Look Around the Set While a Shot Renders

Where the 360° preview appears

• On a computer: in the episode editor, in the preview on the right, for the segment you have selected.
• On a phone: in the editor’s preview screen.
• For segments that are not generated yet, generating, or failed. A finished segment shows its video as before.
• Only for scenes that have a 360° view. That means scenes in projects with the world model (new projects on paid plans). What a world model is.

While the segment generates, the progress shrinks to a small pill at the bottom, just above the timeline, so the set has the room. If the segment failed, its card sits at the bottom with the retry button and the error, as before.

What you see, stage by stage

1. The room on its own. Before the characters have been placed, you can look around the set but nobody is in it. People are never drawn before their positions are worked out, so an empty room means “not placed yet”, not “nobody is in this scene”.
2. The people. Once placed, every character in the segment stands in the room.
3. The cameras and the shots. When the shots are planned, the cameras appear and the timeline at the bottom plays through them on a loop: Camera move while people get into place, then Shot 1, Shot 2 and so on.
4. The reveal. If the clip finishes while you are watching, the view swings to where the first shot’s camera looks and fades into the finished video. Open the page after it finished and you simply get the video.

Reading the figures, cameras and timeline

• Figures. One per character, each in its own colour, with the name floating above. The pose follows the storyboard: standing, sitting, kneeling, crouching, sitting on the floor, lying down, or seated in a vehicle. The figure turns to face whoever the text says they face.
• Camera wedges. Each numbered wedge is a camera: the point is where it stands, the open side is where it looks. The frame drawn in front of it is what that shot will hold.
• The timeline. A thin line with a mark at each cut. Camera move covers people moving into place; Shot N is each shot. Hold the cursor and drag to stop at any moment; let go and it carries on looping.

The figures are deliberately simple. They show where people are and which way they face; how each person looks comes from their character image, not from the figure.

Controls

Leave it alone and the view turns slowly by itself. It stops turning while the shots are playing through or while tilt is on. Tilt to look only appears on touch devices with motion sensors, and it works from the way you were holding the phone when you tapped it. Steps are limited to about half a metre from where the set was captured, so the picture stays clean.

Try it here

This is the demo from the SceneMixer homepage: one set, four characters, four cameras. Your own segments show your own set this way while they render; in the editor the people are drawn as simple coloured figures and the cameras as numbered wedges.

Why a segment shows no 360° view

• It is finished. Finished segments show their video.
• The scene has no 360° view. Projects created before the world model launched, and projects on the free plan, use the earlier staging and show the usual card.
• It is a sample project. Samples are read-only showcases and never show the set.
• The set could not be loaded. Then the usual card comes back. Nothing is wrong with the segment; generate it as normal.

If someone is in the wrong place

The preview is read-only: you cannot drag a figure to move it. Positions come from the storyboard text, so that is where you fix them. Say who sits where, who faces whom, and what they stand next to, then generate again once the current run has finished. Each generation is charged as usual; the earlier take stays in Version History.

How to write positions so they come out right: Write positions the world can read. To change just one shot: Edit one shot and regenerate.

FAQ

Updated October 15, 2026