HOW TO: Direct with spotlight

  1. When beginning a new story, select the Spotlight format to write in:

Whatis_spotlight2.JPG

Selecting this format means the entire story will be in Spotlight. You cannot “ set format spotlight ” in these stories.

So when using spotlight feature your are not suppose to add or place characters in a spot, just make them talk with no commad for example

EXT. CAMPUS QUAD EAST - DAY

@transition fade in black 0.2
@pan to zone 2 in 0.5

    CHARACTER ONE (admire)
Hey guys
As you can see here I was not placed in a spot
I just started talking and I came from the right
In order for me to come from the right I needed to be the "main character"

    CHARACTER 2 (curtsey)
As you can see now when I starts talking I appear automatically
And character one disappeared from the stage
In order for her to re-appear she needs to speak again

@pan to zone 1 in 1.0

@CHARACTER THREE stands screen left AND CHARACTER THREE faces right

    CHARACTER THREE (talk_suggest)
So I was told to do this
CHARACTER THREE stands screen right AND CHARACTER THREE faces left
As you can see from here I was needed to be placed in this format
Thats because since I changed zones I needed to be added in a spot
Or else I would have appeared in a random spot which will mess up your script

@pan to zone 2 in 1

    CHARACTER ONE (talk_neutral)
Well as for me
I will always be appearing in the right or left depending on the zone I am 
Thats because I'm the "main character"
But if you don't add a main character
I will just have been appearing at random places like character three said

So when you are panning to different zone you HAVE to use a command or the character will just appear in a different zone
@CHAR stands screen left/right/center
&CHAR stands screen right/left/center

But you don’t have to make them walk like

@CHAR enter from left /right to screen /left/right/center

That will just give you an error or warning

Another way to make the character appear without the dialog is to make them do an animation like this

When a simple, non-dialog emotion is inserted, characters will swipe on to emote without saying anything:
defaultbehavior5.JPG
defaultbehavior6.gif

if you don’t know how to put the main character you just look what you need to do here

First you click on character

Find a space there that says Main Character

Chose a character to be the main charracter
#Note that you can only chose on character to be the main character

And just click save :grin:

If you are not using spotlight mode but you want to just type in this

set format spotlight

if you want to return into the full body more just type in this

set format cinematic

#Note that this doesn’t work if you are actually working with spotlight (except for the “phonetext” format

New Feature !

set format phonetext

#the story will be in a text format , meaning that it will look like you are sending messages to a character (Not actaully typing but pretending that you are sending/receiving the text messages)

if you want the character stay when the narrator is talking you need to do something like this

NARRATOR ((character_stays))
Dialog

This is how it will look like

overridedefault2.gif

You can hide characters if you want but I don’t know you want them to hide but just type in this

hide CHAR

This is how it will look like

overridedefault3.gif

#Note that you don’t need to use “@” nor “&” for this

If you want them to customize the character using spotlight you have to add the ((character_stays)) in every dialog which might take some time to do so…But other than those basic things all the other things should be the same like overlays, backgrounds, choices, conditions (effects), flag, ect.

you can see an example HERE!
More about spotlight coding you can see HERE!

2 Likes

Ugh needed to update some of the things since I made some mistakes :sweat_smile: But I hope I fix it now, please tell me if I did some kind of error

I have a question though. How can you make two character be standing at the same time like one in the middle and one in the center in spotlight?

Ir is it possible? Cause I saw a spotlight story that 2 character where in the same screen in spotlight. Do you know what I mean?

Well it depends… You can only put two characters in the same screen when you pan them so you can spot them but when you make a character talk on of them will disappear unless you type in something like this

CHAR ((character_stays))
Dialog

1 Like

Okay I will try that thanks @Davidcrvz! :smiley:

Bumping this so…

Hello XD

-Davidcrvz

Hmmm I am not sure why you were flagged but to answer your question yes. They will be always blue and can not be any other color. It can be a cool feature though

I think there must be something wrong with your account that makes all your comments flagged, maybe try creating a new account?
@Sydney_H any help?

Bumping this ^-^