Help with some coding issues - beginner

Creator's Corner Directing Help & Tips
1

Hello,
So, straight to the point:

  1. I’d like to know how I could make a character enter from the center of the screen. I’ve seen it being done in a couple of stories I’ve already read. I tried the “@CHAR walks to”, “@CHAR spot … AND walks to”, but neither one of them seem to work for this.

  2. The second issue I’m having is that when I change a scene, and I’ve put more than one characters there, it takes like a while for the 2nd, 3rd and so on, to appear (I’m always checking in the app, not sure if it makes any difference with the web preview).
    This is the code where it happens to me.

INT. BLUE SCHOOL HALLWAY LOCKERS - DAY
@transition fade in black

&EXTRA1 spot 0.686 162 284 in zone 1 at layer -2 AND EXTRA1 faces left
&EXTRA1 is listen_nod_happy_loop
&EXTRA7 spot 0.715 102 274 in zone 1 at layer -2 AND EXTRA7 faces right
&EXTRA7 is talk_excited_happy
&EXTRA6 spot 0.661 63 313 in zone 2 at layer -2 AND EXTRA6 faces right
&EXTRA6 is blush_shy
&EXTRA5 spot 0.607 111 320 in zone 2 at layer -2 AND EXTRA5 faces left
&EXTRA5 is flirt_shy
&EXTRA3 spot 0.351 266 423 in zone 2 at layer -2 AND EXTRA3 is text_phone_neutral_loop
@EXTRA2 spot 0.268 115 456 in zone 3 at layer -2 AND EXTRA2 faces left
@EXTRA2 is talk_neutral
@EXTRA4 spot 0.257 77 461 in zone 3 at layer -2 AND EXTRA4 faces right

I’ve put the &s hoping that they’d all appear at the same time, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I have the same issue here:

INT. CLASSROOM DESK - DAY
@EXTRA8 spot 1.280 297 44 AND EXTRA8 is idle_sit_leanforward_listen_impressed_loop
@EXTRA9 spot 1.280 77 64 AND EXTRA9 is idle_sit_neutral_loop AND EXTRA9 faces right

INT. CLASSROOM DESK - DAY
@EXTRA1 spot 1.280 297 44 AND EXTRA1 is idle_sit_leanforward_bobhead_loop AND EXTRA1 faces left
@EXTRA6 spot 1.280 77 64 AND EXTRA6 is idle_sit_neutral_loop AND EXTRA6 faces right

I’d really appreciate the help, since I’m very new at this :slight_smile:
Thanks in advance!

2

Firstly,
To have you character enter from the center of a screen, you need to spot them at the center, with the help of the spotting tool it should do you the job, if you still need help with that let me know :thinking:
For your second issue, when you have an animation while using the @ sign, it’ll stop the characters from appear until they’ve finished that animation.
I’ll code it for you here as an example of what it should look like :smiley:
INT. CLASSROOM DESK - DAY
@EXTRA8 spot 1.280 297 44 AND EXTRA8 is idle_sit_leanforward_listen_impressed_loop AND EXTRA9 spot 1.280 77 64 AND EXTRA9 is idle_sit_neutral_loop AND EXTRA9 faces right

So now, they will both appear at the same time!

3

Hey, thanks for your reply!

So, the 2nd issue I had is resolved with your help!
The first one sort of worked, but now I can’t get the character to walk to the spot :smiley: What happened is she just appeared at the spot, not walked to it.
This is the code I tried to use.

@GRACE spot 1.280 148 -450
@GRACE is walk_neutral_rear AND GRACE walks to spot 1.280 148 -55

It being all on one row didn’t help either, which is what I first tried, so I split it up, but that didn’t seem to do the job haha.

4

You might need to spot Grace a little farther from the center, then have her walk to it! :slight_smile:

5

With the help of zooms, you could make it appear as if she is walking to the center,
Your walking spot should be formatted like this

@GRACE walks to spot 1.280 148 -55 AND GRACE does it while walk_neutral_rear

6

Hey, sorry for the late reply.

Yeah, that didn’t really work for me without the zoom, and I don’t want to put a zoom in that scene, so I guess I’ll have to enter my char some other way. But now it doesn’t let me use the code you gave me, it wants me to give seconds :smiley: I don’t understand, it worked last time I did it…

7

Nevermind, I figured out what the issue was - apparently you can’t use the “walks to”-command and add a behaviour at the end on the same row :smiley: