scenic.tools Schéma

What is it?

Schéma is a versatile multimedia toolkit, designed to control various aspects of an environment. It can be used for lighting and pixel control, VJ performances, and more.

The toolkit is built on vvvv and VL, and it aims to make visual programming more streamlined, visually clear, and enjoyable compared to other tools.

The basic workflow of Schéma involves three key steps:

• Creating a fixture layout in the Schematic view

• Adding blocks to each fixture to define their behavior, creating Block Stacks

• Experimenting and exploring the possibilities.

Schéma eliminates the need to manually connect inputs and outputs using wires or worry about organizing the program layout. No more pin fishing and constant tidying.

The structure of your program implicitly determines the connections and Block Stack layout. This feature enables the use of less precise input devices like touch or game controllers and facilitates quick adjustments to support live coding performances.

However, this simplicity comes with a trade-off. The expressiveness of the programs created with Schéma is somewhat limited. For example, multiple blocks cannot share one source. Nevertheless, the toolkit provides various tools, such as referencing other Fixtures, Layers, and Global variables, to handle such situations.

When Schéma's current capabilities are not sufficient for your vision, you can extend it by implementing new blocks using the powerful VL visual programming language, which integrates seamlessly with the .NET ecosystem. Alternatively, you can use Schéma as part of your toolchain, as it supports OSC (Open Sound Control).

Overall, Schéma's programming simplicity makes it suitable even for beginners who are learning dataflow principles. As the program is open source, more experienced users can delve into its VL codebase to further enhance their skills.

Overall, Schéma's programming simplicity makes it suitable even for beginners who are learning about multimedia programming and dataflow principles. As the program is open source, more experienced users can delve into its VL codebase to further enhance their skills and capabilities.

So are you ready to dive in?

Continue onto Getting Started

Missing something?

Check the Roadmap to see what's coming

This documentation, just as the software it's describing, is a work in progress with some parts changing rapidly.

As such, these pages don't cover everything the software has to offer while at the same time you may find concept pages describing features yet to be implemented or released.

Also note that the used terminology is not final and may change.

With that said, I still believe this document will offer a useful introduction and deeper insight into the core concepts of Schéma.