DreamShow user manual

Every DreamShow function explained step by step, with the software's screens. The same manual is inside DreamShow: the F1 key or the “?” button of each window. Download the complete manual as a PDF to read it offline or print it.

Getting started

• Welcome to DreamShow — DreamShow is lighting, sound and video show control software for Windows. It drives your fixtures over DMX, plays sound and video, and coordinates…
• First steps — The first time you start it, DreamShow does not leave you facing empty panels: it offers three ways to begin, then a short list of six things to do…
• Creating your first show (music or theatre) — The Create my first show wizard writes a complete show for you that works straight away: on one or more songs for a musical show, or from a list of…
• Declaring your fixtures (venue wizard) — The Declare my fixtures wizard creates a venue with your real equipment in a minute: you look up each fixture model you own, and give its DMX mode and…
• Installation, languages and updates — This page explains how to install DreamShow, what is installed and where, how to choose the interface language, how to find out that a newer version…
• DreamShow is free — DreamShow is free: all its features are open, with no limit and no time limit. There is no licence to install and nothing to buy.

The main screen

• Main screen overview — DreamShow's main screen is the editor: this is where you write the show, scene by scene, adjust the light, place sound and video on the timeline and…
• The Scenes panel — A DreamShow show is a sequence of scenes, played one after the other on Go, automatically or chained. The Scenes panel lists them: this is where you…
• Scene settings — The top of the Scene settings panel describes the selected scene: its name, its label, how you leave it (on Go, automatically or chained), the fade to…
• Selecting fixtures and adjusting the light — To light a scene, you first tick the fixtures (or groups) to adjust, then set their intensity, colour, position and special channels. These settings…
• Palettes — A palette is a named setting that you reuse in every scene: a colour (“Amber”, “Midnight blue”), a set of moving-head positions (“Front”, “Singer”) or…
• Libraries — The Libraries panel brings together everything you place on a scene's timeline: fixture groups, media (sounds, videos, pictures, DMX streams), effects,…
• Log, Audio and Clock — Three small panels take up the bottom of the main screen. The Log tells you what DreamShow is doing (scenes played, sounds started, interface errors…).…
• 2D and 3D simulation — The Venue panel shows the venue and its fixtures, seen from above (2D) or in volume (3D), with their beams, their colours and the video screens. It…

The timeline

• The scene timeline — Each scene of your show has its own timeline: a strip of time, divided into tracks, on which you drop blocks (light, effects, sounds, videos, waits,…
• Light and effect blocks — Light blocks make the lighting change during the scene: a group that rises then falls, a colour that passes through, a profile spot that comes on for…
• Fades and mixes — DreamShow moves the light from one state to another in three ways, which do not behave in the same manner: the scene fade (when going from one scene to…
• Sound and video on the timeline — The sounds and videos of your show are placed on the scenes' timelines, like light blocks: they start when the red line reaches them, with their fades,…
• Waits (key, time, date, sun) — A wait block stops the scene's timeline at a precise point until a condition is met: the press of a chosen key (Wait for a key…), or a moment on the…
• Wait for a spoken line (voice sync) — The Wait for a spoken line… block stops the timeline until a performer has said a given line into the microphone. DreamShow recognises the voice by…
• Jumps and scene labels — A jump takes the cue list from one scene to another at the moment the red line reaches it, without a GO: to go back, skip a passage, or loop several…
• Parallel sequences — A parallel sequence is a second playback that runs at the same time as the cue list: it plays a scene, then the following ones according to their…
• Architectural lighting — A facade, a hall, a shop window or a garden is lit every evening, with nobody at the control desk: switching on at sunset, looping animations, moving…
• Dynamic effects — A dynamic effect applies a waveform (sine, square, chase, random…) to an attribute of a group of fixtures: their intensity, their colour, their…
• Pixel mapping — Pixel mapping treats the cells of your LED bars, matrices and LED fixtures as the pixels of a screen, seen from the hall, and plays an animated picture…

Aiming, zones and trajectories

• Aiming and covering a zone with moving heads — Two tools in the Venue panel set the pan and tilt of moving heads without touching the sliders: Aim points all the selected moving heads at the same…
• Trajectories — A trajectory animates moving heads (or other fixtures) over time: you place key frames, each with a state of the fixtures (position, colour, intensity,…
• Moving-head calibration — To aim, DreamShow computes a moving head's pan and tilt from its position in the venue, its rigging and the pan / tilt ranges of its definition: this…

The venue

• Fixtures, addresses, positions — This window describes the venue: its dimensions, its stage, its location on Earth and above all the list of its fixtures with their model, their DMX…
• The fixture library — The library contains the fixture definitions: for each model, its DMX channels, their functions, its modes, its cells and some physical data. When you…
• DMX connections — The DMX connections window tells DreamShow where the venue's DMX universes go out: an Art-Net node on the network, an sACN receiver, a USB DMX PRO…
• Manual controls — Some devices must not follow the cue list: a winch, the power supply of the moving heads, a relay, a mechanical shutter… The Manual controls window…
• Video screens — Screens are the surfaces on which the show plays its videos and pictures: a monitor or video projector plugged into the PC, or an IP video player (a…
• Switching, renaming, duplicating a venue — A venue describes a place: its dimensions, its fixtures and their addresses, its groups, its screens, its DMX connections, its calibrations. You can…

DMX and control

• DMX values and DMX faders — Two windows in the DMX menu for seeing and forcing what DreamShow sends to the fixtures. DMX values… shows live the 512 channels of a universe, as they…
• Visualiser mode — Visualiser mode turns DreamShow into a monitoring screen for other software or another lighting desk: the 2D/3D simulation shows the DMX that device…
• Sound-to-light and tempo — DreamShow can listen to music live (a microphone, a line input, or what the PC is playing, for example DJ software) and use it in two ways: vary the…
• Timecode (LTC / MTC) — Timecode is a time (hours:minutes:seconds:frames) sent continuously by another device: an audio track, a mixing desk, a multitrack recorder, video or…
• MIDI controllers — A MIDI controller (a surface with pads, buttons or faders, plugged in by USB) can drive DreamShow: Go, previous scene, jump to a scene, blackout,…
• The web remote — A phone or tablet connected to the same network as the control PC drives the show from its browser: GO, back, scene list, blackout, pause, reset to…
• The OSC remote — OSC (Open Sound Control) is a network command language widely used in show control: tablet apps, programmable button boxes, cue-playback or video…
• The remote (GO keys) — This window chooses the keys that drive the cue window (Show mode): GO, Previous step and Blackout. It is mainly used to connect a wireless…

The performance

• Show mode and the cue window — Show mode is the way you play the show. It opens the cue window: a clean screen, readable from a distance, that shows the current scene, its progress,…
• Recovering after a crash or a power cut — If DreamShow stops abruptly (crash, forced shutdown, power cut), it offers on restart to pick up exactly where it stopped: same show, same scene, same…

Creating with an AI

• Creating a show with an AI — You already have the script of a play, a cue sheet or a running order: a conversational AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Le Chat…) writes the show from…
• DMX stream by an AI — This function has an AI write the complete lighting of a piece of music, frame by frame, as a DMX stream (a .DmxStreaming file). DreamShow prepares a…
• AI assistant (set the scene) — Describe the light you want in a few words, for example “a full blue wash covering the right half of the stage”: the assistant sets the selected scene…
• Connect an AI (MCP) — The AI you already use can set DreamShow's scenes when you ask it: “full blue wash stage right”, “switch off the upstage moving heads”… It works with…

Stage devices

• The standalone player — The standalone player replays a DreamShow show without a PC: a façade, a shop window, a lobby, an illuminated garden, a carousel… DreamShow calculates…
• The follow spot on a tablet — One or more tablets (or phones) serve as a “follow spot”: on the screen, a plan of the venue; you put your finger down, and the chosen moving heads…
• Backstage displays — Backstage displays are information screens placed in the wings, in the dressing rooms or at the front of house: “5 minutes to curtain up”, “Interval —…
• The teleprompter — The teleprompter shows the play's text, one line at a time, on a backstage display: a screen in the wings, a tablet, or an LED panel facing the actors.…
• Humanoid robots — DreamShow drives Booster K1 humanoid robots from the timeline: standing up, speaking (with a sound file), dancing, waving, walking, turning the head……
• LED masks — DreamShow drives Bluetooth LED masks of the Shining Mask family, worn by an actor or placed on a robot's face. From the timeline, a Mask… block changes…
• Connected sockets — DreamShow can switch power sockets on or off during a show: cut the power of architectural fixtures at night, bring it back before opening, start a…

Files

• Shows, files and projects — This page describes the File menu (creating, opening, saving a show, exporting or importing a complete project) and explains where DreamShow stores…

Help

• Troubleshooting — This page gathers the most frequent problems and the steps to follow for each. The first reflex is always the same: look at the Log panel, where…
• Keyboard shortcuts — This page lists all of DreamShow's keyboard and mouse shortcuts, window by window. The keys of the cue window (GO, previous, blackout) can be changed…
• Glossary — The terms of the trade and those of DreamShow, with a short definition. Terms are in alphabetical order.