Writer's Portal Guide 21: Spotlight Guide

Spotlight Guide

Welcome to Spotlight, a new way of quickly and simply writing on Episode.

Writing in Spotlight

 Spotlight was designed to be super easy to write in. For example, the story no longer requires precision character or speech bubble placements in order for the story to look good.

Play along in the guide story: https://www.episodeinteractive.com/write/story/Spotlight_Story_Examples/1

1. Turning on/off Spotlight Format

First, to begin writing in spotlight, you’ll need to do either of the following:

1. In a cinematic format story, you can toggle into and out of the spotlight format using these donacode commands:

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 When beginning a new story, select the Spotlight format to write in:

Note: Selecting this format means the entire story will be in Spotlight.

You cannot “set format spotlight” in these stories.

One more thing: Spotlight utilizes something called a “Main Character”. The only thing this does is default one character to stage left. It can be found on your “Characters” page:

   

 

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2. Spotlight Default Behavior

When in spotlight mode, these are the things we feel you need to write a story:

• Set backgrounds and transitions:

• Using pan and cut to show a particular zone:

• Character, animation, and dialog!

Beyond that, everything else that works in Donacode works in spotlight stories: Choices, conditionals, flags Labels, gotos, Overlay animations, etc.

Here are some examples of how Spotlight stories play with snippets of donacode:

• Characters will automatically swipe-in and swipe-out when alternating speaking:

• When the Narrator speaks, characters will swipe out first: 

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• When a simple, non-dialog emotion is inserted, characters will swipe on to emote without saying anything:

• When we cut or pan, characters will swipe out first.

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3. Overriding Default Behavior

You might want to change some of the features of the story. For example:

• Specify the position of a character on stage:

• Have a character remain on stage while the Narrator speaks. Note that “((character_stays))” only applies to the last character who was on stage:

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• Want to hide a character on stage for any reason? Simply use “hide” to swipe-away a character: