This page covers building a scene: a composition of sources that the rundown treats as one cue. A background with a countdown over it, a logo over a clip, a picture-in-picture.
Opening it
Scene in the toolbar → New scene…, give it a name, and the builder opens. An existing scene is opened with Edit… from the same menu, which also holds Insert, Rename… and Delete.
What is in the builder
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sources | The list of what is in this scene, front at the top. |
| Add source | Puts a new source in the scene. |
| Remove selected source | Takes it out of this scene. |
| Show / hide | Whether a source is drawn at all. |
| Lock / unlock | Stops a source being moved or resized by accident. |
| Move up (to front) / Move down (to back) | The stacking order. |
| Scene filters… | Filters over the whole scene — see filters. |
| Done | Closes the builder. |
Position and size are set by dragging in the picture, as you would expect.
Order is what you see
The list is the stacking order: top is front. A background belongs at the bottom, a logo at the top, and a source that has disappeared is usually behind something rather than gone.
Lock what is finished. A background that is exactly right is one accidental drag away from being wrong, and locking costs one click.
These scenes are private
The scenes you build here do not appear in the engine’s own scene list.
Two reasons, and both matter in a control room: the operator never meets the engine’s interface, and the engine’s scene collection does not fill up with forty scenes that only mean something inside one rundown.
What to build, and what not to
| Situation | Build a scene? |
|---|---|
| Two or more things on screen at once | Yes |
| A countdown to the start | Yes — with the clock source |
| A logo in the corner over everything, all evening | No — that is a filter or an overlay layer, not a cue |
| One picture, one clip | No — a still or media cue is simpler and cannot be broken |
A scene is the most powerful cue type and therefore the easiest to get wrong. Where a simpler cue does the job, use the simpler cue.
Practical notes
Build at canvas size. Everything is composed at the canvas, so a background made at that size lines up exactly — see canvas.
A clock in a scene stays frozen until the cue goes live, so what you see in the builder is a still moment, not a running clock.
A scene with a countdown gives the cue its duration, which means you do not fill the same number in twice.