Display Builder app Documentation

v4

Display Builder

Tiers & Groups

Manage Groups and Layers of Displays.

menu-interface

Tiers:

Stage Tiers in Watchout are a way to place Displays in separate layers which do not interact. Displays can overlap without automatically generating a softedge between them, and media display can be managed for each tier.

Tiers can be added, deleted, or renamed in this section. Use the dropdown menu to assign the currently selected Display Group to the Tier.

Display Groups:

A Display Group contains Displays with the same characteristics.

Display Groups can be added, duplicated (including all Displays), deleted (at least one Display Group must exist) or renamed in this section.

The Display name prefix is the base of each Display's name, to which the Display number is added to differentiate them.

Set outline colours for displays to differentiate them visually:

  • Identical for all - The same colour is used for all Displays.
  • By output group - Each player machine use a different colour for its outputs.
  • By row/column - Each row or column uses a different colour (depending on row/column order)
  • By display - Each Display uses a different colour.
  • UV grid - Diagonally offset patterns of colour, usually used for LED panels.

Player Settings:

In Watchout, player machines can be identified by name or by I.P. address. The combination of the two fields Player name prefix and Start number / I.P. can either be used to create a name or an I.P. address.

For example, the defaults Player_ & 1 will create player names like Player1, Player_2, etc. Alternatively, entering a base I.P. address 192.168.0. will create addresses 192.168.0.1, etc.

Set the number of Outputs per player to reflect the hardware configuration of the player machines - e.g. 4 or 6 outputs (N.B. Multiple outputs are supported from Watchout v5 and higher).

Selecting the Share/use free outputs option will allow the next Display Group to use any Player outputs not used by the current Display Group. Deselecting this option in a Display Group will force its Displays to start from output 1.

N.B. mixed display resolutions on the same player machine is only supported in Watchout v6 and above. Mixed resolutions, while technically possible, are discouraged in some media-server software.

Helper functions:

The Import OBJ button will attempt to import an 3D object in OBJ format to define the dimensions of the current Display Group and automatically calculate Display size and positions to fit. Dimensions are calculated from the X/Y extremities of the object, so complex or rotated objects may be imported with incorrect dimensions.

The Add Preview button will attempt to create a preview display on a new tier encompassing the current Display Group. The Display uses the same resolution as the Display Group, but the stage-size will be increased to cover as much of the Display Group as possible.

The application will attempt to place the preview display on output 1 (generally the output showing the Windows menus) and start the main display outputs from output 2.