Resolume Arena

About this release

Resolume is the software running behind a great many stage screens, club walls and festival visuals, and Arena is the tier with the mapping and output tools that separate a laptop showing video from a properly commissioned installation. The interface is a grid of clips triggered live, layered on top of each other with blend modes, effects and transitions, all playing back in real time while somebody drives it from a controller.

Projection mapping is the defining Arena feature. Output can be split across several projectors and displays, each region shaped, warped and masked to fit whatever physical surface it is being thrown onto, with soft edge blending where projectors overlap so the seam disappears. Complex objects, curved walls and multi surface sets are handled by building the mapping once and saving it with the composition, so the rig loads at the next venue exactly as it was set.

The performance side is deep without being fussy. Clips trigger by key, controller, timeline or incoming music, effects chain per clip, per layer and across the whole composition, parameters animate against the beat, and everything responds to audio input so visuals move with what is actually playing in the room. Playback handles high resolution content across multiple layers without dropping frames, which is the entire requirement in a live setting.

It connects to the rest of the production properly. Lighting desks talk to it over the standard protocols so visuals sit in the same cue stack as everything else, timecode keeps a show locked to a track, live camera inputs come in as clips, and video streams pass between applications on the same machine without a capture card. Recording captures the output while the show runs.

What it does

Clip grid performance

Layers of triggerable clips with blend modes, transitions and per layer effects, all live.

Projection mapping

Warp, mask and shape output regions to physical surfaces, saved with the composition.

Soft edge blending

Overlapping projectors blend seamlessly across a wide surface.

Audio reactive parameters

Effects and animation driven by incoming sound or by the beat.

Show control integration

Standard lighting protocols and timecode so visuals live in the same cue stack as the rest of the show.

Live inputs and streams

Camera capture and application to application video without a capture card.

Changed in this version

• Higher layer counts play back without dropping frames on current hardware.
• Mapping editor gains finer control over warp mesh subdivision.
• Improved codec performance on high resolution clip playback.
• Effect parameter animation reworked with clearer beat sync options.
• Fixed output alignment drift on multi display setups after a resolution change.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive to a short path.
2. Update the graphics driver before installing, since output handling depends on it.
3. Run the installer and let the codec components register.
4. Configure the output displays and mapping before loading a real composition.

Worth knowing before you start

File details