Timeline Panel

The timeline panel is your main work space for working with cue timings, audio synchronization and midi show control.

Time Scales

Time

The default time scale in Lightforge is "Time". This measures your progression through time in hours, minutes, and seconds.

Beats

The Beats time scale allows you to specify a tempo (beats per minute), and number of beats per measure. You can then record your cues and set your timings to this time scale. Adjusting your tempo will automatically scale the playback of your cues and effects to the new tempo. You can enable beats mode by clicking on the "Beats" toggle button in the time section of the Timeline panel. Once selected you can adjust your tempo by clicking the "bpm" button below the "Beats" button

Cues

Important Concepts

By default, cues in Lightforge function in a tracking system. What this means is that for each cue you create the only thing that is being saved is the changes since your last cue. In short, if you turn a light on, it stays on until you tell it to turn off in a later cue. It's important to understand this because there are various positive and potentially negative ramifications to this approach.

The Positive: If you forgot to add something into your show and it's supposed to be in every cue, all you have to do is add it to the first cue, and it will track through the rest of your cues until it's told to do otherwise.

The Negative: If you want to add something to a single cue you will need to remove it in the following cue otherwise it will continue tracking throughout the rest of your show.

In general the tracking approach creates simpler shows, with less to manage. Instead of having to look through every channel on a cue to make an adjustment you only need to deal with what has been changed in that particular cue.

Cue Length

The length of a cue is adjusted by clicking and dragging on either the left or right edge of a cue.

Fade In

You can adjust your fade in time by clicking and dragging on the upper left corner of a cue.

Fade Out

You can adjust your fade out time by clicking and dragging on the upper right corner of a cue.

Moving Cues

To rearrange a cue, click on the middle of the cue and drag it to where you would like it to go. When you release the cue all other cues will snap into position around it.

Nesting

You can nest cues inside one another by dragging a cue below another cue.

Subdivide

Subdivide takes an existing cue, and creates two nested cues inside of itself. You can subdivide a cue by right clicking on it and selecting subdivide.

Collapse

Collapse flattens the nested structure of the selected cue. You can collapse a cue by right clicking on it and selecting collapse.