Authoring for Moving Users to the Next Focus Area
I’d love to hear how folks are moving users from one focus area to another!
The equipment I author for is large. We often need to get a user to walk from one part of the equipment to another part 10-20 feet away.
We’ve tried various methods, like these:
- Put a big, looping, highlight sphere where the user needs to go and instruct them to go there with text in the UI
- Make an image in a separate app that shows the path the user needs to take, display it as an image inset in the WorkLink UI
- Combine the two methods above
- We’re currently using “flying arrows” quite a bit, where we just have a big bright colored arrow fly from the user’s current position to the user’s future position (simple animations in Timeline Editor). It works, meaning users usually see the arrows and follow them. But animating the rotations and translations can be cumbersome. Long runs often need multiple arrows so they go by frequently enough to catch the eye of the user.
I’m curious about a more author friendly (and user useful) method to get users to move locations. Any good ideas?
I had casually mentioned to some Scope leaders that I'd love for WorkLink to have a Microsoft Guides “like” leader line that an author can use to make a deformable connection between the GUI and an object selected from Step Hierarchy. Did that make the roadmap? I'd be happy to post this over in the Feature Requests section for more discussion.
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Hi Andrew,
WorkLink expert from Scope AR here
There is indeed a better way to guide users to the opposite side of a large 3D model. Instead of making an image inset you should first create a camera in the scene view. Then you can point the camera on the model, and record the camera moving around to the desired location. Finally, set the camera as an inset instead of an image. (setting the camera to interactive mode in its object properties is a good idea as well)
This results in an inset that shows the user where they should go, which is more user friendly, and intuitive than using a still image.
Let me know if you try it out. Hope this helps!
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Hi Bryce,
Thank you for a great suggestion! I've used inset cameras to zoom/focus on tiny/micro level work details, but had not considered them for big macro perspectives. You've put another another tool in my "move-the-user" toolbox. Nice tip!
There will still be a bit of authoring work to drag the camera around and smooth the transitions, but no more than we're already doing with flying arrows.
I'll tinker with it and share feedback here with the community!
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I finally got some time to tinker with moving cameras inset to the UI as a way to lead users around a large model. They worked quite nicely! I am planning to use them as my primary method for moving users in future projects.
Here are some BKMs I learned while tinkering with moving cameras:
- The inset camera view looked better when the camera moved parallel to the outside of the model. It was harder to follow when the camera moved at an angle with respect to the outside of the model.
- Since our procedures require users to move around the equipment several times during the same procedure, it’s best for the author to set up the pre-positioned cameras in the default step. Then, whatever step needs to move a user, just needs to add a start and destination camera. The movements between the start and destination can be animated by copying the transform data from the corner cameras.
- It’s helpful to have a repeating highlight sphere on the destination object.
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While moving cameras as insets are quite an improvement over our flying arrows, they are still a bit of authoring work to implement. I went ahead and made a post in the Feature Requests page asking for something similar to Guides’ dotted lines to be added to WorkLink. https://scopear.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/10149277151373-Microsoft-Guides-Dotted-Lines-in-WorkLink
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Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your feedback!
The Creative Services team has created an article on an author friendly way to move users to the next focus area. Check it out here, we hope you find it useful!
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Ooh, nice! Thanks for posting that. Rotating the camera around a central point is a great idea!
I had been animating the cameras themselves, combining several translations and rotations, to get them to move in a rectangular path around our equipment. That makes for lots of authoring tedium. The rotating method needs far less setup, should make for easier authoring!
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Great news, let me know if you try it out and if you have any more questions. Here to support you!
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