The landscape of stage lighting has shifted dramatically toward multi-emitter fixtures. Modern rigs are packed with LED pixel bars (e.g. 16-cell battons), moving head wash lights with concentric LED rings and center spot emitters, dual-tilt moving heads, and high-density strobe panels.

On traditional lighting consoles, accommodating multi-cell fixtures is notoriously frustrating: operators are forced to either patch 16 separate single-channel fixtures (cluttering the patch list and losing global pan/tilt control) or treat the fixture as a single coarse lamp (losing pixel mapping).

Unilighter solves this with a native Multi-Head Architecture that treats complex multi-emitter fixtures as unified, intelligent single-device containers.

Multi-Head Fixture Channel Mapping - Master Dimmer on Shared channel alongside independent color emitters assigned to Head 0 and Head 1

🧱 The Single-Container Model

When you patch a 16-cell pixel bar or a ring-wash moving head in Unilighter:

  • You patch exactly one device in your patch list.
  • Unilighter allocates the entire continuous DMX footprint automatically.
  • All internal sub-emitters (heads) remain individually controllable while sharing master fixture attributes.

🔀 SHARED_HEAD vs. Independent Emitters

Unilighter partitions fixture channels into two distinct scopes:

1. The Shared Head (SHARED_HEAD = -1)

Channels assigned to the shared scope govern global physical attributes of the fixture housing:

  • Master Dimmer & Strobe: Controls total luminous output across all heads simultaneously.
  • Pan / Tilt & Pan/Tilt Fine: Physical mechanical motor orientation.
  • Optics & Mechanics: Global Zoom, Focus, Frost filter, and Gobo wheels.
  • Built-In FX & Macros: Internal fixture chase macros and speed controls.

2. Independent Heads (H0, H1, ... Hn-1)

Channels assigned to specific head indices represent localized, independent emitters:

  • Cell Colors: Independent \(R, G, B, W\) channels for each individual lens or pixel diode.
  • Cell Dimmers: Dedicated intensity channels per pixel (if supported by fixture mode).
  • Secondary Pan/Tilt: Independent tilt angles on dual-head moving bars.

💡 Intelligent Dimmer Inheritance & Multiplied Output

A major advantage of Unilighter's multi-head engine is its hierarchical intensity resolution:

\($\text{Effective Intensity} = \text{Master Shared Dimmer} \times \text{Head Cell Dimmer}\)$

  • Blackout with One Fader: Bringing down the master fixture dimmer gracefully fades out all 16 heads at once, without clearing or altering individual pixel color patterns.
  • Fallback Dimming: If a multi-head fixture profile does not have per-pixel dimmers, Unilighter automatically maps the master dimmer across all heads.
  • Per-Head Color Calibration: Each individual head can have independent color correction applied in Color Engine, ensuring uniform whites across every cell of a pixel batton.

🏷️ Tagging & Targeting Multi-Head Fixtures

Unilighter's Fixture Tags and parameter selectors seamlessly address both global fixtures and localized heads:

  • Targeting All Heads: Selecting #StageBars in a color picker sets all pixels on all patched bars simultaneously.
  • Targeting Shared Parameters: In Keyframe Animations or Node Graphs, binding to pan (Shared) moves the physical bar while leaving pixel color chases untouched.
  • Targeting Specific Heads: You can isolate sub-emitters (e.g. #StageBars.h0 for the first pixel of every bar, or the outer LED ring of a wash head) to generate intricate geometric chases.

🌐 2D & 3D Stage Visualizer Integration

In Unilighter's built-in 2D Stage Layout and 3D Visualizer, multi-head fixtures are rendered with accurate physical spacing:

  • Each pixel cell emits light from its true spatial coordinate along the fixture bar.
  • When the fixture moves in Pan or Tilt, all child heads rotate cohesively in 3D space.

Read more in the Device Patch & Universe Setup Manual and the Fixture Profile Editor.