lxscript

Entertainment lighting control language

Usage

To run lxscript, you first need to generate the lexer and parser with ANTLR. You must have the ANTLR 4.5 tool installed, and then run lexparse/generate_parser.sh.

Once this is done, install dependancies with pip install -r requirements.txt and run with ./lxscript.py (-h will print usage info).

By default, lxscript will use broadcast ArtNet, which might annoy your friendly local network administrators. To specify an address to send ArtNet to, use the --address argument.

You can also give a filename as an argument, and the contents of the file will be executed as lxscript code before enterning the interactive environment. Some example files are in the examples directory. The file stage.c2s is a Capture file which contains the lighting rig used for the examples and is configured to receive ArtNet.

Syntax Overview

The basic primitives in lxscript are 'systems', 'settings', and 'sequences'. A system represents any collection of lighting instruments, from a single instrument to an entire rig. The concept of a 'system' includes both the 'channel' and 'group' concepts from more traditional lighting control systems. A setting represents some settings for a specific system. A setting corresponds to a 'palette' or 'preset' on a traditional lighting console. A 'sequence' is a list of settings. This is like a 'chase' or 'cue list' on a traditional console.

Systems

Systems are defined by giving them a name and assigning some other systems to them. The name is of the format ([\w_]+\d* | \d+) (an ID of letters and underscores with an optional number, or just a number). A system is declared with name = system or name = {system, system, ...}. This allows new systems to be built up from existing systems.

There is also a concept of a 'system literal'. This is how patching systems to actual lighting fixtures is accomplished. A system literal takes the form @@ address, where address is the starting DMX address.

1 = @@1 # system 1 is a dimmer at address 1
2 = @@2
3 = @@3
top1 = @@51
top2 = @@52
top3 = @@53
house = {@@51 @@52 @@53 @@54} # system house includes four different dimmers

front = {1 2 3} # system front is a group including systems 1, 2, and 3
top = {top1 top2 top3}

Settings

Settings are defined much like systems (by building them up out of existing settings) except that their names always begin with a ! character.

Also like systems, there is a setting literal. The form of a setting literal is system @ level, for example 1 @ 50 to set system 1 at 50% intensity.

!blackout = {
    # setting blackout is all channels out
    front @ out
    top @ out
    house @ out
}

!spot_sl = {
    # a setting for a certain look (a spotlight stage left)
    front @ out
    top @ out
    # later settings override earlier ones, so this overrides the setting of 1 to out in 'front @ out'
    1 @ full
}

Sequences

Sequences are named with a leading $ character, and defined thus: name = [setting setting ...].

$main = [
    # A simple cue list
    !blackout
    !spot_sl
    {
        front @ full
        top @ 50
    }
    front @ !blackout # recall just system front from setting blackout
    !blackout
]

$check = [
    # This would bring on fixtures to 10% one at a time for dimmer check
    {!blackout 1 @ 10}
    {!blackout 2 @ 10}
    {!blackout 3 @ 10}
    {!blackout top1 @ 10}
    {!blackout top2 @ 10}
    {!blackout top3 @ 10}
]