Editor Basics - Pages & Timeline

In this guide, we will learn about Pages and using the Timeline to bring your story to life.

Let’s get started by creating a new story or opening an existing one. Above, we have a basic story with a single Character, Emily, in the Warehouse environment.

At the bottom of the screen, below the Viewport, is the Timeline. This is where you will create your Pages and manage your story’s flow.

Let’s create a new Page by clicking the New Page icon in the Timeline Toolbar. You can also create a new page by hovering over an existing page and clicking the blue + icon.

Notice there is a grey line linking the two pages together. This means that Page 2 follows Page 1 during playback. Any Page Events or Camera moves will play, then the story will continue to Page 2 automatically.

Let’s setup Emily’s story. Select Page 1 from the Timeline, then click on Emily from the Chapter Assets Panel.

Now, with Page 1 still selected, let’s set her Gesture to a greeting and giver some dialog to say. Notice the Speech Bubble appears once Dialog has been entered into the Dialog box.

Next, let’s select Page 2 from the Timeline. Notice that the Speech Bubble is gone and her Pose has returned to the default “Listening Curious” and no Gesture is selected. This is because each Page is treated as an individual scene. Think of Pages as beats in your story. Moving from one to next is how the flow of your story is built.

Let’s select Page 2 and then move the camera to give Emily a closeup. Let’s also change up her Pose and Gestures to give her some more emotion. Finally, update her dialog to something new and click the Play button in the Viewport.

When you play your story, notice how 3Dstoryteller Studio automatically creates the transitions between pages and animates camera moves and character gestures.

Next, let’s make this story Interactive by adding a Page Event on Page 2.

Click the Add+ button in the Page Events panel and select the Multiple Choice event.

Edit the Title, Question, and Answer fields. Notice that the Answer has a blank Page dropdown.

Select Create New Page from the dropdown. This will automatically add a new page to the Timeline and link to it using the Answer button in the Page Event.

Go ahead and add another Answer to the Page Event using the Properties panel. Create a new page for this answer using the same method as above.

Notice the Timeline now shows two branches connecting Page 2 to Pages 3 and 4. Try playing your story by selecting on Page 1 then clicking the Play button at the top of the Viewport.

By layering page events, page transitions, and more you can build complex interactions for your stories.

In our next guide, we will cover publishing and sharing your stories.