Operating modes

The operating mode decides what drives an element’s pixels. It’s a device-wide setting (OLED main screen or web app), and it’s worth getting right first, because it determines whether the console, the built-in engine, or a blend of the two is in control — and how many DMX channels you burn.

Pattern

The built-in engine drives everything; nothing external. You set an engine, texture, the shape parameters, motion, and palette, and the device animates itself. It uses no DMX channels. Every element runs its own independent pattern — edit them all together, or give individual elements their own pattern, palette, and motion.

Good for standalone installs, architectural and ambient work, and sound-reactive setups with sensors.

DMX Motion

A hybrid. The console sends a small set of channels — colour beams and a few motion axes for the broad strokes (colour, intensity, movement) — and the device’s pattern engine fills in the detail under those axes. The operator shapes the feel live without patching every pixel. The fixture profile decides what each channel means. The footprint is small: a handful of channels per element, depending on the profile.

Good for live operators who want expressive control rather than pixel mapping.

DMX Pixels

The console owns every pixel. The device is a faithful renderer with no engine of its own; channels map straight to pixels, across multiple universes for Art-Net and sACN. The footprint is large: 3 channels per RGB pixel, 4 per RGBW. The numbers are in Multi-universe addressing.

Good for media servers and pixel-mapped shows where the desk drives the content.

DMX Dimmer

The console treats each element like a conventional dimmer or colour-changer: intensity and colour per element through the element model, not raw pixels. The footprint is small and per-element.

Good for slotting into a conventional rig where each element should behave like an ordinary colour fixture on the desk.

Choosing

You want…	Mode	DMX channels
Self-running patterns, no desk	Pattern	none
Desk shapes feel, device fills detail	DMX Motion	few / element
Desk drives every pixel	DMX Pixels	3–4 / pixel
Desk treats elements as colour-changers	DMX Dimmer	few / element

Switching, and one edge case

Changing mode takes effect immediately and is saved. Your pattern, strips, slices, and elements all carry across; only what drives them changes. Pattern and DMX Motion both use the pattern engine, so the Pattern-tab work in the next pages applies to both.

If a build ships with some modes disabled, they’re hidden, and the device falls back to the first available mode rather than sitting in an unusable one. A config that asks for a disabled mode lands in a working mode instead of leaving the device dead.

Next: Pattern engine & motion.