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TouchDesignerMedia server and show control in TouchDesigner · working

FADE ENGINE

A media server and cue console in TouchDesigner. The console holds the cue list, follows and OSC to QLab and Eos; the render node holds the scenes, the crossfade engines, the projector outputs and the shutters. Moves have a duration, cues follow, and BACK always steps back; a Stream Deck plays it.

A media server I’ve been working on for a long time — since The Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, in many ways, and through QLab driving TouchDesigner on more than twenty shows. It was first tested at scale in the Echo Engine workshops, then ran six projectors for HEIST at the Arts Club Theatre Company in 2026.

FADE ENGINE’s console during HEIST: the cue list, Go and Stop/Back, the live and loaded stages for six projectors, and the camera inputsThe Stream Deck for FADE ENGINE’s console, its keys lit and labelled: Go, Back, Validate, Oops! and Panic among themFADE ENGINE’s console during HEIST: the cue list with the live cue in green and the loaded one in orange, Go and Stop/Back, the log and the timecodeHEIST on stage, the projection across the set, with FADE ENGINE’s console and cue list on the monitors in the house

Process

The console with every projector on a test pattern: the cue list, six live outputs, the loaded stage, six camera inputs and the logHEIST’s set under every projector’s test pattern, circles and grids with the show’s name, while the projectors are lined up