scene-builder

On the rail as scene-builder.

When to use it

Building a sparse, finished 3D environment around your own models from a written brief, with a collection of distinct camera moves through it, previewed and rendered in the browser.

When to reach for something else

It makes architectural, abstract and product sets, not cities, foliage or organic sculpture: those come in as your models. It renders its own set, so a photoreal finish is a later step with a video tool.

How to use it

1. Use the card’s The set area. The 3D set. Write the brief, drop your models in, then pick and adjust the camera moves through it.
2. Press Run.

On the card

Control	What it does	Choices
The set	The 3D set. Write the brief, drop your models in, then pick and adjust the camera moves through it.
Run	Starts the run. The number on it is what this run costs in credits, worked out before you press.
×1	Runs the card several times in a row with the same settings.	1 to 99

Settings

These sit behind the settings button on the card.

Setting	What it does	Choices
Actor	The person or fox picked on the stage: what it is, which way it goes, how far and when. Right-click the set to add one.
Saved sets	Open a set you kept earlier, or keep this one. A kept set brings its place, its moves, its models and its brief back onto any card, free.
Height	How high the selected camera position sits above the ground, in metres.
Push	Moves the selected position along the direction the camera is looking. Positive goes in, negative pulls back.
Slide	Moves the selected position sideways, across the direction the camera is looking.
Aim at	What the camera looks at through this move. Pick one of your models, or the scene as a whole.
This key	Hold repeats the selected position, which is how the camera stops. Remove drops it and the path closes over the gap.
Keys	Which position along the move you are editing.
Ease	How the camera travels out of the selected key. In eases the start of that move and Out eases its arrival. It never moves a key.
Resolution	How big the rendered video is. Bigger takes longer to draw; nothing else changes.	1.5K, 2K
Aspect	The shape of the frame. It reaches the set designer too, so the moves are composed for it.	16:9, 9:16, 1:1
Lens	Vertical field of view for the selected move. Low is a long lens that flattens depth, high is a wide one that exaggerates it.
Frame rate	Frames a second in the rendered video. It never changes the move, only how finely it is sampled.	8, 10, 12, 16, 24, 30, 48, 60
Effort	How long the set designer thinks before answering. Deep takes several times as long and costs more.	Balanced, Deep