When all the setup is done, you use the StageFlow FFGL plugin to actually display your Looks in Resolume. Because it’s an effect, you can apply it on individual clips, layers, groups or even the composition, depending on your needs.

Parameters

Each Look will show up as its own slider in the effect, so you can fade them in and out as needed. StageFlow is highly optimized and it will only render the visible pixels. You can mix and match multiple Looks at the same time in the same effect. If a slice is used in more than one Look, StageFlow will always use the top Look to display the content.

The StageFlow effect responds to changes to the order and names of your Looks in StageFlow. It will update the moment you make changes, while keeping the visual output unchanged.

It’s best to build your Looks bottom to top. So keep Looks that fill the stage at the bottom of the stack, then have the Looks above it fill out increasingly smaller areas, all the way up to individual slices. This makes it easy to mix and match Looks while playing live. Ironically the top of the stack is the bottom when displayed in the effect, but that’s a whole other discussion the world is not ready to have right now.

If your parameter names are not updating, that means the effect is not part of an active effect chain. Make sure there is something playing in the layer or group that has the effect applied and that its opacity is turned up or that it’s being previewed.

Render Order

It can be that your content is larger than your composition size. In that case, you will need to place the StageFlow effect before the Transform effect of the clip or layer you are applying it on. If you’re applying it on the layer, you will also need to let Resolume know the size of the content by setting the layer to that specific width and height.

If your content is smaller than your composition, you can just place it after the Transform effect.

If your content is wider than your composition but not as tall, or taller and not as wide, you’re out of luck. The laws of the GPU universe are against you and there is no amount of pixel magic I can do to make things right anymore. Your only option is to scale up the width or height of your composition to match your content, or scale down your content to match your composition.

Combining Effects

When using StageFlow in combination with other effects that also work with the almighty Input Map, like Slice Transform, Chaser or Mapper, keep in mind that StageFlow transforms your content to fit your slices. If you then add another effect in the chain that also transforms your content to your slices again, you will not have a good time.

Of course you can still chase content already transformed with StageFlow. Just place Chaser after StageFlow in the chain, set Chaser to Mask mode and you’ll be good to go.