Studio Course Explorer

In DART, a course can include many stages. Each stage can have any number of objects including targets, people, props, etc. Together, this can represent a significant number of objects. The Course Explorer is a visual hierarchy of the stages and objects that make up a course designed to let you quickly find, group, select, and hide stages and objects by name or type. 

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Search Bar

Below the title bar is a search bar that will filter the list of assets by name. For example, typing in “ben” would show all assets that include the letter sequence “ben”. Clicking the X icon at the far right of the search bar will clear the search data.

Course Name

Below the search bar is the name of the course. To rename a course, right-click on the course name. This will highlight the name and allow you to type in a new name. This is the only way to name a course in Studio.

Data Tree

Below the course name is the data tree. The data tree is a hierarchal view of the stages and objects in your course. The tree is divided into stages, which are further divided into object categories. Stages and object categories can be opened or closed by clicking the corresponding + or – icon next to the stage or category name.

When a stage is opened, it shows a category group for each object type (flat targets, TruTargets, props, etc.) in the stage. Each object type has its own icon to make them easily identifiable. If a stage does not have objects of a certain category, it will not display that category. For example, if your stage does not use Light objects, there will be no category for Lights in the data tree.

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Each object type has its own icon in the Course Explorer

Clicking the eye icon to the left of a category will turn on/off the display of all the objects in that category. For example, you can hide all props in a stage by clicking the eye icon next to the Props category. This does not delete them from the stage it only hides them temporarily.

Individual objects and group objects can also be hidden by clicking the eye icon next to the name. Clicking an object in the Course Explorer will immediately move you to the proper stage and cause the object to be selected in the viewport.

Objects with motion assigned to them (two or more waypoints) are designated with a blue M icon. Objects with assigned behaviors are designated with a green B.

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Object Menu

One of the most powerful features of the Course Explorer is the Object Menu, which is activated by right-clicking on any object or group object. The Object Menu provides a way to quickly copy and paste objects, rename objects, find specific objects in a crowded scene, and more.

Some options are not available in all cases. For example, the Create Group option will not be active unless two or more objects are selected when the menu is opened. Likewise, the Ungroup option is only available when a grouped object is selected.

Here is a quick list of object menu options.

• Create Group - create a group object from one or more selected objects

• Ungroup - ungroup a grouped object

• Save to Library - saves the selected object or group object (with all their settings) to the library

• Copy - copies the selected object or groups to memory

• Paste - pastes an exact copy of an object or group from memory to the stage

• Cut - copies the selected object or groups to memory but removes it from the stage

• Replace - pastes selected portions of a copied object or group and deletes the selected object at the same time

• Rename - renames the selected object(s) or group(s)

• Delete - deletes the selected stage, object(s) or group(s) from the course

• Isolate On/Off - turns on/off all objects and groups except the selected object/group

• Zoom to Object - if the current view is set to Overview, it will zoom to the selected object(s)

Create Group

There may be times when you want to combine several objects together into a single object. For example, the shoot house in the image below is made up of 36 individual props. Grouping these individual parts together would make it easy to move it around the scene or save it for use in a different course. Use the Create Group option to combine any set of objects together so that they can be moved, scaled, rotated, and saved as a single object.

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To create a group, select two or more objects by holding the CTRL key down and left-clicking on objects in the data tree. The objects do not need to be the same type. For example, you can combine props and lights or flat targets and TruTargets in one group. Once you have selected multiple objects, right-click on one of the selected objects and choose Create Group from the menu.

Once a new group is created, the group object can be seen under the Groups category and given a default name such as Group 01. You can rename it by right-clicking the group name and selecting Rename from the menu.

Saving Groups

Grouped objects can be saved to the library by selecting the group and choosing Save To Library from the object menu.

Ungroup

To ungroup a previously grouped object, select the group object and choose Ungroup from the object menu.

Save to Library

One of the most powerful features in Studio is the ability to save objects that you have changed in some way back to the library. Not only is the object saved, but all movement, settings, and behaviors for the object are saved as well.

To save an object, or grouped object, select the object and choose Save To Library. The program will default to the Groups folder for saving, but you may save it in any folder.

Copy, Cut, Paste, and Delete

These commands work just as you might expect.

Selecting an object and choosing Copy will copy the selected object to memory. You then use the Paste option to place any number of the copied object into the scene. This is handy for building things with repetitive features like long hallways. In this case, you might add a wall prop to the scene, copy it, and past multiple versions of the wall to build a hallway. When you paste an object it will appear in the exact position as the original object, so it may appear that the operation did not work. Both objects are occupying the same space, so select one and move it.

Cut is similar to Copy except that it removes the copied object from the scene.

Delete will remove the selected object from the scene but will not place the deleted object in memory.

Replace

Replace is similar to paste except that it will paste selected portions of a copied object or group and delete the selected object at the same time. When replace is used, the pasted object assumes the transform settings as the object it is replacing.

Replace allows you to replace an object, an object’s behaviors, motion, or a combination of object and motion, object and behaviors, or motion and behaviors.

In the example below, the object Replace command is used to replace a wall panel with a window panel. To begin, the window prop is copied to memory using the Copy command. The wall prop is then selected and Replace>Object is chosen. This replaces the wall panel with the window panel in memory. In this case, the new window inherits all of the positional information, behaviors, and motions (if any) of the object being replaced.

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Rename

By default, objects are given names based on their base name and the number of identical objects already in a scene. For example, if multiple versions of a wall prop were added to a scene, they may be given the names Wall 01, Wall 02, Wall 03, etc.

The Rename option allows you to rename any object or grouped object in your scene. Select an object and choose Rename from the object menu. The object name will be highlighted, and you may type a new name.

Isolate On/Off

Isolate turns on/off all objects and groups except the selected object or group. This is a great way to focus on just a single object in the scene.

Zoom to Object

Zoom to Object to move the Overview so that the selected object fills the viewport. This is particularly useful when using large environments in which objects are large distances apart.

Filter by Object Type

The filter bar at the bottom of the Course Explorer can be used to show only objects of a particular type. For example, selecting Flat Targets will cause the data tree to only show flat target objects. Once selected, the search bar will only find, and the data tree will only show, objects that match the filter.