RigSync

Find it: Unreal Engine → Window → RigSync, or the RigSync button on the level editor toolbar.

What it's for — RigSync builds stage and lighting rigs in Unreal Engine as parametric objects rather than as piles of actors. Draw the structure, state a rule, and every fixture is placed, aimed, named, numbered, addressed and documented from it. What leaves the building is an MVR scene (My Virtual Rig, the open format for handing a lighting rig to a console or CAD), a light plot (plan, elevation and section, with its DXF) and a sixteen-document paperwork pack, each document as PDF and CSV.

The scope line is worth stating up front, because it decides whether this is the tool you want: RigSync builds rigs, CueSync programs shows. Everything below is about getting a rig to exist, to be patched, and to leave the building as drawings, paperwork and an MVR. Cue storage, playback and timecode are CueSync's job.

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Requirements

• Unreal Engine 5.8.
• The plugin enables the four engine plugins it needs — DMX Engine, DMX Protocol, DMX Fixtures and DMX GDTF — so you enable nothing by hand. Those bring further engine plugins with them; four of those are marked experimental or beta by Epic (Naming Tokens; Variant Manager Content, Python Script Plugin and Sequencer Scripting).
• Windows (Win64) and macOS. Every released package so far was built on macOS; 1.4.0 has not yet been compiled on Windows.

Install

1. In the Epic Games Launcher, Fab → Library → RigSync → Install to Engine, choosing 5.8.
2. In your project, enable RigSync in Edit → Plugins, and restart the editor.

Three ways in, all to the same panel: Window → RigSync, the RigSync button on the level editor toolbar, and a RigSync category in Place Actors holding every element you can place. Fixture types are made from the Content Browser: right-click → RigSync → Fixture Archetype.

Set the supply first

The paperwork packs circuits and quotes currents against a supply: 230 V, 16 A breakers, loaded to 80 % out of the box. For North America set it to 120 V / 20 A — in the panel's SUPPLY section or in Project Settings — before you look at a circuit count. If you work in feet and pounds, set Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync → Units to Imperial at the same time.

Quick start

The fastest way to see what the plugin does:

1. Open a level with nothing of yours in it.
2. In the RigSync panel, press Create demo rig — two trusses, two towers and a ring, 54 fixtures on five positions, patched with washes and beams in their own universe blocks. Or press Create arena rig for a full end-stage: a roof grid, five LED screens, side towers, a thrust and a B stage — 384 fixtures across 20 elements.
3. Press Light plot… or Reports… to write the documents.

Both presets refuse a level that already holds a rig, because a preset re-patches the whole level. Each one is a single undo step — Ctrl+Z (⌘Z on Mac) removes it — and its fixture types and DMX Library are saved under Content/RigSyncDemo.

To build your own instead:

1. Make a fixture type. Content Browser → right-click → RigSync → Fixture Archetype. Give it a class, a short code, and either a GDTF file or a channel count. A GDTF also supplies its weight and power.
2. Drop a RigSync Truss Run into the level from Place Actors. It draws itself immediately; shape it with its spline.
3. Add a rule in its Details panel: put the archetype in Pattern, set a Count (or a spacing), and pick which way they hang. Fixtures appear. Move a spline point and they move with it; change the count and the rig re-derives.
4. Choose a DMX Library in the panel — or press New DMX Library to make one for this show — and press Patch.

The art

A rig draws in RigSync's own art, with no setup: brushed-aluminium truss laced the way a section is built, with a connector on every chord at every joint; a chain hoist on every pick-up, its chain climbing to the grid height the documents measure it to; a base plate under every tower; decks tiled in framed panels on legs; a video wall of LED cabinets; and a proxy for each fixture class, fitted to the archetype's bounds. Every rig element has a Finish: Silver (aluminium) or Black (powder-coat). The meshes are generated from numbers — generic geometry, no manufacturer's model — and ship in the plugin's Content/ folder: 27 meshes, two master materials — one for surfaces, one for video screens — and 12 finishes.

• It is yours to replace. ChordMesh, BraceMesh and ConnectorMesh on a truss run, a tower or an arc truss, BasePlateMesh on a tower, SurfaceMesh and LegMesh on a deck, FrameMesh on a video wall and ProxyMesh on a fixture archetype are ordinary properties; assigning one is the whole swap.
• A packaged game carries it. The editor module adds the art to every cook, and a mesh that still fails to load is named once in the Output Log.

Positions

Every position takes the same rules, hang directions, numbering, naming, paperwork and export. They differ in the shape the fixtures are placed along.

A sixth kind, the imported position, is made by Import MVR from somebody else's file. Each element can also state what its steel weighs per metre; the rigging summary then adds it to the fixtures as the position's total load. RigSync never invents a section weight, and never prints pick-point or hoist reactions — that is structural engineering.

Rules

A rule is a group of fixtures doing one job, and that is deliberately the granularity paperwork is written at. It carries:

• Pattern — one or more archetypes, repeated along the run.
• Spacing — a count, or a distance, with insets at each end.
• Hang — down, up, in, out, or a custom angle, with a trim rotation on top. A Focus on the rule overrides Hang (see below).
• Order — sequential, reverse, centre-out, edges-in, or a seeded scatter. This is the chase order: the number in each fixture's name, which is what a chase follows.
• Sub group — the second half of the name and of the CueSync group tag.
• Name pattern — {Element}, {Sub}, {Side}, {Type}, {NN}, {Universe}, {Address}. A token the grammar does not know is reported while you type rather than printed onto the patch sheet.
• Purpose, colour, gel swatch, gobo, accessory, circuit prefix — the paperwork fields.

Colour lives on the rule, never on the archetype: the same wash unit hangs on the front truss in one gel and on the mid truss in another.

The fixture library

Fixture library… in the panel (or Window → RigSync Fixture Library) lists every GDTF in the project — your own imports and those of any installed pack, such as CueSync Pixel's — with manufacturer, model, each mode's footprint, the stated weight and where it was found. Search by maker, model, mode or footprint (24ch).

• Create archetype from this — a new Fixture Archetype for the file in the mode you pick, with its weight and power from the file where stated. It is unsaved until File → Save All — saving only the level leaves the level pointing at an asset that was never written.
• Assign to selection — hangs that instrument on the selected position (every rule) or on the selected fixtures (each its own special), in one undo step. An archetype that already patches the file in that mode is reused. Press Patch afterwards: a different instrument is usually a different footprint.

Focus points and specials

Focus points. A focus point (Place Actors → RigSync) is a named place on stage — DSC, Band riser, Vocal centre. Set a rule's Focus to one and its fixtures are aimed at it, and re-aimed on every rebuild: move the truss, move the point or change the drop and nothing has to be re-pointed by hand. Its name is the Focus column on the paperwork, and it travels in the MVR.

The one-off special. Select one fixture and set any of its Override fields — purpose, colour, gel swatch, gobo, accessory, circuit or focus. Only that field changes; the fixture keeps everything else, and its identity. Splitting the rule to make one fixture different would give the fixtures after it new identities, which a console reads as new lights.

Patching

Pick a DMX Library in the panel — or press New DMX Library — set the policy, and press Patch.

• Block by fixture class gives each class its own run of universes.
• First / last universe bound the range; address gap leaves room between fixtures.
• First Fixture ID on a position starts its channels where you choose — 101 for the overhead, 201 for the booms — instead of carrying on from the last. Two blocks that overlap are reported, never renumbered around.
• Pin an address on a fixture to keep it. A pin is honoured, or reported and left unpatched — never quietly relocated.

Patching is never automatic. An address is what the desk is holding. The panel measures whether the patch is out of date and says so — a bullet on Patch and a Next: line; you press the button. Afterwards it tells you how many fixtures changed address (re-send the patch, or pin what must not move) and how many patches it removed for fixtures that no longer exist. A level remembers which library it was patched into, so reopening it finds its patch again.

In the viewport

Selecting a position draws its run direction, a stub for each fixture's hang, and its channel and address — red where a fixture is unpatched. With Plan Overlay set (Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync → Viewport), its fixtures are also chained and coloured by circuit, phase or DMX line. Mirror reflects the selected positions across their stage centreline and swaps an SL name for SR; duplicate first (Ctrl+W, ⌘W on Mac) to keep the original.

What comes out

Everything is named after the production (the title block), not after the level, and every file dialog opens in the folder you last used. Each export ends with a notification and Show in folder.

• Light plot… — a plan, a front elevation and a centre-line side section, each as SVG and PDF, plus an enlarged detail sheet for any position too dense to letter, on a real sheet at a real ratio: A4–A0, Letter, Tabloid, ANSI A–E or ARCH C–E; metric at 1:20 to 1:1000, imperial at the architect's scales (1/4in = 1ft …). Stage right is drawn on the left of the page, because the reader is standing in the house. Fixtures are drawn as their instruments — a PAR can, an ellipsoidal, a moving head, a batten — pointing the way they throw, with their channel, address, gel and, where the symbol is big enough, unit number; a boom's units are drawn in a row beside it, each with its height. Pipes are one line, built truss its two faces. A centre line, a setting line, a grid, a graphic scale bar and a title block.
• The plot as DXF — beside each sheet, …_LightPlot.dxf and one each for the elevation and the section: AutoCAD R12, full size in millimetres, the plot's own drawing (labels and leaders where the PDF has them); the plan's origin is the stage's centre line and setting line, stage right on the left; layers TRUSS, FIXTURES, LABELS, DIMS, VENUE and FOCUS. Import it into your CAD program as millimetres (R12 cannot state its units).
• Patch sheet… — one row per fixture, in rig order: 28 columns.
• Reports… — sixteen documents, as CSV and PDF, into a folder: patch sheet, channel hookup, instrument schedule, colour call, gobo list, circuit schedule (a verdict on every circuit), shop order, purpose schedule, rigging summary, a sheet under Lightwright's column names, a focus chart — every focus point measured from the stage's datum, with the channels aimed at it — an indicative load check (below), a power plan, a data plan, an estimated cable pick-list (see Power, data and cable) and an estimated truss and hardware list (each leg of truss cut to the stock lengths you carry, corners, base plates, hoists and pick-ups — counts and lengths only) — and every report you have defined (see Your own reports). Unit numbers count along each position, so Position + Unit is a key.
• Export MVR… — the scene: every fixture's stable UUID, current transform, address, fixture ID, unit number and focus; the steel as meshes and each video wall as a screen; and a GDTF for every fixture type, generated as a clearly labelled placeholder where you have no manufacturer's file.

Every number that quotes a current also quotes the supply it assumed. A weight or power that is an archetype's default — nobody weighed it — is printed as assumed.

The Lightwright sheet, read back

Import Lightwright… reads back the Lightwright sheet from Reports… after it has been edited, matching rows by Position and Unit #. It previews every changed channel, universe/address, purpose, colour and note — and every line it will not apply, with the reason — gives every change a tick, and changes nothing until you press Apply (one undo step; only the ticked changes are written). Compare with MVR… offers the same window for a desk's re-addresses, channel numbers, purposes and colours (Review changes to apply…). Channels and addresses become pins: press Patch to send them to the desk. Type, template, focus, accessory, circuit, wattage and weight are RigSync's and are not imported; a change to them is listed, not applied.

The load check (indicative)

Type a Working Load Limit Kg on a position (Details → RigSync → Rigging) and, on a truss or arc, a Hoist Working Load Limit Kg under its pick-ups. Nothing is checked until you do. RigSync tallies the position's fixtures plus the steel weight you stated, and at each pick-up the fixtures nearest it plus its share of the steel, and marks each OK, near (80% or more), over, or incomplete where a weight is unknown. You see it in the panel's Load column and NEEDS ATTENTION, in the Details panel, on the pick-ups in the viewport and in the pack's Load check sheet.

It is an indicative tally, not a structural calculation or a certification: it does not work out reactions, continuity over several points, overhangs, bridles or dynamic loads. The pick-ups also go out in the MVR, for whoever does the rigging calculation, and a qualified rigger signs the rig off.

Power, data and cable

Which fixtures share a circuit is derived (the rule's circuit prefix, packed by load in the order they hang). On each position, Details → RigSync → Power → Circuit Plan states what an electrician decides: each circuit's phase, its breaker (empty uses your supply's) and its distro or dimmer channel; Data → Dmx Feeds states which node and port (or splitter output) carries each universe onto it, in Art-Net or sACN, with the node's IP. Positions naming the same node and port are one DMX line, chained in rig order and label order.

• Assign circuits (panel) gives every rule without a circuit prefix one nobody else uses, then every circuit without a phase the least-loaded phase so far, in position order. Phases you stated are kept. One undo step.
• Assign DMX feeds gives every patched universe with no feed the next free node port (Node 1's, then Node 2's — four ports each unless you say). IPs are left for you. One undo step.

The pack's Power plan judges each circuit's current against its breaker — OK, near (80% or more), OVER, incomplete where a fixture's power is unknown — and totals the three phases with their imbalance. Wattage is the archetype's Power field where one was typed, else the fixture's GDTF where it states one. The Data plan lists every line with its node, port, protocol, IP, universe (Art-Net counts from 0: universe 1 is 0:0:0), devices in chain order, and a warning over 32 devices (Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync → Data) or where one port is given two universes. The Cable pick-list is an estimate: each line is a drop from its first fixture to the deck, then straight hops between fixtures, plus a slack per fixture (1 m), each cable rounded up to the lengths you carry (Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync → Cabling: 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 m unless you change them). Walk the route before you order.

Each position's Details panel shows its circuits and DMX lines, NEEDS ATTENTION lists anything near or over, and Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync → Viewport → Plan Overlay colours a selected position's fixtures by circuit, phase or DMX line.

Your own reports

New report (panel) starts a report of your own — a copy of the patch sheet, the channel hookup or the instrument schedule, or a blank one — in Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync → Reports, saved with the project. Choose its columns (channel, position, unit, type, class, mode, purpose, focus, colour, gobo, circuit, phase, distro channel, universe, address, DMX line, height, weight, power, notes and more), each with its own heading, what it prints when a fixture has nothing there, and its decimal places; filters (is, is not, contains, is empty, is not empty); sort keys; and grouping with a TOTAL row per group. Reports… writes it with the pack as CSV and PDF. A copy of a built-in document writes exactly that document until you change it.

The room

A Venue Plan (Place Actors → RigSync) reads a DXF drawing of the venue and draws it under the rig on the light plot and, while the plan is selected, in the viewport. Its layers are listed in the actor's Details with a tick each, and blocks, splines, ellipses, arc (bulged) polyline segments and text labels are read. Its units come from the file; its geometry is saved with the level, so the level opens without the file.

Bringing a rig in

Import MVR reads a scene somebody else authored (it is tested on the demo scene grandMA3 ships, drawn in Vectorworks) and places it: positions, orientations, names, fixture IDs, and the footprint, weight and power out of the GDTF the archive carries. Addresses arrive pinned, so patching afterwards leaves the desk's numbering alone, and each fixture keeps the UUID the file gave it, so the next export is an update rather than a second rig. Import a revision of the same file and the fixtures already here are updated in place. Structure objects arrive too, drawn as the file's own meshes (as boxes where a mesh is over the triangle budget); the import says what it did not bring in — anything else that holds DMX addresses — so you can keep those channels clear.

On the network

MVR-xchange moves a rig between applications without anyone emailing a file. In the panel's MVR-XCHANGE section press Start; RigSync announces itself on the local network. Find peers lists the other stations, Connect joins them (or type host:port for one discovery cannot see), and Share rig announces this level's rig. Files other stations offer are listed; Get asks for them, and Import received brings one into the level. So far it has been run only between two RigSync stations.

Nothing opens a socket until you press Start. A station only accepts a file it asked for, and a received file lands in Saved/RigSync/ and is never applied until you import it.

Design mode and show mode

• Design mode is the default: each fixture is a light body and a lens, with no light component and no beam, so a big rig stays interactive.
• Show mode swaps them for real fixture actors bound to their DMX patch — so the rig is lit by the desk. With no fixture actor of your own it uses Epic's DMX fixtures, which ship with the engine (a setting turns that off), each fitted to its throw.
• For the desk to drive a fixture, it needs a GDTF or a Previs Personality on its archetype, and the project needs a DMX input port on the rig's universes — press Add input port in the panel (or add one under Project Settings → Plugins → DMX). In show mode the panel lists whatever is missing.

One level, one show

Place a RigSync Stage (Place Actors → RigSync) and its level becomes a show of its own: its title block, general notes and revision history head that level's plot, pack, file names and MVR layer, field by field over the project's defaults, and it can give the level its own patch policy, supply and haze. Where you put it is the datum — the centre line and setting line are drawn through it and every height is measured from its deck. Its position is read, not its rotation: the stage faces +X.

Settings

Project Settings → Plugins → RigSync: the DMX Library, the patch policy, naming, generation budgets, Units (metric or imperial), the electrical supply (set it first), the LED pixels per data port, the show-mode fallback, and the title block — production, venue, designer, drawing number, revision and sheet size. A title block is typed once per project here and overridden per level by a RigSync Stage; the panel's TITLE BLOCK section edits both.

Troubleshooting

Patch says there is no DMX Library. Pick one, or press New DMX Library beside the picker.

The rig did not re-patch after I changed it. It never does on its own. Press Patch. Export MVR, Light plot, Patch sheet and Reports say so too, if the addresses they would print are not the ones the level asks for.

A packaged build shows an empty stage. RigSync's art is in the plugin's Content/ folder and is added to every cook automatically; if the log says "RigSync art '/RigSync/…' did not load", the plugin was installed without that folder. Reinstall it whole, or add /RigSync to Project Settings → Packaging → Additional Asset Directories to Cook for a custom cook.

Show mode empties the rig. Your fixture actor roots on a Static component, which cannot be attached to a movable truss. Root it on a plain scene component, as Epic's own fixture actors do.

A GDTF fixture patches three channels. With no Preferred Mode Name, the file's first mode is used — on a multi-cell fixture, usually the simple one. Name the mode you want.

Every fixture reads as unpatched. The level is pointed at a different DMX Library from the one holding its patch. Re-select the right one and press Patch.

The panel says the rules place nothing. Each rule needs an archetype in its Pattern.

A fixture reserves one channel. Its archetype has no GDTF and no channel count.

The MVR names a GDTF I do not have. A generic archetype has no manufacturer's file, so RigSync generates a placeholder that states the footprint and whatever you stated about the fixture, and invents nothing else. It says in the file that it is a placeholder.

Reporting a problem

RigSync is loud on purpose: most failures are named in the Output Log, under LogRigSync, LogRigSyncSolve, LogRigSyncXchange and LogRigSyncEditor. Send the log (<YourProject>/Saved/Logs/<YourProject>.log) with a description of what you expected, to support@cuesync.live. The plugin's own docs/SUPPORT.md, in its install folder, says how to run its automated tests and what the known symptoms mean.

Where it fits

RigSync builds the rig. CueSync programs the show and drives it — beat, energy, cues and timecode — and CueSync for Unreal is what receives that in the same level. A rig built here is already tagged for CueSync's fixture group driver, and the fixture number is the chase order (in the editor and in play-in-editor; a cooked build sorts by object name).