Guides

Resolume Plugin

R3NE Player is an FFGL effect for Resolume Arena and Avenue. It plays any R3NE composition (.r3d) right inside a Resolume layer, renders it with R3NE’s Metal engine, and turns the parameters you publish in R3NE into knobs you can map to MIDI, OSC or BPM sync in Resolume.

Before you start

  • Resolume Arena or Avenue 7 or later.
  • A Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later.
  • A composition saved from R3NE (File → Save). The R3NE app doesn’t need to be open while Resolume plays it.

1. Install the plugin

Quickest way, from R3NE 0.9.5: in R3NE choose File ▸ Resolume ▸ Install R3NE Player in Resolume…. It downloads the plugin and installs it for Arena and Avenue; skip to step 5. To do it by hand:
  1. Download R3NeFFGL-0.9.4-arm64.zip and double-click it to unzip. You get R3NeFFGL.bundle.
  2. Quit Resolume if it’s open.
  3. In Finder press ⇧⌘G and go to Resolume’s plugin folder (create the Extra Effects folder if it isn’t there):
    ~/Documents/Resolume Arena/Extra Effects
    On Avenue it’s ~/Documents/Resolume Avenue/Extra Effects.
  4. Drag R3NeFFGL.bundle into that folder. If an older copy is there, replace it.
    Finder showing R3NeFFGL.bundle inside the Extra Effects folder
  5. Open Resolume. In the Effects browser, search for R3NE Player.
    Resolume's Effects browser with R3NE typed in the search box and R3NE Player listed
Prefer the terminal? This installs it in one go (from the folder where you unzipped it):
bash
mkdir -p ~/Documents/"Resolume Arena"/"Extra Effects"
cp -R R3NeFFGL.bundle ~/Documents/"Resolume Arena"/"Extra Effects"/

2. Load a composition

  1. Drag R3NE Player onto a clip or a layer. It’s an effect, so it needs something playing underneath: any clip works, or a Solid Color source if the composition makes its own image.
  2. In the effect, click Composition and pick your .r3d file.
  3. After a moment Loaded lights up and the composition plays on the layer.
The R3NE Player effect in Resolume's Clip panel: Composition file loaded, Loaded on, Continuous, OSC Sync, Speed 1.00x, Master Alpha, and published parameter slots Pub 1 and Pub 2
R3NE Player on a clip: the loaded composition, the plugin's own controls, and the published parameters as Pub 1, Pub 2…
Resolume's Preview Monitor showing a magenta and cyan R3NE kaleidoscope rendered by the plugin
The composition rendering inside Resolume (Preview Monitor).
To use the Resolume clip inside your composition, add a Video In node in R3NE and wire it into the graph. It receives whatever is playing under the effect.

3. Publish the parameters you want in Resolume

Resolume only shows the parameters you publish, up to 32 per composition.

  1. In R3NE, select a node.
  2. In the inspector, click the antenna icon next to each parameter you want to control (a slider, a color, a shader @input). It turns green when the parameter is published.
    R3NE inspector for a Glow node with the antenna icon next to intensity turned on (green)
  3. Save the composition.
  4. In Resolume, pick the file again in Composition (or switch Loaded off and on). The published parameters fill the Pub 1, Pub 2… slots, one per parameter. Resolume shows the slot number, not the parameter’s name: move a slot and watch the output to find which is which, then label your MIDI mapping.

From there they behave like any Resolume parameter: right-click to map MIDI or OSC, or animate them with Resolume’s BPM sync.

The plugin’s own controls

ControlWhat it does
CompositionThe .r3d file to play.
LoadedOff frees the composition and its GPU memory; on loads it again (and picks up a re-saved file).
ContinuousOn: the composition’s timeline keeps running when the clip is retriggered. Off: it starts over from 0.
OSC SyncFollows the clip position Resolume sends over OSC instead of free-running time. Turn on OSC output in Resolume’s preferences and send it to 127.0.0.1, port 7001.
SpeedTimeline speed from 0× to 4×; the default is 1×.
Master AlphaOverall opacity of the R3NE output.

R3NE Player or an ISF effect?

File ▸ Resolume ▸ Install Shaders as ISF Effect is a different route: it converts only the graph’s Shader nodes to GLSL and installs them as a native ISF effect that doesn’t need R3NE. Use it for a single shader; use R3NE Player for anything else (2D and 3D nodes, Post-FX, video, audio, vision), which ISF can’t carry.

Troubleshooting

What you seeFix
R3NE Player isn’t in the effects listCheck the bundle is directly inside Extra Effects (not in a subfolder) and restart Resolume.
Black outputMake sure Loaded is on and a file is picked. Open the composition in R3NE and check that something is wired to the Output.
A Pub slot does nothingThose slots are free. Publish more parameters in R3NE, save, and reload the file.
Want R3NE as a separate app instead?Send R3NE’s output to Resolume with Syphon or NDI. See NDI & Syphon.