Presentation modes & backdrops
Every segment chooses how it meets the viewer: fully immersive, mixed into the real room, or in a plain window. Immersive scenes can also wrap themselves in a backdrop.
The three modes
Set a segment's presentation mode with the three-way picker in the segment inspector:
| Mode | What the viewer experiences | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Immersive | The full space opens and passthrough is hidden; your content is the entire world. | Fully authored environments: 360° video worlds, staged theater, transportive finales |
| Mixed | Your content places into the viewer's real room; passthrough stays visible. | Guided tours, exhibits, anything anchored to a real space |
| Windowed | The experience appears in a plain window, with no immersive space at all. | Intros, menus, epilogues, calm framing beats |
Because the mode is per-segment, a chapter can arc from a window, into the room, into another world, and back. The player handles every transition as playback moves from segment to segment.
Switching rules
Some mode switches adjust your backdrop, because not every backdrop makes sense in every mode:
- → Windowed clears the segment's backdrop. There's no immersive space around a window, so there's nothing for a backdrop to wrap.
- → Mixed drops a video backdrop but keeps a USDZ one. A video skybox is a sphere around the viewer; in mixed mode it would obscure the passthrough view of the real room, defeating the point. USDZ scenery coexists with passthrough, so it stays.
- → Immersive leaves the backdrop untouched.
Watch out. Switching to Windowed clears the backdrop binding. Your backdrop asset is safe in the sidebar, but if you switch back to Immersive you'll need to re-pick it. Undo (⌘Z) restores it if you switched by accident.
The backdrop picker
When a segment is Immersive or Mixed, the inspector shows a backdrop picker below the mode control. Backdrops come from the sidebar's Backdrops section, so mark a video or USDZ with Mark as Backdrop first (see Assets & folders). The choices:
- None: no backdrop; the segment plays against the empty space (Immersive) or the real room (Mixed).
- Video skybox: an interior-facing sphere that plays a video around the viewer, with
three sub-controls:
- Layout sets how the source frame carries stereo: mono (flat), side by side or over-under (packed stereo pairs), or MV-HEVC (Apple's multiview format for true spatial video).
- Field sets coverage: 360° fully surrounds the viewer; 180° fills the front hemisphere, right for VR180 footage.
- Loop repeats the video for as long as the segment runs.
- USDZ scene: a 3D environment loaded around the viewer, such as a room, a landscape, or a stage set.
Note. In Mixed mode the picker offers only None and USDZ. The video skybox option is hidden for the same reason a switch to Mixed drops it: a skybox would blot out passthrough.
Previewing backdrops in Chapter Studio
You don't need a headset to check a backdrop. Click the globe toggle in the top-right corner of Chapter Studio's viewport and the selected segment's backdrop renders right in the editor — a playing interior video sphere or the loaded USDZ scene, seen from the viewer's position. Orbit the viewport camera to inspect seams, horizon height, and framing. The toggle remembers its state between launches, so leave it on if you're deep in backdrop work.
Choosing modes for a story
Tip. Treat full immersion as a spend, not a default. A chapter that begins Windowed, moves to Mixed as the viewer engages, and goes Immersive only at its emotional peak lands far harder than one that opens at maximum. Contrast is the instrument.
A few practical pairings: 360° looping video plus spatial ambience makes a strong ambient installation; Mixed mode with USDZ props suits guided tours where the real room matters; Immersive with an MV-HEVC skybox is the showcase setting for spatial-video storytelling. Gate the transition into your most immersive segment on a tap so the viewer chooses the moment they cross over.