Set up the scene

Here, we'll walk you through the essential elements required to set up your scene effectively. We've got you covered with detailed instructions and handy tips to streamline your workflow.

We have included a sample scene inside the Plugins/EmperiaToolfolder you can use as a starting point. This scene holds all the necessary components and actors.

Configuring the scene

To configure the scene, open the EmperiaTools menu from the Windows dropdown menu in the Unreal Editor. Click on the Emperia3dKit option to open the window.

Once you have logged in with your credentials, navigate to the next page, which discusses setting up configurations. Here, click the "Configure" button. This action will add the necessary blueprints, “BP_CaptureTool”, and “BP_PanoramaManager”, to the scene.

Adding Hotspots to the scene

The next step is to add hotspots. To do this, navigate to the "Place Actors" tab in the editor window dropdown. From there, go to the "Emperia Navigation" tab within the "Place Actors" tab. Finally, drag and drop the hotspot into the scene.

The position of BP_CaptureTool and BP_PanoramaManager does not matter, however, BP_Hotspot is used to define the position of where a render is going to happen.

• Place the BP_Hotspot actor so it would be facing a point of interest (in front of a product, for example).

We also need to add a few more hotspots to enable navigation.

• Duplicate the BP_Hotspot actor 2 times, and place those actors close to the initial BP_Actor actor (at a distance of 1.5m-2m)

This will allow the user to navigate the experience. We also need to ‘capture’ the newly added points, so they would be picked up in the rendering process.

• To gather the hotspots added to the scene, navigate to the specified page and click the "Gather" button twice.

Adding Interactable Components

Interactable components allow us to define certain areas within the scene, that should have specific interaction or media assets being displayed.

Let’s add our first Emperia 3D Kit Interactable Component (IC for short).

Let’s define what Type of 3D IC this is. You can read more about the different Types here. For simplicity, let’s assume that we want to make the selected actor a Product.

• Select the Clickable Interactable component, in the Details tab, and change the Type to Product.

This gives you additional Product Properties that you can edit.

• Set the Product ID to SKU_123

Great! This object will now be clickable within the virtual experience! You can read more about the Interactable components here.

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This object will now be clickable within the experience, however there is nothing reacting to that ‘click’. You can validate if the element is clickable by selecting ‘debug’ on your generated experience, which will show a grey box around the product, indicating that it is clickable.

Analytics

Last but most importantly, we want to add clarity to the reporting of the virtual experience. We can do that by utilizing an actor called Room. This actor allows you to define an area in which you can specify which room the user is standing in for reporting clarity.

• Find the Room blueprint in /Plugins/Emperia3DKit/Blueprints folder.
• Drag the Room actor into the scene
• Scale the Room actor up, so the interactable element and the hotspots are inside the bounding box.
• Select the Room actor, under the Details tab, and expand the Room Model object in the editor.
• In the Name field, put in ‘My first room’.

Now, all events that happen within those three actors, will have the tag My first room attached. You can read more about analytics here.

Next Steps

With these basic setup steps done, you're now equipped to add more information and value to your 3D environment. This is what truly turns it into immersive virtual experiences.

Now is the time to render the scene.

Help

If you found this helpful, have a question or want to suggest improvements, please feel free to reach out to us by referencing the page title as the subject.

On this page

• Set up the scene
• Configuring the scene
• Adding Hotspots to the scene
• Adding Interactable Components
• Analytics
• Next Steps
• Help