This page explains all the different types of panels in Spoke's user interface so you can learn how to use the tool to make custom scenes.

Viewport Panel

The viewport shows a preview of your scene where you can select and move objects. The bottom corner of the viewport window lists the key shortcuts for navigating in the scene.

Object Selection

You can select objects in the scene by clicking on them, hold down the shift key to select multiple objects.

Camera Movement

Left click and drag to orbit around your scene. Hold the right mouse button to enter fly mode where you can use your mouse to look around the scene and the W,A,S,D keys to move the camera. Press the F key to focus selected objects.

Transform Gizmo

When you have one or more objects selected, the transform gizmo will appear. Learn more about the Transformation Tools in Spoke.

Hierarchy Panel

All of the elements and objects that exist in your scene are listed in the hierarchy panel. Click on an element to focus it in the viewport and the properties panel. You can drag elements inside the hierarchy panel to reorder or re-parent them. You can also drag and drop items from the assets panel and files from your computer into the hierarchy panel to add them to your scene.

Properties Panel

Click on an object in the scene to see the object properties in the properties panel. Different types of objects have different properties available to them (for example, a light will have an "intensity" property, but a 3D model does not). Objects can be customized by changing their properties, most objects have transform properties which represents the physical position in the scene.

Assets Panel

You can find content to add to your scene in the assets panel. You can click on assets to add them to the scene, Assets can also be dragged from the assets panel and dropped onto the viewport, hierarchy panel, or properties panel.

The left side of the assets panel lists sources for different types of assets:

Elements

Elements are basic building blocks in Spoke such as lighting options, media, spawn points and more. Hover over a element type to learn more about what each element does.

Links

You can include links in your scene to point to other Hubs rooms or to different places on the web. Select the Link element from the list of elements then when your link element is selected, paste your URL into the properties panel. When your scene is published and used to create a room in Hubs, the URL will be resolved to its file type and displayed according to the content type. If you use a URL to a general website, Hubs will attempt to take a screen shot and display that content where the link element is placed. If the url cannot be resolved, it will display a broken media image instead.

Images

Images can be added to Spoke with a 2D projection or a 360 degree equirectangular projection (a format that could be used as a skybox or other type of scene background). You can upload images or gifs from your own computer or use the built-in search tool from within Spoke to find media online.

Videos

You can link to online videos in Spoke to create a permanent player for video content. Spoke attempts to automatically play any type of streaming video content or live stream. YouTube and Twitch URLs usually work well for streaming if you want to have a permanent link to an ongoing feed in your scene. Like images, videos can be projected in either 2D, or a 360 equirectangular projection.

It is worth noting that the current behavior for videos in Spoke can be configured to automatically play and loop, but you cannot currently change the video that is linked after the scene is published to Hubs. If you want to temporarily add a video that can be removed, you may want to consider adding it to Hubs and pinning it to your room instead.

Spawners

If you want to create a room that has a specific 3D object that people can make copies of, you can create a Spawner element.

This can be helpful for creating a scene that allows multiple people to quickly get their own copies of the same object. To do this, create a Spawner element from the elements tab of the assets panel, and then paste the URL of the model into the properties panel.

Floorplan

The floorplan element defines both where you can walk and how interactable objects collide with the scene.

It creates a:

• navigation mesh- where you can walk, the blue mesh when you have the floorplan selected
• collision mesh- what objects collide with, the red or yellow mesh depending if you are using the trimesh or heightfield

My Assets

You can use your own 3D models, images, videos, and audio files inside Spoke. Click the Upload... button in this section to import files from your computer into My Assets. You can also drag and drop content into the viewport to upload it to Spoke.

Architecture Kit

The Architecture Kit contains pieces that can be used to build a wide variety of structures. This kit contains floors, walls, stairs and more.

Rock Kit

The Rock Kit contains a collection of realistic rock models that can be used to add detail to the terrain and construct platforms.

Sketchfab

Sketchfab is an online marketplace for 3D models. It contains a wide variety of high quality models to help you fill out your scene.

Google Poly

Google Poly is another source for 3D models. Most models are in a flat low poly style.

Bing Images and Videos

Here you can search Bing for images and videos from around the web to add to your scene.

Hubs Sound Pack

Here you can browse different audio files to add to your scene. You can add links to .mp3 files to add audio to a Hubs scene. Currently, however, there are no controls on audio clips added using Spoke.

We recommend uploading audio files to Hubs directly, so you can access the volume controls in case people have trouble hearing with the audio playing at the same time.

Tenor Gifs

Find animated gifs to add to your scene on Tenor.