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Playback

Playlists, CueGrids, transport, and eleven transition types.

Playback in Moonshine is built like a show, not a deck. You have ordered playlists for sequential cueing, a CueGrid for one-tap triggers, a transport bar for the active state, and eleven transition types to get from one scene to another.

Concepts

A cue is a saved transition into a scene. Triggering a cue runs that transition.

A playlist is an ordered list of cues that advance in sequence — useful for set pieces where the cueing order is fixed.

A CueGrid is a grid of cue buttons for non-sequential triggering — useful for shows where the operator picks the next moment based on what’s happening on stage.

You can use playlists, CueGrids, or both. The two share the same underlying cue list; the difference is just how you trigger them.

The transport bar

The transport bar is the persistent UI element across show mode. It shows:

  • The currently playing cue
  • The next cue in the active playlist (if any)
  • A progress indicator showing transition position
  • Play, pause, and next/previous buttons

In show mode, the transport bar is the primary surface — most of your live attention is there.

Triggering cues

Three ways to fire a cue:

  1. CueGrid button — click a button in the CueGrid panel. The cue’s transition fires immediately.
  2. Playlist advance — click the next/advance button on the transport bar, or press the spacebar (configurable). The current playlist’s next cue fires.
  3. Keyboard shortcut — each cue can be bound to a key for direct-fire.

The CueGrid is color-coded — each cue button shows the color associated with its destination scene, so a glance tells you which cue is which without reading labels.

Transition types

Eleven transitions ship in the box:

  • Cut — instant; no blend
  • Dissolve — linear cross-fade
  • Iris — circular reveal from center or to center
  • Wipe — linear sweep with configurable angle
  • Blinds — slatted wipe, configurable slat count and direction
  • Clock — radial sweep, like a clock hand
  • Matte video — uses a custom video alpha matte for the transition shape
  • Slide — push old scene off, new scene on
  • Fade through black — dissolve to black, then dissolve to new
  • Fade through white — same but white
  • Random — picks one of the above per trigger

Each transition has a configurable duration. Custom transitions can be added on the TouchDesigner side; the eleven above ship by default.

Live preview while editing

When you select a transition in the cue editor, the preview window shows the transition running on dummy content. You can adjust the duration and watch it update in real time — get the timing right before the show, not during.

Image adjustment

Each cue can carry per-scene image adjustments — brightness, contrast, saturation, hue. These are applied as part of the cue, so triggering it can shift the scene’s look in addition to changing content.

The sliders are debounced and synced across operators — moving a slider during prep shows the result everywhere, but doesn’t spam the network with intermediate frames.

Playlist editing

In edit mode, playlists are drag-orderable. Grab a cue and move it up or down in the list. Live progress through a playlist is shown if it’s currently running, so reordering doesn’t disrupt the “what’s playing” indicator.

You can have multiple playlists in the project — for example, one per show segment. Switch between them from the playlist selector.

Show mode behavior

In show mode, playback is the primary interaction surface. Other editing surfaces are gated; cue firing, transport control, and CueGrid interaction stay fully available.

If you need to make an emergency edit during a show, the per-resource “Edit live” toggle lets you break out of show-mode safety on that one resource without exiting show mode globally.