The Element Component

Fundamentals

The element is the most fundamental component in Scenemator. It stands for a person, an object, a concept, it all depends of what your scene is about. Its mission is essentially to answer the who question. Keep in mind that if you introduce an element its because your have something meaningful to say about what it stands for!

Overview

There are 2 things that must be known to get started with elements. First, they have a type from which they will get most (but not all) their properties. Of course you can morph types at will and create new ones as needed. The second thing to know is that an element always belongs to a zone, which will dictate its position. A Zone attracts its elements and aligns them in cluster, in orbit, horizontally, ... unless you drag them somewhere of your choice. The rest is yours to discover in following sections.

Describe an Element

In Scenemator, an element is described in 3 dimensions: text — for what you have to say about it, morphology — to define how it looks, and force — for how it behaves. Click on and try them all!
Use in emator
Text
What do you have to say ?
Name A short and meaningful name
Description A hint about Who that element is

* Note that text properties are not carried over from type.

Morphology
How it looks ?
Shape Choose between basic shapes like circle, rectangle, triangle, etc. Or use just the glyph you previously selected (See glyph below for details)
Color Nothing fancy here, you can choose any of the predefined colors
Size If the size matters, then you have 6 different sizes to choose from
Glyph Browse and select a glyph from one of the categories
Force
How it behaves?
Surface If you think an element as a planet, then you understand what its surface is. For Scenemator the surface is the limit over which it considers being outside the element. This is quite handy to detect collisions with other components

Elements in Composition

In this view, you introduce all elements of your scene defining has many types has required by cloning them.

Actions
What you can do here
Introduce Click on to introduce an element of that type
Drain Click on to remove an element from the scene. Note that this will work only if the element is not involved in a pathway
Clone Make an identical copy of an element
Describe Describe an element or a type using the on or legend

Elements in Layout & Pathway

In this view, you position elements and involve them in pathways. You also note that the legend is free of types for which no elements get introduced.

Actions
What you can do here
Move Click and drag an element to give it a specific position
Describe Describe an element or a type (using the legend)

Elements in Presentation

This is the show time view for elements and other components of your scene. Here we took out everything that is not helpful for presentation. So there is no layout or way to introduce new elements but you can still describe them!

Actions
What you can do here
Describe Describe an element or a type using the legend