends them as DMX. |
The lights are the screen. A pixel-mapped LED installation where each fixture is a pixel of your content. |
|
Node-editor encode and decode |
Individual channel values, through the encode and decode nodes. |
You are driving fixture parameters. A moving head, a dimmer, or exchanging values with a lighting console. |
The two routes are not alternatives for the same job. Pixels come out of a surface and an output, and follow everything that shapes an output — mapping, warping, colour. Channel values come out of a graph and follow none of it. Choosing the wrong one means fighting the tool rather than configuring it.
What differs between the two protocols, for Backstage
Art-Net and sACN are external standards, and the fixtures and console usually decide which one is in use. Two differences change what you do in Backstage:
|
What it means here |
|
|---|---|
|
Only Art-Net has a pixel output |
If the rig is pixel-mapped and you want Backstage to drive it as an output, that settles it. sACN is available through the node editor only. |
|
Art-Net is unicast, sACN is multicast by default |
Art-Net means one stream per universe per destination — predictable, easy to trace, and it grows with the rig. sACN sends each universe once however many devices listen, which scales better and asks more of the network configuration. |
Port numbers, universe numbering and the rest of each protocol are defined by their own standards and documented by the people who publish them. Backstage follows both; nothing here changes them.
Related
Set Up ArtNet and sACN Pixel Output — building the output that sends pixels
ArtNet and sACN encode/decode — the node-editor route, in both directions
DMX Mapping — which output pixel becomes which channel