Forum and Knowledge Base

Connect with other users and the developer at Lacquer's Support site.

Stay updated with announcements, get answers from the community, and share your feature suggestions with us. You can also submit a request for tech support here.

Subscribe to the PixelConduit email newsletter, and you'll learn about updates the moment something interesting happens:


Get in touch

Have a question? Did you run into some trouble or a bug?

If the nature of the problem is such that getting an answer in public would benefit everyone, please submit the question on the Discussion forum linked above. We'd like to see you participate in the PixelConduit community!

For direct private support, the best way is to file a support request at Lacquer's online support site — PixelConduit's developer will follow up soon:

You can also send email to support at lacquer dot fi.

Are you on Twitter? You can message Pauli Olavi Ojala, the PixelConduit developer, directly at his Twitter account: @pauliooj


User's Guide

The essential reference to PixelConduit, the User's Guide contains both high-level overviews and tutorials of specific techniques.

You can download either the complete 140-page book as one PDF or individual chapters.

Individual chapter PDF downloads are available in the Table of Contents below.

User's Guide Table of Contents

1. Introduction

  • What is it?
  • Who is it for?
  • Interfacing with other video software

2. Getting started

  • PixelConduit user interface
    • Project window
    • Project window tabs
    • Viewer window
    • Previews and scopes
    • Conduit Editor window
    • Sliders and Controls window
    • Notes on using sliders in the project
    • Project Script Editor window
    • Other windows
  • Setting up the project
    • Project settings
    • Free Run and Timeline modes
  • Node widgets in the Project view
    • Node widget connection types
    • Display
    • Multi-screen output using Matrox GXM
    • Other video outputs
    • Video sources
    • Supported file formats
    • Live Source
    • Effects
    • Capturing video
    • Other node widgets
  • Creating animation in PixelConduit
    • Keyframe animation
    • Procedural animation
    • Cue-based animation
  • Exporting to a movie file or image sequence
  • Recording live video
    • The capture session
    • Recording original streams vs. Rendered capture
    • Recording original video streams
    • Using Rendered Capture
  • Video capture quick start tutorial
    • Setting up live video and a Conduit effect
    • Viewing the incoming video image
    • Choosing a recording mode
  • Performance tuning and troubleshooting
    • GPU limitations
    • Disk speed limitations
    • Latency and frame rate mismatch
  • Extending PixelConduit

3. Using the Conduit Effect System

  • References and other documentation
  • How values are transferred from PixelConduit to the effect
  • Effects essentials – the “Conduit Cheat Sheet”
    • What's a conduit?
    • What are sliders and color pickers?
    • Where's the eyedropper tool?
    • Where's Brightness & Contrast?
    • How to use Levels?
    • What's alpha?
    • What's premultiplied alpha?
    • What's a matte?
    • How do I mask an effect (i.e. limit an effect so that it renders only within a specified matte)?
    • Problem: transparent areas are displaying as bright.
    • Problem: composited object has a black outline.
    • What's gamma?
    • What's linear light?
    • What's floating point color?
    • What's HDR?
    • When to use the Bezier/Cubic Curve nodes instead of Curves (RGBA)?
    • How to rotate an image?
    • What's the difference between Place Over and 2D Transform?
    • How to create a macro (or capsule)?
    • How to package multiple nodes into one?
  • Drawing custom shapes
    • Creating shapes
    • Editing shape points
    • Working with smoothed curves
    • Viewing shape controls in another node’s context
    • Exporting and importing shapes

4. Live control and performance

  • Stage Tools Overview
  • Getting Started with Stage Tools
    • The project’s control room
    • The cue robot
    • During the show
    • What next
  • Overview of Stage Tools windows
    • Designing cues in the Cue List window
    • Running the project
    • Using the Info window
    • Live Titles window
  • Combining Stage Tools node widgets
  • Hardware control protocols
    • MIDI: connecting to musical control hardware
    • DMX512: connecting to light controllers
  • Triggering events and clips
  • List of node widgets in Stage Tools
    • Audio Input
    • DMX Source
    • Live Titles
    • Perspective Warp
    • Playback Control
    • Stage Tools Trigger

5. Custom rendering

  • The Supernode – how to nest effects and make custom plugins
    • Loading a conduit asset
    • Modifying the interface
    • Creating a custom interface element
    • Adding an action to the button
    • Editing a nested conduit
    • Saving as a plugin
    • Printing info from a script
    • Appendix: tutorial materials
  • Rendering graphics and text with the Canvas node - a scripting tutorial
    • The Canvas API
    • The Canvas node
    • Enabling the button
    • Adding text
    • Making the counter animate
    • What next?
    • Assets
    • On-screen controls
  • Making Rain – creating an animated particle effect
    • Editing scripts outside of Conduit
    • Painting the drops in the constructor function
    • Putting the GPU to work
    • Tweaking the rain look
  • Conduit Effect System reference documentation
  • Scripting the PixelConduit project
    • Standard objects in the PixelConduit project
    • Finding out object properties
  • Deeper with data using script node widgets
    • Script Widget
    • Connection data types and the Map object
    • Creating custom user interfaces

6. Compositing workflows

  • Pro Pixels – working in raw YUV video, Cineon/DPX and OpenEXR
    • Raw video: unmodified YUV in and out
    • Exporting raw YUV
    • Working with film images: Cineon/DPX file format
    • OpenEXR: the floating-point multi-channel connoisseur’s choice
    • Exporting to OpenEXR
    • Choosing between export file formats
  • Drowned World – a creative compositing tutorial
    • Drawing the foreground shapes
    • Color for the mood

7. Automating workflows using Render Automation

  • The elements of an action
  • The Batch Actions window
  • Importing source files
  • Setting up exports
  • Telling the project how and what to render
  • Executing the batch
  • Modifying effects within actions
  • Working with stereo 3D content

8. Working with stereoscopic 3D

  • A starter guide to stereo 3D production
  • 1. Getting the streams flowing: Importing (and perhaps splitting) video
  • 2. Viewing 3D
  • 3. Going deep or staying shallow: Adjusting the 3D effect
  • 4. Cross-eyed and painless – fixing alignment issues
  • 5. Color, gloss, shadows: Using effects in 3D
  • 6. A good use of space – creating 3D layers
  • 7. Exporting 3D and using batch automation
  • 8. What’s next? Advanced topics