This article assumes you are a new user just getting started with StageFlow. It will explain the basics of what you need to know to get up and running quickly. Depending on how quick you read, this should take about 5 minutes.

Loading the Input Map

StageFlow doesn’t waste any time. The first time you start it, it will load the output setup you currently have active in Resolume. If this is not your first rodeo, but got kind of lost the first time, you can hit File > New to start from scratch. StageFlow will always load the currently active output setup.

As long as StageFlow is open, it picks up changes to Resolume’s output setup the moment you hit Save and Close in Resolume.

Recreate the Stage

Once you have all the slices loaded, you arrange them to match their physical layout on the stage. Simply drag them around, or use the corner handles to scale or rotate. Feel free to go as big as you need. Recreate all the physical gaps and overlaps. Scale slices up or down to adjust for difference in pixelpitch. StageFlow will take care of all of the math needed to display everything correctly back in Resolume.

If you like, you can use a technical drawing or picture of the stage as a guide. The quickest way to load a guide image is by dragging the image file onto the stage from your computer’s file browser.

You can zoom and pan around the stage using the mouse scroll wheel and middle mouse button.

StageFlow will snap slices to each other, as well to any slices resulting in a nice symmetrical arrangement. You toggle off snapping completely with the magnet icon in the toolbar, or disable it temporarily by holding down CTRL while dragging.

Looks

A Look is how you lay out your content on the stage. In a single Look, you can make a single piece of content cover the whole stage. You could also choose to position three copies of your content on the left, middle and right. You could display your content in a selection of slices or maybe just have it cover a single slice. It’s up to you.

StageFlow always gives you one empty Look to start with. You select it by opening the Looks list from the side bar. A Look is closely tied your content. So it’s important to always match the resolution of your Look to the resolution of your content. StageFlow defaults to 1920×1080, but you can change it to any resolution you need in the inspector.

Focals

A Look always consists of one or more Focals. A Focal is a single instance of your content.

You create a Focal by selecting the slices where you would like your content to appear. Then you hit the ‘+ Focal’ button in the Looks list. Boom. You’ve made your first Focal.

Now, you can select other slices and repeat the process. A Look can have as many Focals as you like.

Multiple Looks

Of course, a single Look would be kind of boring. You can add more Looks by hitting ‘+ Look’ in the Looks list. StageFlow has a maximum of 16 Looks.

You can use different Looks to lay out your content differently or to highlight different areas of your stage. New Focals are always added to the currently selected Look.

Choosing your Looks and Focals is a highly subjective and mostly creative exercise. There’s no real right or wrongs. In general though, you’ll want to keep your Focals scaled up by no more than 130%, stretched proportionally of course, and not have large areas not covering any slices.

You can cycle through your Looks by hitting the < and > buttons in the Inspector. While you’re there, you can rename Looks by double clicking their name in the inspector. Also, you can drag them in the Looks list to change their order.

Mixing Looks

Back in Resolume, each Look appears as a slider in the StageFlow effect. You use the sliders to fade each Look in and out. You can also mix and match Looks to display more than one Look at a time.

Preview

To get a better idea of how things look, you can create a preview by choosing Preview > Windowed and enabling Spout/Syphon output for the composition in Resolume ( Output > Composition Texture Sharing > Spout/Syphon.

For the preview, StageFlow will remap Resolume’s input map back to how you arranged the slices on the actual stage. The preview is set to float on top of other windows, so you can use it during show as an alternative to Resolume’s own preview.

Saving and Loading

If you did a booboo, you can undo with CTRL/CMD-z. If undo’ing the booboo was actually the real booboo, you can undo the undo via CTRL/CMD-SHIFT-z.

StageFlow always automatically saves any changes you make. Any adjustments you make also update instantly in the effect. There’s no need to hit save or to reload the plugin.

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That’s it. Now learn the grittiest of nitties by diving into specific topics or be on your merry way, forever flowing across stages near and far. The light of the input map will always be there to guide you.