Hotspot positioning best practice

[tim2021]

I am currently experimenting with hotspots for the first time for an upcoming client project.

We want them to appear at a certain point in the spin - like how this sample image does: https://www.webrotate360.com/examples/browse-all-examples/buoyancy-compensator.aspx

I can see how to copy and paste the location of the hotspot to every frame, but how do you copy and paste to specific frames only? I can't find a way to do this so my first thought was to copy the spot out of frame so it was invisible when not needed and then place it where needed for the 15 frames when it should appear. However, getting the spot in exactly the same position so it doesn't wobble is very time consuming.
So now I am copying the on-image position and dragging the other 75 other spots out of frame... There must be a better way??

 

[WebSupport]

Hi Tim, by the sounds of it, you are creating a hotspot per image / frame which is not how it works usually. I.e you would create a hotspot under Hotspots tab, and then use your mouse wheel to move between images and draw your hotspot trajectory by clicking at the point of interest (for which the hotspot was created) on each frame as required.

In other words, you simply click at the current location of the hotspot on a given image, move to the next/prev image, click again and so on. The smoother the path you "draw" by going through this, the smoother the animation of the hotspot indicator will be.

There're some helper tools on right mouse click inside the preview where you click and also some key shortcuts as discussed in the user guide under Hotspots -> Dynamic Hotspot Positioning on page 19:

https://webrotate360.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/webrotate360/downloads/Resources/Readme.pdf

PS: new version of 3.6.5 beta we're working on will have some more advanced tools for hotspot placement, some of which we can share with you even now upon request.

 

[tim2021]

Thanks for your reply.
No I am just using the one hotspot, my Apple mouse doesn't have a wheel. So there is my first problem...
But this helps, thanks, I will use keyboard arrows to navigate and a trackpad to click. It is still a bit time consuming.
We are going to be making some advanced animations this month with 500 plus frames and multiple hotspots. Would be super handy if you could just tell the hotspot which frames to appear in and select one location. Maybe for 3.7 beta

Looking forward to the new version and happy to try it out and provide feedback.

Thanks again.

 

[WebSupport]

I see. Are you looking to place the hotspot at exactly the same position on selected images? I.e it's not going to move with the images in your animation, correct?

Just trying to figure out if we can quickly add something that would make your life easier as we are literally in the middle of drastically improving hotspot positioning options...

 

[tim2021]

Legends!!!

Yeah that's right.
Exactly the same position and then it disappears once you scroll far enough.

Thanks!

 

[WebSupport]

Let us noodle on this!

The fastest way to do it now in the current release is to place the hotspot on one of the images and then right mouse click in the preview and select "propagate to all" in the context menu which will take the current placement and apply it to all of the frames. Then you could delete the placement from those images where it's not needed by scrolling through the images via the arrow keys like you suggested (in the absence of the mouse wheel) and hitting "delete" key on your keyboard.

There's also a new build we could share where there're new key shortcuts to apply the current hotspot placement to the next or previous frame so you could again add the first placement, press the new key combination (or select it from the right-click menu) to apply the same placement to say the next frame, then "arrow key" to the next frame and again apply the placement which will be already there to the next frame and so on which would make it faster then the workaround above.

Just let me know if you would like to test it.

 

[tim2021]

Ok good to know, thanks.

yes definitely keen to try the new way, sounds like a copy paste method which I was hoping for.

 

[Kristina]

Hi can I add a question to this topic?

I tried the way like described, but I'm searching for an automatic solution, that I only have to set the hotspot in one picture and the program knows which spot it is on the picture and will set the hotspot in the other frames on the same spot of the element, not of the picture. So that the spot is moving with the element. Cause if I put the hotspot frame by frame it's not really smooth when rotate the element at the end. Is there an easy solution? Thanks in advance.

 

[WebSupport]

Hi Kristina, we're still working on a more automated way to create hotspots trajectory on multiple images. There're a few helper tools coming in the next month or so that will really help with this..

We do have a new feature in the latest v3.6.5 SpotEditor (unreleased yet) that should help with a more precising hotspot placement and adjustments. We will post a quick video here tomorrow and share a new v3.6.5 build with you shortly after.

 

[Kristina]

Okay thank you very much! Looking forward to further updates

 

[WebSupport]

Quick update.. we found a couple of odd bugs in the latest build. Fixing them on our Thursday-Friday and will share with you then with a video.

 

[WebSupport]

Here's the video, Kristina ...we're sending download links via email shortly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wz1VFwVxT0