Building Blocks

Every Logic Rule is built out of these blocks. Drag them into the editor and connect them with lines.

There are three kinds:

• Inputs: stuff that fires (sensors, buttons, webhooks)
• Logic: gates and stateful blocks that shape what comes next
• Outputs: what actually happens (a show plays, a webhook fires)

Inputs

Input (channel)

Watches a physical input on a controller: an opto-isolated input on an Input 16, Output 8 MKII, LED Controller, or IgorBox DMX, or the front button (when the front button is set to Trigger mode).

The input can be on this controller or any other controller in your account, so a button or sensor on one box can be a condition in a rule running on another. They just need to be on the same local network.

You can choose when it reacts: when the signal turns On (button pressed, sensor active), when it turns Off (button released, sensor clear), or on both.

The most common input. Wire a button to one of these and point it at a show, and you're done.

On firmware 2.2.2, physical inputs follow their Normally closed and Cooldown settings. A normally closed sensor activates when its contact opens. Activations ignored during cooldown do not fire the rule now or later, even though the sensor's indicator still changes. Changing Normally closed in Studio adjusts existing rule connections to preserve when they fire; wait for all affected controllers to finish updating before running the scene.

Use Direct Trigger on the source controller's Overview tab to test an input watched by a deployed rule. The test runs the connected actions locally and on other controllers, just as the sensor would, without starting Manual Control.

Virtual Input

A button you can fire from a Trigger Board, without wiring a physical sensor. Use it for an actor cue, a puzzle hint, or a Reset game action.

1. In the Logic Rules editor's input node picker, choose Virtual Input.
2. Give it a name that describes its job.
3. Connect its Pulse output to the action or logic you want to run.
4. Deploy the rule to its controller.
5. In a Trigger Board button's Action, choose Fire virtual input followed by the input, rule, and controller names.

Each button press gives the rule one quick activation, like pressing and releasing a physical button. A press is ignored while the controller is in Manual Control, locked, or still starting up; nothing is saved to run later.

Preview pulse in the input’s settings tests the diagram only. It does not run your real effects. To try the real action, use the published board when everyone around the effects is ready.

The board uses the deployed rule, so new or changed Virtual Inputs must be deployed before the board can use them. This Studio feature needs no new firmware version. Trigger Boards require Builder or above, and the device displaying the board and the target controller both need internet access. A board's Sent message does not confirm that a show started. On firmware 2.2.2, the controller’s Events tab can show that the press was received; check the show’s result separately.

Webhook

An external system fires the rule by hitting a URL.

Studio gives you the URL when you set up the inbound webhook. Hand it to your ticketing system, your custom hardware, your phone, or whatever else needs to trigger your show.

Named Trigger

A signal another rule on the same controller can fire and listen for. Handy for chaining rules together when one big rule would be too tangled.

To listen for one, add an Input block and point it at the named trigger instead of a physical input. To send one, use the Named Trigger output (under Outputs, below). To coordinate across controllers, you have two options: watch another controller's input directly (see the Input block above), or use a Show Trigger to fire any show in your Studio.

DMX Input

Watches one slot of incoming DMX on an IgorBox DMX and stays on while the value sits inside a range you set.

Point it at one of the controller's named DMX inputs (or a raw slot number) and pick the range; "console fader above half" is a range of 128–255. The block turns on when the incoming value enters the range and off when it leaves.

It's stateless (it simply reflects the wire), so pair it with a Latch for "fire once and remember." The rule must run on the DMX controller doing the listening, and that controller's input must be live: always true in Buffer or Fixture mode, and in Standard mode once DMX input is enabled. See DMX Input.

Logic

And

Fires when all of its inputs are firing. Useful for "all four switches are set" patterns.

Or

Fires when any of its inputs is firing.

Not-And (Nand)

Fires when not all of its inputs are firing. Useful for "all-but" logic.

Either-Or (Xor)

Fires when an odd number of its inputs is firing. With two inputs, that means one or the other, but not both.

Delay

Holds a signal for a set amount of time before passing it along.

Use for "wait two seconds after the door opens, then trigger the scare."

You can also choose what happens if it fires again while it's still counting down:

• Restart: throws away the old countdown and starts the full wait over from the top. Good for "keep resetting the timer as long as the guest keeps moving."
• Accumulate: adds another full wait onto whatever's left, so repeated fires push the result further out.
• Latch: ignores the extra fires and lets the original countdown finish on schedule.

Counter

Counts how many times something fires, then fires itself on the Nth time.

Wire a sensor to it, set the count to 5, and you've got a "fire the rare scare on the fifth guest" pattern. By default it fires once when it reaches the target and stays on until reset. Turn on its Auto-reset option if you want it to re-arm and fire on every fifth guest.

Latch

Captures a fire and holds it on until you reset it. Useful for "once the puzzle is solved, stay solved."

Toggle

Flips on, then flips off, then on again, every time it fires. Useful for stateful buttons ("press to enable, press again to disable").

Random

Routes a fire to one of several outputs at random. Useful for "every time a guest walks through, pick a random scare from a pool."

Set how many outputs you want (2 to 8). Each fire picks one of them with equal odds.

Input Mask

Watches several inputs at once and fires when they match a specific on/off pattern. Perfect for combination locks: "these three switches on, that one off."

Sequence

Fires when its inputs are triggered in the right order. Get the order wrong and it tells you (it has a separate "wrong input" output you can wire to a "try again" cue). The classic escape-room combination puzzle.

Morse Code

Listens to a single input (a button, a telegraph key) for a Morse-code pattern. It has separate outputs for the correct code, a wrong attempt, and a timeout.

Reset

Resets stateful blocks (latches, counters, sequences) back to their starting state. Wire a "reset the room" button to it so you can re-arm a puzzle between groups.

Outputs

Show Trigger

Plays a show: pick which show and which controller, then fire it from a rule. The show can live on a different controller than the rule, so one box's logic can drive a scene on another (same local network). Set its action to Stop instead of Play to end a show from a rule. A rule can hold several of these to fire or stop multiple shows at once, for example lighting on one box and audio on another from a single condition.

The most common output. Most rules end with one or more of these. (For a plain input-to-show link with no logic, you don't need a rule; see Triggers.)

Webhook Emitter

Fires an outbound webhook to call out to some external system: Slack, PagerDuty, a custom dashboard, whatever you wired up.

Named Trigger (output)

Sends a named signal that other rules on the same controller can listen for. The pair to the Named Trigger input above. Used to chain rules together on one box, not across controllers.

Channel Hold

Forces a specific output channel on (or off) and holds it there until it's released. Useful for "keep this maglock powered until the puzzle is solved."

DMX Slot Hold

The DMX cousin of Channel Hold: takes ownership of one DMX channel and pins it at a value until released. While held, shows, manual control, and the ambient routine can't move that channel; the rest of the universe stays free.

It has separate Set and Release connections, each with its own value, so "Set" can pin a fogger's channel to zero and "Release" can hand it back at its resting level. Wire a Reset (or any signal) to Release to let go. The target controller must be in Standard or Buffer mode; in Fixture mode nothing can drive the output. See Operating Modes.

DMX Fixture Hold

Same idea, aimed at a patched fixture instead of a raw channel: pick the fixture, tick which of its channels to hold, and set a value for each. Only the ticked channels are held; the rest of the fixture stays live for shows and manual control. Ideal for "park the moving head and kill its dimmer, but leave its strobe channel alone."

Play Sound

Plays a sound straight from a rule (and can stop it again). Handy for a quick audio cue without building a whole show around it.

Tips

• To combine multiple inputs into one signal, run them through an Or gate.
• To fan one input out to multiple outputs, just connect the same wire to multiple destinations. That's allowed.
• The editor catches mistakes (like loops that would never resolve) and tells you where the problem is.