Hierarchy Rendering

In situations where multiple objects need to be tracked independently but you still want to program it as one screen, or you want to work in one canvas for different objects sharing the same UV space, or simply because you are accustomed to this way of working you can use the hierarchy rendering in Photon.

One of the best example of this, and the first project the tool was used on, is Singapore National Day in 2016:

See video report here: https://vimeo.com/181221161

The flying city was made out of 99 individual objects that needed to be tracked individually. 99 distinct objects were thus required in Photon’s 3D scene.

Content was delivered as one piece of media covering entire sections of the city as one UV:

In Photon when you add 3D objects in the 3D scene, it automatically creates a Timeline Screen for that object:

Imagine programming on 99 screens at the same time ? impossible right ?

That’s where Hierarchy Rendering comes into play by allowing you to work with a collection of individual elements as if it were one single object:

To Create a Hierarchy Rendering (aka one screen in the timeline but multiple independent objects in the 3D Scene.)

In the 3D Scene, Select the parent of a hierarchy in the object list

NB: The parent can be a Null from an .FBX file or any 3D Object with the exception of a Photon Null.

Select {Options Panels > Properties} from the 3D Scene menu or press [P] to open the Object Properties panel.

In the Hierarchy rendering dropdown menu change {none} for {Parent}

Voilà!

You can now edit your videos on multiple 3d objects sharing one uv space in a single timeline.

New Features (available in the next show release)

Complete UV Preview

Prior to Photon 10.6 the only piece of UV you would be able to see in the Preview is the parent.

Now the entire UV is displayed when using the UV preview function in the preview window.

Snap to UV

You can now select one of the objects in the hierarchy and snap a texture to its UV coordinates: PHOTON will automatically scale and position the image or video onto that specific object inside the UV space.

Select the object you want the texture to be snapped on in the dropdown menu.

Select the clip(s) you want to modify

Press the Snap to UV button.