Resolume Arena 7

Overview

Resolume Arena is the software that runs the visuals at a very large number of clubs, festivals and installations, and the reason is that it does two jobs at once. It is a clip based playback engine, where video, generative content and images sit in a grid of layers and columns and are triggered live, and it is a projection mapping system that takes the resulting output and warps it onto physical surfaces that are not flat rectangles. Arena is the tier that includes the mapping, the multi output handling and the fixture control.

Everything is designed around being performed rather than rendered. Clips play instantly on trigger, effects are applied live with parameters that can be bound to a controller or to the incoming audio, and the whole composition can be driven by timecode when it needs to line up with a track exactly. This build is licensed already, with no dongle expected and no online check on launch.

Clips, layers and triggering

The composition is a grid: layers stacked vertically with blend modes between them, columns across for triggering a whole scene at once. A clip is a video file, a still, a generative source or a live input, and it plays on its own transport with its own speed, direction, loop mode and beat synchronisation. Playback can be free running or locked to the composition tempo, and the tempo can be tapped, taken from a link session on the network or read from timecode.

Triggering happens from the keyboard, from a MIDI controller, from a control surface over the network, or automatically from a cue list. Every parameter in the application can be bound to a control, and bindings save with the composition. The audio analysis breaks the incoming signal into frequency bands that can drive any parameter, which is how a visual set reacts to music without anyone touching it.

Mapping and output

The mapping stage is where the output is cut into slices and each slice is placed on a physical surface. Slices can be warped with bezier control, masked, feathered at the edges for blending between overlapping projectors, and given their own colour correction to compensate for a surface that is not white. Input selection per slice means one composition can feed many differently shaped surfaces at once.

Output goes to multiple displays, to capture cards, to a network video protocol for feeding a media server, or to LED processors. Edge blending between projectors is handled with adjustable curves rather than a fixed gradient, which is what makes a multi projector wall look like one image. The mapping is stored separately from the composition, so the same content can be moved to a different venue by loading a different screen setup.

Effects, sources and integration

The effect set covers colour, distortion, blur, feedback and geometric transformations, applied per clip, per layer or on the whole composition, with every parameter automatable. Effects can be chained and the chain saved as a preset. Generative sources produce content without a video file, which keeps a set from being only pre rendered material.

Live input handles cameras and capture cards with low latency, and the syphon style texture sharing means content generated in another application on the same machine can be pulled in as a clip. Fixture control lets lighting be driven from the same composition, so a colour change in the visuals moves the lights with it. Recording captures the output to disk while the show runs.

What you get

• Clip grid with layers, columns and scene triggering
• Per clip transport with speed, direction, loop mode and beat synchronisation
• Projection mapping with bezier warping, masking and edge blending
• Multi output to displays, capture cards, network video and LED processors
• Audio analysis by frequency band bound to any parameter
• MIDI, network surface and cue list triggering with saved bindings
• Timecode locking for shows that must line up with a track
• Live camera and capture card input plus texture sharing from other applications
• Fixture control so lighting follows the visuals from one composition

Inside the archive

• Resolume Arena 7 application, offline installer
• Effect and generative source library
• Sample clip pack for testing a mapping setup
• Screen setup templates for common projector arrangements
• Install notes covering output configuration

System requirements

Installing it

1. Unpack the archive to a local folder.
2. Turn off real time protection for the install.
3. Run setup as administrator.
4. Configure your outputs in the screen setup before loading a composition, or the mapping will be built against the wrong resolution.
5. Launch the application. No dongle is expected and no online check runs.

Mirrors

Release history

Questions about this release

Comments

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