Building a story

10Creating a story

From the STORY menu, the "Créer" (create) button opens a short assistant:

1. The story type: "Story 360°" in the general case; the "Réalité Mixte" (mixed reality) option only appears if your account has it. That second type changes a great deal, and it has a section of its own: "Réalité Mixte" stories.
2. The title: required, you can change it later.
3. Your scenes: pick images or videos from the "Bibliothèque" (library), or import new media on the fly. One scene is created for each selected media file.
4. The options: the description, the link type between scenes ("Aucun" (none) to wire everything yourself, "Linéaire" (linear) for an in-order sequence, "Menu" for free navigation, with a round-trip link option), the player's interface colours, the welcome message, automatic start, the pause button and gyroscope use on mobile.

Everything chosen here can be changed later in the editor: the assistant is there to start fast, not to lock decisions in.

Sorting the list. Next to the filter button, a second button commands the sorting of stories. Two caveats. Its labels are not translated and show up raw, as "BIBLI.SORT" for the button, "BIBLI.SORT.CREATION" and "BIBLI.SORT.MODIFICATION" for its two entries, creation date and modification date. And the creation date entry has no effect: the list comes back to its ranking by modification date.

Reading a story's state without opening it

Each card carries two publishing icons at the top right, a globe for the web and a figure for headsets. Green means the channel is live; grey means it is not. A story can therefore be published on one channel and not the other, and the list tells you at a glance, without opening the publishing window.

A third icon may appear to their left: a red exclamation mark. It flags that the story contains at least one error, most often an incomplete event. The detail is read in the editor, but the spotting happens here.

Finding the error that blocks publishing

Open the story and the editor leaves no doubt. A red errors button appears in the top bar, and above all the commands leading to publication, launching the scene, managing publishing and updating, are greyed out. Nothing is broken: it is the consequence of the error.

The red button opens the "Erreurs de la story" (story errors) window, which does far more than count. It groups errors by scene, with a link to jump there, names the offending event and its number, says in plain words what is missing, and suggests the fix. There is nothing to hunt for.

11Story card actions

On the STORY page, each story is a card. It carries a pencil, a play button, a three-dot menu and two broadcast-related buttons:

Receiving a story someone sends you

Sending has its counterpart: the "Voir les Stories reçues" (see received stories) button, top right of the story list. It is not there permanently: it only appears once a story is waiting for you, with their number as a badge. It opens a table giving, for each transfer, the story title, the sender, the time left to decide, and two buttons: "Accepter" (accept) or "Refuser" (decline). A transfer expires after fifteen days.

Accepting starts the installation, and it is not instant: a progress bar reads "Installation en cours" (installing) and counts down the file transfer, since every media file of the story is copied into your library. Wait for it to finish without closing the window. The row then disappears from the table, and the story joins your list, unpublished.

12The editor and its panels

Opening a story takes you into the editor: the current scene fills the centre of the screen, the top bar carries the actions (scene options, test launch, publishing), and the left column lines up eight panels, each covering one aspect of the story. That column scrolls when the screen is not tall enough, with the add-media button pinned at the bottom, always within reach.

An error indicator in the editor's top bar lists blocking problems (missing media, incomplete quiz, empty link...) with, for each, a button that takes you straight to the scene to fix. As long as an error remains, publishing is blocked.

Adding a scene: check the media format

The add button of the "Scènes" (scenes) panel opens the "Créer votre scène" (create your scene) window, where you pick the media that will serve as the backdrop. Two sets of pills filter the library there: by type, "Image" or "Vidéo" (video), and by format, "360 / 180" or "Vidéo ou image plate" (flat video or image).

That second filter matters: the window now shows every one of your media files, including those that do not cover the sphere. A flat media file has a legitimate use inside an event, such as a displayed image or a video in a window, but it does not make a good scene backdrop.

You need not rely on the thumbnail alone: every media card carries a "360" or "180" pill at its top left, repeated next to the title in list view. A media file with no pill is a flat one.

13The story map

The Story Map panel draws your story as a diagram: each scene is a node, each link between scenes an arrow. It is the tool that makes a branching journey, an escape game or a multi-path training course readable at a glance.

The legend distinguishes five situations:

• "Automatique" (automatic): only draws the end-of-scene links inherited from older stories, a setting that no longer exists in the editor. A "Vers une autre scène" (to another scene) event set to automatic activation is drawn as "Au clic", or as "Conditionné" if it carries at least one condition.
• "Au clic" (on click): the visitor triggers the jump themselves by clicking a point of interest.
• "Conditionné" (conditional): the link only activates when conditions are met (variable, score, an event already opened...).
• "Scène principale" (main scene): the experience's starting point, highlighted on the diagram.
• "Auto-lien" (self-link): a scene pointing to itself, detected and flagged to save you from unintended loops.
• Two things are never drawn: events hidden by the eye in the events list, and "Vers une autre story" (to another story) links.

• Vers une autre scène (to another scene)Every arrow on the diagram matches an event of this type: this is the icon you use in the editor to create a link between two scenes.

On the diagram, a single click on a scene opens it in the editor: the window's footer says "Double-cliquez pour accéder" (double-click to open), but one click is enough. Nodes can be dragged around, their positions being remembered per browser, and the mouse wheel zooms. Two buttons restore order: recentre the view, and reset the node layout.

14Maps and floor plans: giving the visitor a bearing

The Story Map in the previous section is an author's tool: it shows you the structure. The floor plan and the map are for the visitor. During the visit they give an overview of where they are, with markers they can travel to. It is one single tool for both: an interior plan imported as an image, or a geographic map of the real world.

It is all set in one place: in the editor, the "Plan/Carte" button in the left-hand column opens the "Configuration de la carte" (map configuration) window. While the first switch stays off, the window shows nothing else: the feature is entirely optional.

Turning it on, and deciding how the visitor reaches it

The first block carries three switches, in cascade. "Activer la carte/plan" (enable the map) opens the feature. "Afficher au démarrage" (show at start) presents the map on entering the story, before the first scene. "Toujours disponible" (always available) puts a permanent button in the visitor's interface, and reveals two more settings: "Position du bouton" (button position), left or right, and "Position du bouton visible en VR", so the button exists in the headset too.

Levels, not a single map

The second block is called "Niveaux de la carte" (map levels), and the word is right: you can stack several. A ground floor and an upper floor, a country map and a building plan, a site from above and a room seen from the top. "Ajouter un niveau" (add a level) creates one, and each row carries three buttons on the right: up, down and delete. The order matters, it is the one the visitor moves through.

Expanded, a level asks for a "Nom du niveau" (level name), a "Visible dans l'interface" switch that lets you prepare a level without showing it yet, and above all a "Type de niveau" (level type), which changes the rest of the form.

Placing the markers

The markers button opens a full-screen editor, "Éditeur de niveau n" (level editor). On the left, the "Liste des scènes" panel lists every scene in the story with, under each name, its state: "Aucun marqueur" (no marker), or the role of the marker already placed. Four filters at the top of the panel show only linked scenes, those carrying a position, or those with nothing.

At the top of this editor, two controls apply to the whole level. The "Bouton fermer" (close button) switch adds a cross on the image, the one that will let the visitor close the map, and opens a small "Configuration du bouton" panel to give it a texture and a size. "Tout supprimer" (delete all) removes every marker on the level at once.

What a marker says

The "Propriétés du marqueur" (marker properties) window has two columns. On the left, what the marker does; on the right, what it looks like, with a live preview.

• "Rôle du marqueur" (marker role): "Lien" links the marker to a scene, named just below by "Scène liée". A "Scènes additionnelles" field lets you attach several to the same point, useful when one place on the plan matches several views.
• "Type de marqueur": "Icône" by default, with "Affichage du titre" set to Toujours and a free "Titre" field. With no title, the marker stays mute.
• "Type de transition": how the story switches to the linked scene. "Aucune" is the starting value.
• "Apparence" and "Apparence (sélectionné)": two colours and a size. The second applies "when the user is on this scene", which gives the visitor the marker of their own position.

Opening the map at the right moment

The permanent button is not the only way in. The "Afficher carte" (show map) event, in the Avancé category of the catalogue, opens the map at a chosen moment, on a chosen level. Its settings block asks for a "Niveau à afficher" (level to show), then states plainly what will happen: "Cet événement ouvrira la carte et affichera le niveau …".

One more switch, "Afficher en UI Classique", sets the opening mode: the map then shows as an overlay, with a close button. That choice only makes sense if the target level has that button, set in the marker editor.

15"Préconisations": the review of your media

The "Préconisations" (recommendations) panel, in the left-hand column of the editor, just below Story Map, opens a review of your story's media. It changes nothing and forbids nothing: it goes through every media file placed in every scene, checks it against what the web and the headsets can take, and tells you what deserves a fix before publishing. The review is recomputed every time you open the window: what you read is the state of the moment.

Reading the window

At the top, three pills sum up the whole story: the number of findings marked "à corriger" (to fix) in red, "recommandations" (recommendations) in orange, and "conformes" (compliant) in green.

On the left, the list of scenes that use at least one media file. Each carries a dot in the colour of its worst finding, followed by the number of red then orange findings. A scene showing no figure has only green findings. A scene with no media at all does not appear in the list.

On the right, the detail of the selected scene, one card per finding. The window opens straight on the first scene to fix, failing that on the first one carrying a recommendation. The "Voir la scène" (go to scene) link, top right, closes the window and drops you on the scene under review.

The three levels

• "Conforme" (compliant), green: nothing to do. The finding is there to confirm that the media was examined and fits within budget.
• "Recommandation" (recommendation), orange: the story will work, but perceived quality, reading comfort or loading time will suffer. Handle it if you can.
• "À corriger" (to fix), red: the problem will show. Handle it before publishing.

The channel label

Every finding carries a label: "Web + Casque" (web and headset), "Casque" (headset) or "Web". It says where the problem shows. A finding labelled Casque has no bearing on web delivery, and the other way round. If you only publish on one channel, the other channel's findings do not concern you.

Two scopes

Most findings bear on one media file in one specific use: the media title, then the use made of it in the scene, for instance "Média 360 de la scène" (the scene's 360 media), "Vidéo (panneau)" (video on a panel) or "Audio d'ambiance de la scène" (the scene's ambient audio). The same media file used twice in the scene is examined twice, and one file can collect several findings at once: its resolution may be compliant and its translations missing.

Two findings bear on the whole scene and are shown under the name "Ensemble de la scène" (whole scene): the number of videos played at the same time, and the total weight of the scene's media.

What is examined, rule by rule

What the review does not do

• It fixes nothing. No button in the window acts on a media file: you take note, you close, you go and fix things on the media sheet or in the scene.
• It only examines media: the scene media, its ambient audio, its 3D object, and the media of Image, Vidéo, Diaporama, Audio, Objet 3D and Avatar events. Documents, geographic tracks and player styling images are not reviewed.
• It does not replace the story error indicator, which reports incomplete events.

16Scene options, tab by tab

A scene's gear icon opens the "Options de scène" (scene options) window, organised in four tabs: "Général", "Média", "Audio" and "Objet 3D".

The "Général" (general) tab

3D lighting. An "Éclairage 3D" (3D lighting) section closes the "Général" tab. It only affects 3D objects placed in the scene, and its "Ambiance" (ambience) setting offers four values: "Aucun" (none), which leaves the rendering untouched and is the default, "Studio", neutral and crisp, "Intérieur" (indoor), warm, and "Extérieur" (outdoor), in daylight. Picking an ambience reveals three sliders: "Intensité" (intensity), from 0.2 to 3, "Azimut" (azimuth), from 0 to 360 degrees, which swings the light source around the scene, and "Élévation" (elevation), from 10 to 90 degrees, which raises or lowers it. On a "Réalité Mixte" scene, an "Ombre au sol des objets 3D" (ground shadow for 3D objects) switch is added, at a rendering cost on the headset.

The "Média" (media) tab

Choosing the scene's backdrop from the library, with search, labels, and filters by type ("Image" / "Vidéo") and by format ("360°" / "Standard"). If the backdrop is a video, a volume slider appears. The current selection stays visible at the top of the window.

The "Audio" tab

The scene's own ambient sound: same search and filter tools, plus a volume slider. Clicking the selected audio again removes it.

The "Objet 3D" (3D object) tab

Choosing a 3D object from the library to display in the scene, with the same selection tools.

172D view and 360 view: two working modes

The scene editor displays your media in two ways, and the current mode determines which tools are visible. You switch with a button at the top right of the viewer. That switch applies to 360 stories: a "Réalité Mixte" (mixed reality) story always works in 3D view, and the switch is not offered there.

• The 2D view unfolds the 360 media flat, like a world map. It is the editing mode: you place events precisely and set the initial point of view. Camera limits, on the other hand, are only set in the "Options de la scène" (scene options), and nothing draws them here. The whole sphere is visible at once, nothing can hide behind your back.
• The 360 view shows the navigable spherical preview, as the visitor will see it. It is the checking mode: you verify the real effect of events, fine-tune their position, and it is the only mode where 3D objects and avatars are displayed.

18The initial point of view

The initial point of view is the direction of the visitor's gaze when the scene opens. It is a decisive setting: it steers attention from the very first second.

1. Switch the viewer to the 2D view using the selector in the top right. The panorama unrolls flat, and a compass appears in the top left.
2. Click the compass. Its tooltip confirms: "Point de vue initial" (initial point of view).
3. A horizontal slider unfolds at the top of the viewer, and a vertical marker crosses the panorama. That marker shows the starting direction of the gaze. The setting only covers the horizontal angle, from -180 to 180: there is no gaze height to set here.
4. Move the marker where you want it, then switch back to the 360 view to check: the scene opens facing that point.

19"Réalité Mixte" stories: building inside a real room

A "Réalité Mixte" (mixed reality) story does not take place inside a photographed sphere, but in the real room where the visitor stands. You describe that room in the platform, its dimensions, its doors, its furniture, then you place content in it at precise spots, in metres. This story type is what drives the mediation setup our commercial offer calls easypop360; inside the platform it carries one name only, "Réalité Mixte", and that is the one this wiki uses throughout.

What a "Réalité Mixte" story changes

The type is chosen at creation and cannot be changed afterwards. Better to know at once what it leaves you, what it takes away and what it brings.

Creating the story

From the STORY menu, the "Créer" (create) button shows two cards side by side. On the left, "Story 360°", described as "Créez des scènes avec des médias 360° immersifs" (create scenes with immersive 360 media). On the right, "Réalité Mixte", described as "Expérience sans scène, contenu en réalité augmentée" (scene-free experience, augmented reality content).

Choosing the right-hand card shortens the wizard at a stroke: the two numbered steps disappear, so does the media selection step, and the scene navigation block with it. All that remains is the title, which is required, the description and the three colours. A first scene is created for you, with no media, and its thumbnail in the scene strip is a generic icon rather than an image. You can add more: the scene form then loses its media selection block and asks only for a title.

The "Pièce" panel

A door-icon button in the scene editor opens the "Pièce - Réalité Mixte" (room, mixed reality) panel. It only appears in mixed reality and only in 3D view. Everything there is set live: every gesture redraws the preview, and the value is saved when you release the slider. The settings belong to the current scene, with one exception, the route lines, which belong to the whole story and are covered in the next section.

Placing content in the room

Events are placed as they are in a 360 story, with one detail that changes everything: their coordinates are no longer degrees but metres, counted from the corner of the room, in 10 centimetre steps. You no longer say "45 degrees to the right", you say "3 metres from the back wall and 2 metres from the left wall".

The Objet 3D event gains a "Réalité Mixte" block with two switches, labelled in English inside the French interface: "Mixed Reality object" and "Trigger". When the first is on, the 3D model choice, the size setting, the ground-placement switch and the Animation block disappear, replaced by a "Taille du volume" (volume size) with three sliders X, Y and Z, from 0.1 to 10 metres. A mixed reality object is therefore not a model the visitor sees: it is an invisible interaction volume. The second switch makes it a trigger, usable by the "Trigger" condition.

The Vidéo event accepts both flat videos and 360 videos here, and gains several settings: a "Vidéo 360" switch, a "Container vidéo" (video container) set to "Bulle" (bubble) or "Portail" (portal), and a "Hauteur automatique (suivre le casque)" (automatic height, follow the headset) with an "Amplitude" slider from 0 to 1 metre. When the container is a portal, a "Scène de destination au franchissement" (destination scene when crossing) list turns the door into a passage to another scene; its default option, "Aucune, immersion dans la vidéo" (none, immersion in the video), lets the visitor step into the video itself. The physical width of the door, from 0.6 to 3 metres, also bounds the crossing area on the headset.

The Texte event, finally, changes its unit of measure: the panel says so itself, "1 unité = 1 cm en Réalité Mixte" (1 unit = 1 cm in mixed reality).

Triggering by movement

Event activation here counts four buttons instead of two: "Au clic" (on click), "Automatique" (automatic), "Zone" and "Bulle / Porte" (bubble / door), the last two coming with a "Délai avant exécution (s)" (delay before execution, in seconds). They are described in full in The four activation modes.

On the conditions side, two types are added in mixed reality. "Trigger" checks that a trigger has been activated: you designate a scene, then one of its triggers, and only Objet 3D events with both switches on are offered. "Ligne disponible" (lane available) belongs to multiplayer routing and only appears once lines have been defined: see the next section. Both appear in the conditions table.

Bringing what appears to life

An event's opening screen offers, in mixed reality, three settings that exist nowhere else. The first, "Apparition / disparition" (appear / disappear), applies to Texte, Image, Vidéo and Objet 3D events: two lists, one for the entrance and one for the exit, each with a duration from 0.1 to 3 seconds. The effects can be copied and pasted from one event to another.

The second setting, "Suivre un événement" (follow an event), applies to every type. An "Événement suivi" (followed event) list, set to "Aucun (position fixe)" (none, fixed position) by default, pins your event to another one: you place it where you want it relative to the one it follows, and the offset is kept when that one moves. The typical use is the label accompanying a video bubble that follows the headset. The following object is hidden while the visitor is immersed in a bubble or a door.

The third, "Face à la caméra" (face the camera), is a switch, "L'objet se tourne vers le visiteur" (the object turns towards the visitor), followed by three boxes: "Y - lacet" (yaw), "X - tangage" (pitch) and "Z - roulis" (roll), the three axes of rotation. Ticking Y alone is the usual setting: a label under a bubble then pivots to stay readable from wherever it is looked at, without ever lying down or tipping over.

Finding your mixed reality stories again

In your story list, a mixed reality story carries an icon badge in the top left of its thumbnail, whose tooltip reads "Réalité Mixte". The same badge turns up in the media list, in the story selector and in projects. A 360 story carries none: the presence of the badge is the information.

20Several visitors in the same room: the route lines

Here is the least obvious idea in this whole wiki, and it deserves a pause. Several headsets can share the same real room, each following its own parallel route. Four visitors, four side-by-side journeys, the same experience played at the same time without anyone getting in anyone's way. A route line is one of those journeys: an origin in the room and an orientation.

What makes this workable is that you only write the content once. You place it on the reference line, the first in the list, and at playback the content is offset towards the line assigned to each visitor. You duplicate nothing, you do not build four routes: you build one, and you declare four lines.

Placing the lines

Lines are placed in the "Lignes (multi-joueurs)" (multiplayer route lines) section of the "Pièce" panel, described in the previous section. The "Ajouter une ligne" (add a line) button creates one. Each carries a Name of 30 characters at most, an Id, a Position X and a Position Z locating its origin in the room, and an "Orientation (°)" from 0 to 360 saying which way the route runs.

Authoring a scene on the reference line

At the head of the lines section sits a switch: "Scène en repère ligne" (line-relative scene). Turn it on and this scene's content stops being placed relative to the corner of the room: it is placed relative to the line. You keep authoring on the reference line, and on the headset the content is offset towards the line each player chose.

When the switch is on, or when the room is linked to another scene, the list of lines is hidden and replaced by a message restating the rule: author on the reference line, the only one shown in the preview, and manage the lines from the scene that defines the room. One more consequence to know: in a line-relative scene the coordinate bounds turn negative, because the origin is no longer the corner of the room but that of the line.

Assigning a line to a visitor

That leaves deciding who takes which line. On an event's opening screen, a "Ligne à adopter (multi-joueurs)" (line to adopt) list offers the story's lines, with "Aucune" (none) by default and a "- référence" note on the first. When the visitor fires that event, their headset adopts the given line and follows that route from then on.

The "Ligne disponible" (lane available) condition completes the mechanism: it is true as long as the designated line has been claimed by no headset. The typical build then fits in one sentence. You place four starting visuals on the floor, one per line; each carries a different "Ligne à adopter" on opening, and a "Ligne disponible" condition on that same line. The first visitor picks one, the matching visual disappears for the others, and so on until all four routes are taken.

Reusing a room you have already built

Describing a room takes time, and the same hall often serves several scenes or several stories. Two mechanisms save you from typing it all again, and they do not do the same thing. The "Source de la pièce" (room source) list creates a link to the room of another scene in the same story: dimensions, openings, obstacles, markers and surfaces are those of the linked scene, and they follow its changes. Zones and the line frame stay specific to each scene.

The "Reprendre la pièce d'un autre scénario" (take the room from another story) block does something else entirely: a copy. You designate a story, then one of its scenes, you choose whether to bring the "Zones" and the "Lignes multi-joueurs" along, and you click "Importer". The source story is not modified, and its future changes will not be reflected. A link follows, a copy does not: choose accordingly.

Values that change during the experience

Three values specific to this way of playing can be shown inside a text, using the tokens described in Dynamic tokens: the number of headsets present in the room, the visitor's own included, the route line assigned to this headset, and the device battery level. A welcome panel reading "there are three of you in the room, you are on the blue route" is composed that way, with nothing to program.