Introduction to Stage

Learn how to create and configure Stages to accurately simulate your real-world environment, enabling you to visualize and fine-tune your project.

The Stage is a virtual representation of your physical setup:

Create a Led Screen

A Led Screen Stage Elements is a LED simulation that can simulate the pitch (the distance between the middle of each pixel), luminosity etc. Set up the size and 3D Placement to match your real device.

There are different Led Screen shapes available in Smode but you can also import a 3D file with a custom Led Screen shape called Free Shape Led Screen .

Create a Surface

A Surface defines a surface on which you want to project some content with a video projector. Choose what content you want to display on that surface by selecting a Content Map Source.

Import a 3D file as projection Surface

You can create Surface in Smode or import a 3D files in the Stage and select Reference as Surface to import custom shape Surface .

The imported geometry should have the minimum meshes possible. A file constituted of too many object will be impossible to manage and can produce possible crash. Also remember to always flatten all the objects transformations prior to do the export.

The 3D models you will import into the Stage should only be the elements you will be mapping on (either Led Screen or video projection Surface ). If you want to add additional 3D elements to make a beautiful pre-visualisation (like the whole scene, the singers or whatever), read: Processor chapter on stage pre-visualisation.

Once imported, set which content will be displayed where:

Create a Video Projector

Virtual Video Projector of Smode Stage Elements are used for real life mapping and usually directly connected to the Video Output .

Learn more about it by reading: Video Projector .

When you create a new Video Projector in the Stage , you have to choose which Surface you want it to project on:

Stage Simulation

The simulation Viewport is quite useful to see the pixel deformations of the Video Projector and also the soft edges and overlap issues:

To have a more thorough simulation yo can send full white mode on every video projector:

Or you can activate the illumination mode into the rendering options of the Viewport . This will not allow to let you see the soft edges but will be the most accurate way to do an illumination simulation:

Understand internal Processor

In Smode, there are 2 types of Processor :

Stage Processor are internal processors inside of video devices such as Video Projector or Led Screen . They are created directly in the Stage inside the virtual devices. In these internal processors you will choose the content you want to send to your Video Output Device .
Pipeline Processor are rather working tools during the creation phase of the project. They are created directly in the Pipeline Editor by right click > Create > Processor, or in the Element Tree in the Pipeline part.