Features and Limits

Capabilities

• DMX-controllable Unreal Engine fixture assets
• Single, double, and triple gobo wheel components
• Up to two rotating gobos per compatible fixture
• Linear and circular prism components
• Extended shutter options
• Framing shutter components with corner insertion and rotation angle methods
• Infinite pan and tilt components
• Multi-instance fixture support
• CMY color mixing component
• Procedural truss builders
• Procedural video wall tool
• Procedural screen tools
• Procedural projector with beam visualization
• Procedural stage deck
• Procedural drape tool
• Ballroom carpet tool
• Beam shadows

Roadmap

• Focus component

  This will blur the entire light output and beam. It will not allow one gobo wheel to be in focus while another gobo wheel is out of focus.

• Animation Wheel

  Add animation wheel support for compatible fixtures.

• Framing shutter rotation

  Add rotation control for compatible framing shutter systems.

• Rigging point placement

  Map rigging points in a room through an interactive GUI. All you need is the location information for where the rigging points fall in the room.

• Gobo Wheel Index rotation

  This exists for single gobo wheels, but had to be removed to allow double and triple gobo wheels to rotate. It is on the list, but the method is currently unknown.

• Dual prisms

  Currently, only one prism is supported. A second prism may be possible.

• Color wheel rotation

  This function already exists in the color wheel component, but still needs to be added to the free GDTF executable.

• Frost component

  This was disabled on double and triple gobo wheel components, but its return is a possibility.

• Color temperature control components

  Control warm and cool white behavior through dedicated color temperature components for fixtures that support it.

• Intensity calibration

  Improve fixture-to-fixture intensity matching so output levels feel more predictable across different virtual lights.

• Cloud-textured haze

  Ideally, you can enter a manufacturer and the haze will appear similar to that haze.

• Direct GDTF file reading

  The GDTF tool will read a GDTF file directly, without requiring the file to be unzipped first.

• Multi-instance light output

  Multi-instance fixtures average their light output into the light and beam. I call this a feature, while others may call it a quality limit. For most use cases, a multi-instance light is far enough from any surface, and uses a wide enough lens, that within a meter or two the light averages together naturally. This saves performance and lets development focus on higher-impact work. If a breakthrough happens, it will be front and center.

Cannot be implemented

• Offering 1M Lights as a project

  1M Lights used to be offered as a project file, but as the system grew more complex, dependencies became easier to miswire. Offering it as a plugin lets the system connect dependencies properly to your local Unreal project. If you would like me to integrate the plugin into your project, that is a service I can provide.

• grandMA3 Viz-Key integration

  grandMA3 Viz-Key integration cannot be supported because of the open-source nature of Unreal Engine.

• Split color wheel on spotlight output and colored gobos

  A light function material can cut brightness in areas of a spotlight's output, similar to a gobo, and can also change the light color. It cannot change the light color only in a specific area of the output.

  If this is required, the workaround is to use three spotlights: one red, one green, and one blue. Each spotlight would need its own light function material receiving the red, green, or blue channel of the required texture. That creates too much performance loss and risk to apply globally. A decal can fake most of this much better.