Hello there, human!

Alva Sorcerer is a Blender add-on that uses OSC to remote-control universal lighting consoles, but primarily ETC Eos consoles. Sorcerer is intended for anyone with access to a lighting console (or activated lighting console software like ETC Nomad) who likes the lighting console and definitely wants to keep the lighting console, but wishes the console was a little more user-friendly. Especially while trying to focus on art and emotions instead of technical concepts. Alva is useful for cue building and especially useful for timecoding. While it can be used as a busking assistant, Blender and Sorcerer are not Performance-rated, so we recommend only relying on them during design time, not during the final performance with an audience.

Sorcerer is also intended for someone trying to create ALVA technical theatre designs. ALVA stands for Animated Lighting, Video, and Audio. Currently, Sorcerer is capable of animating stage lights and 3D audio objects at the same time. This means you can make a mover track a 3D audio object moving through the house. It also means Sorcerer can connect you to the animation powerhouse that is Blender, allowing you to create extremely sophisticated lighting animations—through existing lighting consoles you already have. Once a design is perfect, it can be saved onto the lighting console as a “qmeo” to be played back almost like a video, without Sorcerer.

Alva Sorcerer Documentation Objectives:

The Alva Sorcerer Manual is not about lecturing you on how Sorcerer works. That’s boring. We try our best to design the software to be intuitive enough that you don’t need to read the manual to be happy with the software. If you contact us at thisisdumb@alvatheaters.com about a dumb part of the UI, that tells us what parts are the most dumb that need the most improvement. We’re not going to solve those problems with better documentation, we’re going to solve those problems by making the software less dumb. In fact, the phrase, “RTDM” is banned at Alva Theaters. It is the software’s job to make the manual pointless. Have you ever had to read the software documentation for your phone? If you did, would you be happy with your phone? We believe Sorcerer can be and should be smart enough that it just does exactly what you expect it to do—because it could not possibly be any more simple. Remember: Sorcerer is designed for artists, not technicians.

This manual is here to make exciting things happen faster. This documentation is here to help you:

• Never select a group of lights again, with nodes!
  • Group controller nodes (control one group per node)
  • Group driver nodes (control multiple groups per node)
  • Master nodes (control collapsed, hidden nodes)
  • Flash nodes (build really complicated but visually simple effects)
  • Mixer nodes (mix multiple choices across a group’s channels)
  • Mixer driver nodes (control multiple mixers at the same time)
  • Group data system (edit what channels are in what groups)
  • Single-parameter nodes (control all of one parameter type for each group in one area)
  • Renderer nodes/Qmeo nodes (save an animation in a format the console can play by itself)
  • Console buttons nodes (make a virtual console in the node editor)
  • Presets nodes: (rapidly record and fire color-coded presets)
  • Pan/Tilt nodes: (super-intuitively control position of FOH-hung spot movers)
  • Nodes toolbar buttons (quickly reach common console functions)
• Make lights track 3D audio objects
• Use 3D shapes to control lights
  • Channel controllers (access ML editor from popup in 3D view)
• Patch Eos visually using cones
  • USITT ASCII import (import Eos’s existing patch using flash drive)
• Use a video editor to timecode on Eos without any cables
  • Flash strips (make stuff flash on-beat with minimal amount of effort)
  • Macro strips (build and fire macros on the console via sequencer)
  • Cue strips (design, record, and set duration of cues via sequencer)
  • Trigger strips (send arbitrary OSC strings, or make cool offset effects)
  • Animation strips (make fluid, natural, non-repeating, emotive lighting effects)
  • Performance capture (make a moving light seem like it is alive and has feelings)
  • Strip formatter (quickly change a lot of strips at once)
  • Audio strips (quickly make audio strips do stuff)
  • Toolbar tab (quickly reach common console functions)
  • Sequencer hotkeys (do stuff subconsciously)
  • House lights automation (avoid getting yelled at for keeping house lights off)
  • Livemap (avoid having to constantly scrub backwards to activate current cue)
  • Motif names and linking (keep multiple strips in sync)
• Prevent students and/or volunteers from messing with stuff
• Take Sorcerer to other console types
• Use Python directly on Eos with absolutely no setup
  • Accessing spy:
  • spy.make_eos_macros(macro_range, int_range, string)
  • OSC Functions
  • Utility Functions
• Read an Interesting Glossary (learn some of the engineering concepts used to make Sorcerer)