Unity and DMX?

Unity Engine
1

Hi there,

I am planning to control lights plugged into a DMX dimmer pack via Unity C# code. Has anybody here done this before and can tell me how to go about it?

I am wondering if one can directly output DMX values from unity or if one has to output e.g. OSC messages and convert these to DMX…?

Btw, I am working with Unity Pro 3.5, but I intend to move to the new Unity 4.0. It would be great if your solution would work for both unity version.

Your help is very much appreciated!
Thanks a lot in advance! :slight_smile:

Rob

2

I would recommend going the Art-Net (DMX via ethernet) road. It’s easy to implement, using simple C# UDP network code. It is as simple as creating a byte array, filling the first part with a default header, filling in the universe (dmx “line” number), length of the packet (mostly 512 channels) and then 512 bytes of DMX data. Then send that byte array as UDP message to the Art-net port, either direct to the IPaddress of the node (converter from Artnet to DMX), or broadcast to your subnet (easy way).

Specs are here:

Then you can use affordable Art-Net > DMX converters, like from Enttec (http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&pn=70305&show=description&name=ode), ELC, Botex, Elation, Showtec, Luminex.

3

Hi Jeroen,

sorry for the late reply, but I didn’t receive a notification. Thanks a lot for you suggestion! However, the project leader now demands to either use OCS messages or directly output DMX data from Unity. Can you suggest a setup for either configuration?

I thought about using the UnityOSC plugin from Jorge Garcia to output OSC messages from unity and then convert these messages to DMX data with either the vvvv multipurpose toolkit or with LightJams. From there the DMX data is passed on to a USB-DMX dongle which in turn forwards the data to the DMX Dimmerpack. What do you think of this setup? Could this work?

Thanks a lot! :slight_smile:

4

Hi eStudent.
Hi eStudent, im doing a similar Project, but i need to get the data from the DMX, for example if im in the Cannel 1 and i put it on 255 that will move a sphere in some direction in a terrain xyz, I dont know, its just an example but I Will use the data for something similar, so I Will need the data of the channel. That could be possible? Can you help me?