Chapter 04

Your second Dream

The first Dream put one object on stage. This one is a short show: about thirty seconds, five tracks working together. It is the fastest way to feel how a Dream is built, because nothing here happens in isolation.

You will bring an object in, keep it alive while it sits there, caption it, glide it across the room and back, then ask the room a question and show a second object only to the people who answered one way.

Start from the Dream you already have, or make a new one. Pick two objects in your scene and turn both off in the Inspector.

1. Bring the first object in#

Right-click the Cue track at 00:00:02:0 and choose Add Cue at that time. In the Properties panel, on the General tab, set Object to your first object. Set End Time to 00:00:26:0.

Now open the Transition tab. Under In Effect, set Motion to Fly. Set Fly In Direction to From Up. Under Out Effect, set Motion to Scale.

Watch for

Motion starts at None on both sides, and None means the object blinks on and off at its times, with no motion at all. If your entrance looks like nothing happened, this is why.

2. Keep it alive while it sits there#

An object that arrives and then freezes looks dead. The FX track fixes that.

Add an FX node on the same object, covering the same span. In Behavior + Style, press Hover. Open the Customize foldout and set Hover's Height and Speed to taste. Small numbers read better than large ones.

If you would rather start from something already shaped, pick Magical Float from Starting Recipe and adjust from there.

Watch for

the six behaviour buttons only turn a behaviour on. Their numbers live inside the Customize foldout, and if you never open it you are left with whatever the defaults happen to be.

3. Caption it#

Add a Text node at 00:00:04:0, ending at 00:00:10:0. In Content, type your caption into Text (supports multi-line). Only a line break you type makes a new line, so put one in yourself if the caption is long.

Set Font Size so it reads at a distance, and leave Show Background on for now. Text appears in front of every viewer, wherever they are looking.

4. Glide it across the room and back#

This is the part most people get wrong the first time, so it is worth doing slowly.

Add a Move node on the first object at 00:00:12:0. Under Destination, set Position to where you want it to travel.

Then, in Motion, set exactly this:

  • Smooth Move Start on, with Start Duration 2.
  • Return When Done on.
  • Hold Duration 8.
  • Smooth Move End on, with Return Duration 2.

Read the Timing section. Computed End Time now says 00:00:20:0 and Node Type says Range.

The important idea: Hold Duration is the length of the whole move, not the pause in the middle. The glide out and the ease back are carved out of it. Eight seconds with a two second start and a two second return leaves four seconds standing still.

Watch for

Hold Duration starts at 0. Turn Return When Done on and leave Hold at 0 and the node collapses to nothing, and Lint reports an error saying the move has no playable window.

5. Ask the room a question#

Add a Prompt node at 00:00:20:0, ending at 00:00:26:0. In Content, type your question into Prompt Text. In Answers, set Answer Count to 2 and fill in Answer 1 and Answer 2. Set Default Answer to the one that should apply to anyone who says nothing before the node ends.

Give it room. A prompt that closes in two seconds is a prompt most people miss.

6. Show the second object to one answer only#

Add a Cue for your second object at 00:00:26:0, ending at 00:00:30:0. Give it an entrance under Transition, the same way you did the first.

Now scroll to the bottom of its Properties panel and press Add Condition. Set Match to Prompt Answer. Set Prompt to the prompt you just made, and Answer to whichever answer should let this object play.

That is the whole branching mechanism. The condition lives on the node being gated, not on the prompt.

Watch for

only prompts that finish before this node starts appear in the Prompt list, so a condition can never point at an answer that has not been given yet. If your prompt is not in the list, it ends too late. Move it earlier.

7. Check it, then watch it#

Press Lint in the footer and clear every error. Lint groups its findings by track, and the names there are not always the names on the timeline: the Cue track appears as Cues, and FX appears as FX (SE).

Then press Preview and play it. Watch the object fly in, breathe while it sits, glide out and come back, and the caption arrive and leave on time.

Preview cannot show you the prompt being answered by a room full of people. For that, build and test the world.

What you have learned#

Five tracks, one object shared between three of them, and a branch. That is most of how a Dream is built. Everything else is more of the same shape.

Two habits are worth keeping from here:

  • When something does not happen, press Lint before you change anything. It names the node and the reason.
  • When a setting has an obvious default, check it anyway. Motion starting at None and Hold Duration starting at 0 are the two that catch nearly everyone.