Here you will find questions and answers regarding INSCAPE. If you have additional questions please send us an email and we will do our best to answer them. info@inscapers.com

Q: Which types of assets does INSCAPE support?
A: INSCAPE supports many types of assets: .V3B, .vrml, .OBJ, .flt, .vmh, .avi, .mov, .tga, .png, .tiff, .jpg, .bmp, .wav, .mp3 and .ogg

Q: What is the difference between an Asset and an Object?
A: An asset is any of the mentioned file types in the previous question. An asset is turned into an INSCAPE Object when imported into INSCAPE to add meta data as well as added functionality.

Q: How do I animate a 2D Character?
A: You use the Character Behaviour Editor (CBE) to animate a 2D Character (Right-click and select Object Editor, then click on the CBE button)

Q: How do I animate a 3D Character?
A: You can specify motions for a 3D Character through the Object Editor. Animation Builder and 3D Body Editor are the advanced creators you can use to create and test your 3D motion.

Q: What is the difference between automatic generated links (dashed line) and hand made links?
A: Automatic generated links are automatically created by the system. Each jumpTo command in an event of a stage, situation or INSCAPE object generates a link in the Story Editor. Instead, hand made links are created by the author using the draw tool and have no semantic value.

Q: How to align INSCAPE objects within a stage or situation in the Story Editor?
A: You can use the grid option to align objects. Click on the eye button and check “Guides”. At a specific zoom level a grid will appear on which the INSCAPE objects can be manually aligned.

Q: Is there another possibility to zoom instead of using the zoom in and zoom out tools in the Story Editor?
A: Yes, if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel you can use the wheel to zoom in and out.

Q: Is there another possibility to scroll within the Story Editor view?
A: Yes, if you have a three button mouse. Just press the middle mouse button and drag the cursor to the desired position.

Q: Do I have to scale an image if I want to add it as a background image to a stage or situation?
A: No, the image is automatically scaled to the current size of the stage or situation. If the stage or situation is resized the background image is scaled accordingly.

Q: What is the difference between a stage and a situation?
A: A stage refers to a global structure for several situations where common elements (typically the surroundings can be defined. The stage contains all (often non-interactive) objects which go to make up a particular part of the story and be reused in several situations. A typical example of this may include backgrounds or scene objects in a 2D or 3D story, ambient sounds, etc. A situation is a specific phase of the story, similar to a scene in its “cinema” meaning.

Q: How can I experience a story?
A: You can experience your current story through the INSCAPE application by pushing the experiencing button.
You can also export a story as a standalone file in order to experience it on any computer.(Functionality not available before Final Version of INSCAPE)

Q: How do I create my own assets?
A: You can create assets using the INSCAPE advanced creators
• Create your 3D Character (V-man) with the 3D Body Editor
• Create 3D motions (mocap) for 3D Character with Animation Builder
• Create 3D environments from pictures or panoramic images using Environment Builder
• Create panoramic images (up to 360×180degrees) for 2D backgrounds with Panorama Builder
• Create 2D animated character with 2D asset Editor
• Create sound assets with the Sound Editor

Q: How do I populate my story?
A: To populate your story with INSCAPE Object, You drag and drop them from the Object Browser to the Stage / Story Editor. You can also directly drag and drop an asset (a .wav file for instance) from the Windows explorer to the Stage / Story Editor and add it later to the INSCAPE Objects database.

Q: How does INSCAPE manage the sounds?
A: With the INSCAPE Sound Editor you can create different type of sound assets which can be imported in the Object Browser as INSCAPE Objects: 3D spatialized sound to populate your 3D environment with sounds, dialog collection and adaptive music bank to manage dialogs and music that can be interactively changed, mixer group to edit the properties of the different categories of sounds that you wish to use in your story.

Q: Which devices are supported by INSCAPE?
A: Many input and output devices are naturally supported by INSCAPE thanks to the multi-modal device controller. Classical input devices such as the mouse, keyboard or joystick are supported, as well as more advanced ones such as 3D trackers and various virtual-reality devices. You can plug additional devices and eventually configure them by following the multi-modal device controller documentation.

Q: How does INSCAPE manage the device interactions?
A: Thanks to the Interaction Metaphor mechanism, the user can easily specify to INSCAPE how to interpret the input data from the devices. One just has to drag and drop the device he wants to use, as well as the way he wants it to be used (the Interaction Metaphor).

Q: How to create interaction and behaviour in an INSCAPE story?
A: Thanks to the Object Editor, the user can Edit the properties of an INSCAPE Object as well as its behaviour and relation to others entities in the story

Q: What if an experiencing user does not own a specific device?
A: The author can specify an alternative device in case the first one is not detected at run-time.

Q: How do I import an external script in the Story Planner?
A: You can copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into a slice or in the first text area of the Story Planner.

Q: How I can remove a text area in the Story Planner?
A: Just move all the slices next to the text area up above the text area. Any empty text area that is in the last position will be automatically deleted.

Q: Can I modify the appearance of the text on the special section fields (Dialog, Action, Note) in the Story Planner?
A: No, the special section fields contain plain text.

Q: Which is the format of the duration of a slice in the Story Planner?
A: There isn’t a specific format, you can use the format minutes:seconds or if you want, seconds:frames.

Q: How I can remove a sketch area in the Story Planner?
A: Just select it and then press the Delete key.

Q: What is the red dot that appear when I select an object with the manipulate tool in the 2D Stage Editor?
A: The red dot represents the target point of an object. It is used in the CBE where you can specify a hotspot in a node. If a hotspot is defined the character, before executing the node animation has to reach the position of the target point of the hotspot object.

Q: Which kind of INSCAPE objects can be managed using the Character Behaviour Editor?
A: The Character Behaviour Editor can be used only with the 2D Character object.

Q: How can I remove a transition in the Character Behaviour Editor?
A: You can remove a transition selecting it and the pressing the Delete key. To select a transition you can use the select tool to draw a rectangle that intersects it.

Q: Which graphics file formats are supported in a 2D Story?
A: The 2D Story asset can have one of the following graphics formats: .avi, .mov, .jpg, .png and .bmp