Studio Control Panel
- David Avgikos
The Control Panel, which contains the Motion and Settings menus, is where you will spend a lot of your time creating a course, so these controls are designed to be quick and easy to use. There are five types of controls; load, toggle, slider, multi-select, and color selection.
Load Control
Load controls are identified by the word Load at the top and will open a selection window when clicked. For example, clicking an audio control will open a list of audio files from which to select.
Once a file is loaded, the name of the file will be displayed at the top of the control and the icon will change to a delete symbol indicating that if you click the control again, the file will be removed.
Toggle Control
The toggle control is either on or off – yes or no - option a or option b. For example, the default value for Condition to Advance is All Zones. Clicking anywhere on the control to toggle it to Any Zone.
Slider Control
The slider is a variable control that can be adjusted up and down. Click and hold anywhere in the center area of the control while dragging the mouse up or down to adjust the slider. As the gauge moves, the value at the top of the control will update in real-time.
Alternatively, you can left-click the value at the top of the control to edit the value directly by typing in a new value. In some cases, the value can be fractional such as 50.5%.
In addition, some controls allow you to enter a value beyond the original limits of the control. For example, the default maximum value of the Travel Time slider is 60 seconds, but you can enter a value higher than the default if needed.
Multi-Select Control
Multi-select controls are designated by ellipses (…) after the control name. They are used for variables that have more than two options.
Hovering over a multi-select control will highlight it. Clicking anywhere in a multi-select control will open a menu at the top of the control from which a choice can be made.
Color Selection Controls
Some objects, such as lights, will allow you to change colors. Clicking one of these controls will open a Color Selector window. Color selection icons are different in appearance from other control icons because they use color, which indicates the color of the selected light.
The Color Selector window shows a color wheel on the left side of the window. Left-click and drag the mouse around the wheel until you find the desired hue. Colors toward the center of the wheel become less saturated while colors toward the outer edge of the wheel are more saturated. Next, use the brightness control to the left of the wheel to set the color brightness.
There are two color swatches in the center of the window. The top swatch shows the color you have selected. The bottom swatch shows the color that is currently being used. This makes it easy to compare the two.
Below the color swatches are numerical input fields. You can left-click any field and input a value directly. After typing a value, press the Enter key to accept the change.
The right side of the window shows controls for saving favorite colors which are used frequently. This makes it easy to use the same color in different areas of the program. To save a color, left-click any of the drop icons and click the Store button. You can store up to 20 unique colors. To overwrite a color, select a pre-saved color value and click the Store button. The old color will be replaced by the new color. The Clear All button will erase all pre-saved colors.
Clicking OK will accept all changes and close the Color Picker window. Clicking Cancel will ignore any changes made and close the window.