Martin’s P3 visual control system has been lighting stages with powerful video mapping features since 2009. Seen on stages ranging from the Grammy Awards to Eurovision - mapping lights to a video is a powerful and effective way to create incredibly dense and complex lightshows without deep-diving into DMX and spending a fortune on universe licenses and nodes.
From the outside, P3 can seem like a complex system that only the finest lighting engineer can successfully integrate into their shows. But what do you need to start using P3?
First, it’s important to know which lighting fixtures in the Martin range can support full or partial P3 control. Fixtures featuring deep integration with P3 include the VDO Atomic Bold and Dot, the VDO Sceptron and Fatron LED battens, as well as the MAC Allure and Aura XIP moving heads. There are also other fixtures such as the MAC Ultra Performance moving heads that can also be used as a ‘Segmented Engine’ where the beam’s intensity and colour can be controlled via P3 as a single pixel. The P3 compatibility on these fixtures is achieved through their RJ45 ports and is in addition to the standard DMX, Art-Net, and sACN control that you may already be familiar with. The moving heads and VDO Dot and Bold fixtures have unique light Auras that provide low output but high-resolution eye candy as well as a bright main beam that can be used simultaneously for immersive video mapping and impressive resolution. All the individual LED pixels on these fixtures can be controlled via conventional DMX, Art-Net, and sACN, however the channel count of these pixel-controllable fixtures can extend to massive numbers; the MAC Aura PXL can have whole universe to itself for control of every pixel via DMX!
An example of a P3 eco-system
The beauty of the P3 eco-system is that you can keep the fixtures in a low channel-count mode on the DMX controller but still get complete video mapping integration down to single pixel from the video input to the P3 meaning you don’t need a console with endless DMX universes to achieve pixel-mapping effects as the P3 System Controller does this for free!
Above is the Martin Aura XIP which features 7 main beam LEDs and 12 filament LEDs, all of which can be controlled individually via P3 and DMX. Pictured here with a video mapped onto its centre using P3.
The brain of the P3 operation is the system controller hardware and P3 software. There are a few hardware options to choose from that have varying amounts of Pixel counts and IO connections that you will need to select based on the scale of your lighting show. The P3-050 system controller for example is a 1u, rackmount server that can output up to 100,000 pixels to your fixtures whereas the P3-300 is a 2u server that can output to 2,080,000 pixels for massive setups. There’s also a free PC app called P3-PC that runs on any Windows PC and gives you the same control as the above system controller natively on a PC using it’s IO connections and network port for intimate setups up to 20,736. The P3 software itself on all these systems can support unlimited pixels but it is only the output of them that is fixed to the above numbers. This means P3-PC and smaller P3 systems can still operate with massive show files for convenient offline editing or operate the same master show even when rental stock is limited to smaller system controllers.
The actual video source for the pixel mapping must be provided by an external device and that can be any laptop/PC/media server with a DVI output. The feed is sent into the P3 server and accompanying software and that is what takes the video information and spits out the pixel lighting data to the fixtures in your system. If you’re using P3-PC, then you can configure the video feed to be derived from a selection on your desktop or an external video feed coming in via NDI.
The system controllers themselves have a variety of connections available including DVI or SDI video inputs for the incoming video feeds, traditional 5-pin DMX In and thru as well as P3 outputs via Etherton connectors. As it’s a server itself, you’ll need a screen, keyboard, and mouse hooked up to control the system, map the fixtures, and address them, but the video feed itself will be coming from an external source connected to the Server’s inputs.
The 5-pin DMX inputs are there to combine DMX control from an external lighting console with the P3 video mapping and send that to all of your P3-enabled fixtures. You can also control specific elements of the P3 server via DMX during the show for preset recall, global colour temperature and more. This is especially useful for controlling the Pan/Tilt of the moving heads using an external DMX controller whilst the P3 is tackling the colours and intensities - the P3 controller just conveniently takes that DMX and P3 control and combines it into a single ethernet connection that runs to the fixture (so no need for those long 5-pin DMX cable runs!). You can also send Art-Net & sACN into the P3 system controller via the bottom left connector labelled 'Live'.
The beauty of Martin’s P3-enabled fixtures is that they can be controlled exclusively from the video mapping, the incoming DMX, or even a mixture of both. All fixtures have a DMX control channel that can be switched via DMX to enable the fixture to display 100% DMX, 100% video mapping, or a mixture of the two – say for example you want to overlay a colour via DMX but have the intensity of the pixels controlled by video for complex patterns.
If you’ve googled and researched P3 before, you might have seen a box called the ‘P3 Powerport’. This box looks like the Servers above, but it’s used for a very different purpose. The Powerport takes P3 information via RJ45 (which can also include DMX commands!) as well power and combines that all down into 4-pin XLR connectors. Those 4-pin connectors are what is used to connect to VDO Sceptron, VDO Fatron, Exterior PixLines, VC-Grids, VC-Strips and VC-Dots as an integrated 4-pin power and data cable. You will only need to have one of these Powerports in the system if you have the above fixtures in the setup. In which case, you just need to route your P3 RJ45 to the power port and chain all of your fixtures from that!
When it comes to programming the light show, you will need to decide on how all your fixtures will be positioned physically on stage and then replicate that setup virtually in the P3 controller so that it can accurately deliver the video information to the correct fixtures. For this you need to create a workspace in P3’s software either from a complete blank canvas or an imported DXF file with all your truss and lights mapped out. Then, you need to drag and drop all your fixtures from the P3 fixture library into the correct position on the workspace – this will enable you to visualise the complete P3 setup and enable the server to send the correct pixel information to the correct lights. The software itself has plenty of keyboard shortcuts for rotating fixtures, aligning them by specific distances and spacing them equally for millimetre-perfect positioning.
Under the ‘DMX and Motion’ Tab on the P3 software, you can see all your connected fixtures and add them to a control channel list for patching-in your external DMX controller. From here you can select your fixtures and assign them to be controlled by DMX, sACN, or Art-Net control as well as assign a channel size and starting address for control of the fixture from the DMX controller. Whilst you can choose from a variety of DMX channel sizes within this menu, you can still control every single pixel from the fixture using P3. This is great because you can reduce the universe count on your controller whilst still using P3 to control the fixtures in great detail for an immersive, detailed, and high-resolution light show.
Once applied, the fixture will be added to a list which displays all of the fixtures and their addresses to be patched into your DMX controller for control of their settings through P3. In the same list, you can also ‘add’ the P3 controller itself as a 4-channel device for basic control over video freezing/blackout, preset recall, and colour temperature allowing you to recall P3’s presets through simple DMX commands from the lighting controller.
If life is too short for manual patching, the P3 system has a variety of Wizards that can be used to automatically patch all the fixtures and populate your channel list with ease!
So you have your lighting fixtures connected up to P3 and they’re powered up, addressed, and ready to receive video. Provided you have your SDI or DVI video feeds hooked up to the P3 server from a laptop, camera feed, or a media server, you’re ready to pixel map! The video you’re sending in appears as an overlay on top of the lighting fixtures and the P3 software in real time displays how the video pixels will look on the fixture. For example, the Fatron 20 has a 4 x 50 LED matrix with LED’s spaced 20mm – this means that a HD video mapped to that fixture will need to be condensed down to the resolution required for the fixture and with the P3 software, you can see that in real time on it's virtual preview.
Now you should be seeing your video coming to life on your fixtures! There may be a few DMX settings to adjust such as fixture overall intensity, Pan/Tilt, as well the Hybrid DMX or video channel, but otherwise you are ready to pixel map and take your lighting to the next level.
Obviously, this is not a comprehensive guide to P3... but hopefully it has helped explain the key elements and processes within a P3 enabled system and demystified the process!
See the full power of a P3-enabled setup in this video of our UK-based demo room facility. This setup uses a variety of P3 and DMX control in a fully-automated show featuring VDO Fatron, Sceptron, Atomic Bold, and Dot as well as the MAC Allure and MAC Aura Wash PXL.
Harman provides further training on P3 via their website. To find out more, follow this link.
Want to see the Martin Professional range in person? Visit our Hertfordshire demo facility.
