Media Manager

This feature is available only to Web Comic stories. To get Media features for Pro stories use the Media Node.

Images

Images are added to your story from the Media Manager, and then linked to individual character nodes.

To add an image to your node:

1. Enter the Media Manager from the character node by clicking on the movie film icon and click Add Landscape Layer or Add Portrait Layer under the Visuals section.
2. Click the photo icon to be taken to your Media Library.
3. Select the image that you wish to add.

Aspect Ratios (Landscape and Portrait)

Images can be added to either landscape or portrait layers. Landscape layers will display when the story is viewed in a window that is wider than it is tall, and portrait layers will display when the story is viewed in a window that is taller than it is wide.

If you have added landscape layers but not added any portrait layers, the landscape layers will be displayed on all aspect ratios - and vice versa.

If you want layers to show only on one aspect ratio and nothing to display on the other, simply add a layer and leave it empty.

Recommended sizes and formats

The ideal dimensions for your images are 1920px x 1080px and .jpg, jpeg, .png, .gif are all accepted.

Be aware that on some screens your image will need to be resized, so we recommend keeping the edges of your image free of important information, as it may get cut off on some screens. Up to 96px on each side and 280px on the top and bottom could be cut off on certain mobile devices.

Avatar Builder and Backgrounds

You can use the in-built Avatar Builder to design characters for your story. Access the avatar builder from the left-hand menu and export them to your library to be used as media in your story. We also have a number of included backgrounds available. Just go to your media library, hit the Included Backgrounds tab and select the background to add to your library.

Layers and animation

Layers

You can add additional layers to a panel by clicking Add Landscape Layer or Add Portrait Layer. These can be used to add foreground, background or animations to an existing image.

Image layers have two resize modes: contain and cover. The contain mode will scale the image to fit its bounding box, while the cover mode will scale the image to fill the bounding box (including cropping the image if necessary).

GIF Layers

You can add animated GIFs as a layer to a panel using the layers function. A transparent GIF animation over an image can give the effect of a steaming coffee, or a smoking gun, or a speeding car... Whatever you need!

Default Animation

By default, all images have a slight fade and scale animation to them as they display.

Speech Bubbles

There are 4 types of speech bubbles you can use for your character's speech: Speech, Narration, Thought and Tech.

To edit Speech bubbles:

1. Enter Media Manager from the character node.
2. Choose Bubble type from the drop-down list.
3. Choose Tail position from the drop-down list.
4. Move the bubble to the desired position on the image preview on the right hand side by dragging the corners of the bubble.

Audio

Audio can be added to your story from the Media Manager on the Character node. You can add multiple layers of audio tracks to build up impressive soundscapes! To create a track, click Add Track.

Ticking the Stop all currently playing audio? checkbox will stop any currently playing tracks upon reaching that node: useful if you want to totally replace the audio.

There are some options that can be placed on each track:

Track behaviour

If the audio file specified is already playing from a previous node, you can set it to either continue from where it is, or restart from the beginning. A sound effect, for example, would tend to use "restart" mode, whereas a background track would tend to use "continue" mode.

Loop

Tracks can be set to loop, so they will continue looping until being told to stop, either by the Stop all currently playing audio? checkbox, or the Should this track be stopped? toggle on an individual track.

Volume

Does what it says on the tin: adjusts the volume of the track!

Stop track

If you want to stop a track early (either before it finishes, or to stop it looping), the corresponding audio file can be selected and then Should this track be stopped? toggled on.

Bold and Italics

Within a character node you can make the text italic, bold or bold and italic by surrounding the words with the following syntax: