Mapping — put the picture on the wall
The projector is never where you want it. MAP fixes that: drag the four corners of the picture until it sits on the wall, the blocks, the tree. The show keeps playing while you do it, so you map against real content. One projector, one surface, done in a minute.
Need blends, warp meshes or a second projector? That is Resolume's job: turn on SPOUT, receive Plugin Player in Arena, do the advanced output there. It keeps running the scenes and the controller. See OUTPUT.md §4.
1. Open it, close it
| Do this | What happens |
|---|---|
| Click the MAP tab at the top (next to PERFORM and CONTROLS), press F2, or hold − on the controller for a second | The monitor turns amber: you are now looking at what the projector shows. The side panels become SLICES · ACTIVE CORNER · OUTPUT |
| DONE · SAVE (or + on the controller, or Enter) | Keeps what is on the wall and saves it for this machine. Save the show too and the mapping travels with it |
| CANCEL (or Esc, or hold − again) | Puts the picture back the way it was. If you changed something, it asks first |
| Another tab (PERFORM, CONTROLS, F1 / F3, hold +) while you have changes | A bar on the picture asks KEEP · SAVE, DISCARD or STAY HERE. Nothing leaves without an answer |
Amber = projector: the amber frame in the middle of the MAP area is exactly what the projector shows. The darker area around it is room to work in. Mint = the picture and its corners. The amber corner is the one you are moving.
2. Map a wall in 60 seconds
- Press Y (or G) for the test grid. The projector shows a numbered grid with a centre cross; straight lines on the wall tell you more than the picture does.
- Drag a corner on the monitor, or press A until the corner you want is amber and nudge it with the d-pad. Each press moves it 10 px. Press X for 1 px steps when it is close.
- Watch the wall, not the laptop. The monitor is a small preview; the little loupe next to the corner shows you a 4× zoom of that spot.
- The light spilling past the wall on one side, or a hard cut where two surfaces meet? Click that edge (it turns amber) and drag the small handle on it inward: a feather appears, shown as a soft band on the monitor and as a real fade on the wall. Only that edge fades. The SOFT slider for it in the ACTIVE CORNER card does the same with numbers; hold L2 on the controller to sweep it. Shift-click selects several edges at once.
- Too bright on a close wall? BRIGHTNESS and GAMMA in the OUTPUT card. One surface closer than the other? OPACITY per slice.
- Press Y again to turn the grid off, then DONE · SAVE.
3. More than a flat wall
- A bowed wall. Double-click an edge where it needs to bend: a point appears on it. Drag the point and the edge follows; the picture bends with it. Add as many as you need. Delete removes the selected point. A point you do not move changes nothing.
- Several surfaces (blocks, pillars, a split wall). + ADD SLICE gives you a second picture to place: each slice takes a part of the picture (the SOURCE numbers, in % of the picture) and goes somewhere on the projector with its own four corners, soft edges and opacity. DUPLICATE copies the active slice, RESET puts it back to the full frame, RENAME names it (or double-click its name). L / R on the controller switch between slices. Each slice's number shows on the wall when the grid is on.
- Moving many points at once. Drag on empty canvas to box-select corners and points, then nudge them together with the arrows or the d-pad. The ALL button (or pressing A past BL) selects every point of the slice, so the d-pad moves the whole picture.
- Numbers. The four corners are typed into the ACTIVE CORNER card in projector pixels. Type a number, press Enter, the corner moves.
- Snap. Corners snap to the edges of the projector and to other slices' corners so there is no 3 px gap. Hold Ctrl while dragging to defeat it; SNAP TO EDGES turns it off.
- Undo. Ctrl+Z takes back your last move only: one drag, one arrow tap, one slider move, one click edit. Holding an arrow down is one move, however long you hold it. It never jumps back to a saved mapping or a checkpoint; press it again for the move before. Ctrl+Y (or Ctrl+Shift+Z) redoes it. Each one shows what it took back, e.g. UNDO · CORNER TR MOVED.
3b. Room around the picture: drag past the edge, zoom, FIT
Sometimes the corner has to go past the edge of the projector: the wall is bigger than the beam, or you want part of the picture to fall off the side. Just drag it there. The MAP area has room all round the amber projector frame, and a corner can go up to a whole picture-width beyond it. That part of the picture is simply off the projector.
| Do this | What happens |
|---|---|
| Drag a corner toward the edge of the MAP area and keep going | The view slides along with you, so the corner never disappears. Let go anywhere, even over the side panels: the corner stays where you left it |
| Mouse wheel over the MAP area | Zooms in and out around the mouse. The number next to FIT is the zoom (100 % = the normal view) |
| Drag with the middle button, the right button, or hold Space and drag | Moves the view around (the corners stay where they are) |
| FIT (bottom-right of the MAP area), or the 0 or Home key | Back to the normal view, showing the projector frame and every corner, even ones you dragged outside it |
| A small arrow on the edge of the MAP area | A corner or point is outside what you can see right now; the arrow points to it and has its name. Click the arrow to bring it into view |
The corners are big dots with a light ring and a dark outline, so you can see them on a black scene, a white one, or anything busy. The amber one is the corner you are moving.
4. Fullscreen: map from the ladder
Press ⊡ on the controller (or F) inside the mapper. The whole window becomes the projector picture at 1:1 with big readouts: the active corner and its numbers bottom-left with the d-pad, the slices top-right, a small picture of the source top-centre, the controller legend bottom-right. The panels step aside when the corner you are moving is under them. Press ⊡ or F again to come back.
5. The controller while mapping
While the mapper is open the controller does only mapping. Nothing you press changes the scene.
| Button | Does |
|---|---|
| D-pad | Nudge the amber corner (or everything you selected). Hold it to keep moving |
| A / B | Next / previous corner: TL → TR → BR → BL → ALL |
| X | Step size: 10 px ↔ 1 px |
| Y | Test grid on / off. Hold it a second to reset the slice to the full frame |
| L / R | Previous / next slice |
| L2 (hold) | Sweep the soft edge of the selected edge (or the edge next to the active corner); let go to keep it |
| R2 (hold) | Sweep the slice's opacity; let go to keep it |
| + | DONE · SAVE |
| − (hold) | Cancel |
| ⊡ | Fullscreen on / off |
Keyboard: arrows nudge (Shift = 10 px), Tab cycles corners, X step, G grid, N / P or 1–9 pick a slice, R resets the slice, Delete removes selected points, F fullscreen, 0 / Home FIT, Space + drag moves the view, Enter done, Esc cancel, Ctrl+Z undo one move, Ctrl+Y redo, Ctrl+S (Mac: Cmd+S) keeps the mapping on the wall and saves the show with it, without leaving the mapper (a show with no name yet asks for one: SAVE AS). Ctrl+P (save a look) does nothing here. Other letters with Ctrl held do nothing (Ctrl+R does not reset the slice). Mouse wheel zooms.
6. Where it is saved
- DONE saves the mapping for this machine. Next launch, the picture is already on the wall.
- Save the show (Plugin Player ▾, top left) and the mapping is inside the show file too, so it comes back when you load that show on another night.
- A mapping made on one projector size and used on another is scaled to fit and the OUTPUT card says RESCALED FROM ANOTHER SIZE. Check the corners, press DONE, the note goes away.
- Presets (§7) are named setups kept on this computer, separate from shows: one per place you play.
7. Presets: one setup per place
Map the backyard trees once, map the concert hall once, and load either one in one click next time. Presets live in the SLICES card, at the top, while MAP is open.
| Do this | What happens |
|---|---|
| SAVE AS…, type a name (Backyard trees, Concert hall, Living room), SAVE or Enter | What is on the wall now (every slice, corner, soft edge, brightness) is saved under that name. A name you already used asks REPLACE or CANCEL first |
| Click PRESET ▾, then click a preset | It is on the wall at once. DONE · SAVE keeps it (for this machine, and in the show when you save the show); Ctrl+Z puts the previous mapping back |
| RENAME next to a preset | Type the new name, Enter |
| DELETE next to a preset | Asks first. Only the preset goes; the picture on the wall stays as it is |
| EXPORT next to a preset | Saves it as one small file (Backyard trees.player-mapping.json, in Documents by default). Copy it to another laptop, or give it to a student |
| IMPORT A PRESET FILE… at the bottom of the list (or IMPORT… under the slices, or drop the file on the picture) | The preset is added to your list. If you already have one with that name it asks REPLACE, KEEP BOTH or CANCEL. A file that is not a preset is refused with a sentence saying why; nothing changes |
- Presets are kept on this computer, not inside a show, and they are still there after a restart. A show keeps its own copy of the mapping as before; loading a preset changes the mapping of the show you have open (save the show to keep it there).
- Another projector size. A preset made on a 1920×1080 projector and loaded on a 1280×720 one is scaled to fit: the list says WILL BE FITTED TO 1280×720 before you click, and after loading the preset row and the OUTPUT card say RESCALED. Same shape (16:9 to 16:9): it lands exactly where it was, in proportion. A different shape (16:9 to 4:3) stretches it: check the corners with the grid on, then DONE · SAVE.
- The list shows the size each preset was made at and how many slices it has. The name on the PRESET button gets · EDITED when you have moved something since loading it; SAVE AS… with the same name and REPLACE updates it.
8. Already mapped in Resolume?
Drop your Advanced Output preset (the .xml Arena saves) onto the picture while the mapper is open, or press IMPORT… in the SLICES card. The slices arrive with the names you gave them in Arena; if the preset has several screens you pick one (Plugin Player maps one projector). Anything Plugin Player cannot carry over exactly (a screen of a different shape, polygon cut-outs, bezier warps, disabled slices) is listed on the picture, not hidden in a dialog; everything else comes over exactly. Ctrl+Z puts your previous mapping back. A saved mapping file (.json) imports the same way.
9. When to go to Arena
Edge blending between two projectors, a second screen, warp meshes, curved domes, masks drawn point by point, DMX. One line, always on screen in the mapper: SPOUT → ARENA. Plugin Player sends Arena the picture before this mapping, so Arena maps from a clean frame.