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Lightbridge

Parameters

Almost every number in Lightbridge is a parameter: the size of a voronoi cell, the hue of a plasma field, the strength of a blur, the position of a source on screen, the speed of an animation. Parameters are what you actually interact with when you’re building a look — they’re the leaves on the chain tree, and they’re where modulation, colour, and MIDI all meet.

What a parameter looks like

Every parameter is exposed as a slider in the parameter panel, in the centre column of the main window directly below the output canvases. When you click a source or effect in the chain, its parameters fill that panel. Each slider has a few parts worth recognising:

  • The track — the bar you drag left and right to change the value.
  • The value — where the track is currently pointing. This is the number stored in the show file.
  • The overlay overlay modulation A coloured bar on top of the slider that shows what the parameter is actually rendering — after any modulation, palette, or MIDI has been applied. It may differ from the stored value. Learn more → — a coloured bar on top of the track showing what’s actually being rendered in the current frame. When a modulation is active, the overlay moves in real time while the value stays put.
  • The ≡ drag handle — on the right of the slider. Drag it onto a controller panel element to wire a physical knob, fader, or pad to the parameter.
  • The ↺ reset button — resets the parameter to its factory default. Double-clicking the track does the same thing.
  • The ⚙ modulation icon — opens the modulation menu. If a modulation is already attached, the gear lights up so you know the parameter isn’t just sitting at its stored value.

What you can do with a parameter

Right-clicking a parameter slider brings up its context menu. What’s in the menu depends on the parameter type, but the common entries are:

  • Add Audio mod / Add LFO mod / Add Beat mod — attach an audio-reactive, LFO, or beat-locked modulation modulation modulation Drives a parameter automatically. Can run from audio, an LFO, or the beat clock. Learn more → to the parameter. Each parameter can have one modulation at a time.
  • Add action button — create an on-screen action button action button performance A one-click button that snaps a parameter to a target value. Useful for live triggers — bind one to a MIDI pad and you can nudge any parameter hands-free. Learn more → that snaps the parameter to a target value on press (and optionally returns to the previous value on release). Useful for hands-free live triggering.
  • Reset to default — snap the value back to the factory default.
  • Remove modulation — delete the attached modulation, if there is one.
  • Copy / paste value — move a value between sliders of the same type.

Colour parameters also get palette options: bind a hue/saturation/brightness param to one of the palette swatches, so the palette drives it instead of the slider.

Parameter ranges

Every parameter has a range: a minimum and a maximum value the slider can travel between. Most parameters ship with sensible defaults — Position X goes from -100% to 100%, Rotation goes from -180° to 180°, and so on.

You can customise the range per parameter per source from the Source Detail View. Wider ranges unlock extreme values; narrower ranges give you finer control around a specific zone. Not every parameter is customisable — colour components, discrete selectors, loopable values, and a few others are locked because changing their range would break the parameter’s behaviour.

How values are actually resolved

A slider’s handle position is not always what the renderer sees. At any given frame, a parameter’s final value comes from the highest active layer in this priority chain:

  1. MIDI — if a physical controller is bound, it wins.
  2. Modulation — if the parameter has a modulation, its output wins.
  3. Palette — if it’s a colour parameter bound to a swatch, the swatch wins.
  4. Slider — your stored value, what the handle is pointing to.
  5. Factory default — the value the parameter ships with.

If you drag the slider while a modulation is active, nothing visibly changes — the modulation’s still winning. Disable or delete the modulation and the slider value comes back. See Parameter Priority for the full story, including a worked example.

Drag-binding to a controller

Every parameter slider has a small ≡ icon. This is the drag handle. To wire a physical knob, fader, or pad to the parameter, drag the ≡ icon onto a controller panel element. A binding is created on the spot, the physical control takes over, and the parameter resolves to MIDI from then on.

You can also drag-bind action buttons the same way: create an action button from the parameter’s right-click menu, then drag it onto a pad.

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