Add background

We will now project another media on the background behind the cube using the same projector.

Open the General tab and increase the Pixel Workspace from 1920×1080 to 3840×1080.

Open the Output tab and select the Main map above X-MAP1. Then add another X-Map with the button.

Set the Map to (x: 1920; y: 0) and rename it accordingly.

This X-Map will capture whatever media we play at coordinates (x: 1920 ; y: 0).

Open the Playlist tab and click & hold on the tab of Playlist 1 to open the context menu.

Select the button to rename the first playlist to Cube.

Add another playlist using the in the top right of the interface and rename it Background.

Add 2 cues and add one of the background media loops to Cue 2, set it to Loop mode and launch the cue.

For this media to appear in the background X-Map, open the Properties subtab and set the position of this media to (x: 1920 ; y: 0).

This corresponds to the map area we set earlier for the background X-Map.

In the Output tab, select the background X-Map and switch it to Keystone mode and warp it to fit the back of your mapping box.

In the Playlist tab, you can use the Copy/Paste button to duplicate Cue 2 a few times and cycle through different background media.

Recap

In this step, we chose to create two different Playlists : one for the cube and one for the background, because the media playing on each of these shapes are independent from each other.

If there had been a consistency between what should be played on each shape, it would have been better to use a single playlist and use two layers : one for the media on the cube and another for the background.

*Note: Remember that order matters both in Playlist layers and X-Map lists.
Layer 1 will be composited beneath all the others, and Layer 10 will be composited above all the others.
The X-Map at the top of the list will be composited beneath all the others, and the X-Map at the bottom of the list will be composited above the others.

This is why we placed our Background X-Map above the other 3 X-Maps in the X-Map list, so that it would be composited behind the cube.

We increased our Pixel Workspace to be able to play independent content on the cube and in the background by mapping this X-Map to this second FullHD portion of the Pixel Workspace.

In this setup it is our X-Map list order that determines the compositing order (displaying our cube above our background) and it is the position of the media in the pixel workspace that determines where the media will be displayed (on the cube or the background).

For this reason, if we had both media (cube and background) on two layers of the same playlist, it would not matter if we used Layer 2 for the background and Layer 1 for the cube, even though Layer 2 is composited above Layer 1, so long as we map correctly our media on Layer 2 to be positioned at coordinates (x: 1920 ; y: 0). To fully understand this, you can set it up and observe what happens if you switch the media position from (x: 1920 ; y:0) to (x:0 ; y: 0) and back.