The Scene Node Itself

The scene is the large empty space containing all the visual elements you design. The Scene Node in the explorer logically represents the scene. It contains the properties for basic functionality and appearance of the empty space surrounding the scene objects, and for the behavior of the scene as a whole.

Managing the properties of the scene

If you click the Scene node in the explorer (always at the top of the list of nodes), or if you click any empty space in the scene viewer, then you have selected the scene. Its properties will be shown on the right.

The scene node is the first node at the top of the explorer. It cannot be duplicated or deleted.

Scene Node Properties

Property Options

Name

The name of the scene.

Background

  • Color
    The space between meshes is a background color you specify.

  • Transparent
    The space between meshes is transparent.

  • Environment
    The space between meshes shows an environment map: a series of images in the distance that can give context to your meshes, and pre-defined light sources to illuminate your meshes.

If you don’t select "environment" as your background, then your scene has no lights. You’ll need to create mesh lights or global lights, or use materials with an emissive color, to see any meshes within your scene.

Environment

A set of images that seamlessly stitch together into an “environment map” to give the appearance of a world around your meshes. Environments also contain light sources that match the images, so light seems to come from the light sources (e.g., lightbulbs or sun or fireplace) visible in the map.

Pick from one of the pre-defined environments available, or upload your own environment.

Environment Lighting Intensity

Control how brightly the light sources of the selected environment illuminate your meshes.

Environment Rotation

Turn the environment map left or right (without moving any objects within the scene). This parameter is in degrees: it expects a number ranging from 0-360, but numbers outside that range are accepted and interpreted.

Environment Blur

Control how sharply the environment appears behind your meshes. Usually the environment has some blur applied to guide the viewer’s attention to your product.

Ambient Color

Specify the color of ambient light in the scene, regardless of background.

Visual Options

Optimize Scene

On (the default) ensures the scene runs smoothly with a high frame rate, which may sacrifice texture quality on some slower machines. Turning off this feature maintains higher-quality textures, which could result in low frame rates and jerky animations for some users.

Most users prefer faster performance, even when using a slower device such as a low-power cell phone.

Enable Hover Effects

When the user’s cursor is over any interactive mesh, should that mesh be highlighted with a hover effect?

A mesh is considered interactive when it has an interaction Snap block applied, such as “On click” or “add draggable”.

A hover effect is a colored edge that surrounds the mesh, customizable by the edge parameters below.

Enable Entering Fullscreen Show the fullscreen icon to users. When clicked, the scene can fill the screen. This is useful for kiosks or presentations.

Texture Sampling Mode

Select from different ways textures are applied to meshes, ranging from faster rendering to more realistic textures.

  • Nearest offers the fastest renders, and highest FPS (frames per second)

  • Bilinear is a compromise between fast renders and realistic textures.

  • Trilinear offers the most realistic textures, but may slow the FPS on some devices.

Post in Viewer

Post-processing effects are optional enhancements applied after the meshes are calculated and the scene is about to be shown to the user.

  • FXAA Post smooths sharp, high-contrast edges with anti-aliasing.

  • Lens Effects Post show lens flare and other effects when a light source is near or within the frame.

  • Ambient Occlusion Post highlights edges and shadows to make objects easier to identify.

Render Mode in Viewer

How will your customer view the scene? Choose from the same list of render modes available in the scene designer. Learn more about render modes shown in the scene toolbar.

Display Edge Color

Display Edge Width

Display Edge Tolerance

If hover effects are enabled above, these settings control that hover effect.

  • What is the color of the edge around a highlighted object?

  • How wide is that edge?

  • How sharp an angle difference must that edge have to be highlighted? (Values usually range from 0 to 1).

Grid Options

Display Grid in Viewer

Show your customer a 2D grid, similar to the one you see in the scene designer.

Display Axes in Viewer

Show your customer the same colorful X, Y, and Z axes that you see in the scene designer.

Grid Size

Adjust the overall size of the grid.

Grid Step Unit Size

Define how large one square unit of the grid would be.

Grid Major Step Interval

If your grid is large, define a major step to highlight every 5th line, or every 10th line. By default, this is zero (no major steps are shown).

Grid Normal

When "display grid in viewer" is on, this describes which axis would point away from the grid plane.The other two axes would define the grid plane.

Dimensions

Scalar per scene unit

A scene unit is one square shown in the grid. This defaults to 1. Specify any multiplier here to adjust the scale of the grid.

Unit

Add a text description of the scene units. The default is “m”.

Loading Experience

 

Default Viewpoint

When the scene first renders for your customer, which viewpoint will they be looking through? (If you have no viewpoints defined, this option is not shown.)

Experience

As the scene loads, what visual indicator should be used to give your customer a sense of activity and progress?

  • None - no progress indicator. The viewport is empty until the loaded scene suddenly appears.

  • Fade - no progress indicator. The loaded scene fades subtly into view.

  • Spinner (default) - a circular progress indicator is shown, then the loaded scene fades subtly into view.

  • Image - an image from the media folder is shown, then the loaded scene fades subtly into view.

“None” is appropriate only in some integration situations. Providing no visual indicator of progress can cause your customers to think something is wrong and they may refresh the page, slowing the experience even more.

XR Augmented Reality

Enable AR

Some devices, like cell phones with cameras, support augmented reality or virtual reality (AR or VR, often referred to in the general term XR). If you would like to offer your product to your customer in augmented reality, leave this box checked.

When enabled...

  • An AR icon appears in the corner of the scene.

  • When your user clicks that icon, the device’s AR mode will launch. Your customer can see your configured product in the room where they are standing, gaining a sense of realism and the ability to visualize how the item will fit into their context when they buy it.

    WebXR is a new standard. Device vendors like Apple can choose to not support WebXR in web browsers. Some scene features in XR may not be compatible with some devices. Learn more about Epicor CPQ system requirements.

Allow Scaling

Some devices can determine the size and distance of real-world objects, like tables or rooms, in AR mode. These devices can automatically scale the scene so your product appears life-size.

Units per Meter

How many scene units (defined above) fit into one meter in XR reality? By default, since scene units are themselves 1m, this defaults to 1. If your scene units were in inches, you could try 39.37 scene units per meter.

Add Shadows

Estimate Lighting

Some devices can determine the location of real-world light sources. If your scene is being displayed by such a device, you can…

  • add shadows so scene objects cast shadows onto real-world objects.

  • estimate lighting so scene objects are lit from a similar angle and with similar colored light as the real world.

Metadata

 

Metadata is a flexible key/value dictionary you can add to the scene object.

Connectors

 

Connectors can be applied not only to any mesh in a scene, but also to the entire scene itself. This is useful when nesting scenes. A nested scene with a connector can be dragged and dropped in the parent scene, with the connector defining how the meshes in the nested scene are positioned and rotated within the parent scene. Learn more about connectors.

 

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