Your first chapter

Build a real immersive scene from scratch: a 3D model that fades in and moves, narration, a tap gate, a 360° backdrop — and live playback on a Vision Pro.

What you'll make

In about twenty minutes you'll author a single-segment chapter in Chapter Studio: a 3D object appears in the scene, audio plays, the object glides to a new position, the experience waits for the viewer to tap, and everything happens inside a 360° video backdrop. Along the way you'll touch every core surface of the editor: the asset sidebar, the viewport, the timeline, the action library, and the inspector.

You'll need: a Mac running Chapter Studio, one .usdz 3D model, one video file (any .mp4 or .mov will do; a 360° clip is ideal for the backdrop step), and one audio file. A Vision Pro is optional until the final step.

Build it

  1. Create a project. Launch Chapter Studio and create a new project from the welcome window (or open one with ⌘O). Give it a name. This becomes the name of your .chapterscript bundle, an ordinary folder you can keep anywhere. The editor opens with the asset sidebar on the left, the 3D viewport in the center, the inspector on the right, and the full-width timeline across the bottom.

  2. Import your media. Drag your .usdz model, your video, and your audio file from Finder into the asset sidebar. Each file is copied into the project bundle's assets/ folder and appears under Scene Assets. Your project is now self-contained, so the originals can move or vanish without breaking anything. (More on importing and organizing in Assets & folders.)

  3. Meet the default segment. Every new chapter starts with one segment (a scene), shown as a tab at the top of the timeline. It's marked as the default segment, which means it's where playback begins. A segment holds timed steps, and the timeline you're looking at is that segment's contents. One segment is plenty for today; see Chapters & segments for the bigger picture.

  4. Place the model in the viewport. Select your .usdz asset in the sidebar. It appears in the viewport. Drag it to position it in the scene, and use the inspector's transform values for precise placement or scaling. The viewport camera sits at standing eye height, so what you see is a good preview of what a viewer will see. Put the model somewhere pleasing a couple of meters out.

  5. Drag a Reveal onto the scene track. Just above the time ruler sits the action library, a strip of draggable chips grouped by category. Find the Reveal chip in the Scene category and drag it onto your model's row in the timeline's Scene section, right at the start. Reveal fades an entity in; you've just authored your first action. Notice a clip appears on the track: clips in Chapter Vision are derived from actions; this one runs from your Reveal until the entity is hidden or the segment ends. (See Steps & actions.)

  6. Add narration with Play Audio. Drag a Play Audio chip from the Audio category onto the Audio section of the timeline and choose your audio file. Drop it a second or two after the reveal so the object appears first, then the narration begins. With the audio clip selected, the inspector offers volume and loop controls.

  7. Scrub and play back. Click anywhere on the time ruler to jump the playhead there. The viewport updates to show exactly what's on screen at that moment, even while stopped. Drag along the ruler to scrub. Then press play in the transport: the model fades in, the audio starts, and the active clip pulses gently on the timeline so you can see what's live. This scrub-anywhere behavior is your fastest feedback loop — use it constantly.

  8. Make the model move. Drag a Move chip onto the model's row a few seconds in, and give it a destination and duration in the inspector. The model now glides from its resting spot to the new position during playback. For richer motion, Chapter Vision also supports keyframe animation: pose keys that live on the segment itself, edited in the Animation card of the segment inspector with a full curve editor. That's a deeper topic; when you're ready, read the animation overview.

  9. Hold for a tap: add a gate. Suppose you want the experience to wait until the viewer is ready before the move happens. Select the step where the move begins (steps are the timed beats a segment is divided into; their boundaries show on the ruler). In the segment inspector, turn on Gate for the previous step. Now that step holds at its end until the viewer taps, and you can add a prompt like "Tap to continue" that the player shows while waiting. A yellow gate flag appears on the ruler. Gates can also take a timeout that auto-advances; see Gates.

  10. Go immersive with a 360° backdrop. First, mark your video as a backdrop: right-click it in the asset sidebar and choose Mark as Backdrop, and it moves into the sidebar's Backdrops section. Then select the segment and, in the segment inspector, set the presentation mode to Immersive. A backdrop picker appears: choose Video, pick your clip, and set the field to 360° with loop on. Click the globe button in the viewport's top-right corner to preview the video sphere right in the editor. Full details in Presentation modes & backdrops.

  11. Save. Press ⌘S. Chapter Studio writes chapter.json into your bundle, fingerprints every asset, and, if a headset is connected, pushes the new version to it immediately. Save early and often; every edit is also undoable with ⌘Z.

  12. See it live on a Vision Pro. Put a Vision Pro on the same Wi-Fi, open Chapter Vision, and pick your Mac from the session rail (full walkthrough in Connecting a Vision Pro). The headset fetches your chapter, prefetches the media, and plays it back: the backdrop wraps around you, the model fades in at real scale, the narration plays, and the scene waits for your pinch at the gate. From now on, every ⌘S on the Mac updates the headset in under a second. Tweak the move duration, save, and watch it change while you're standing in the scene.

Tip. Drops onto the timeline snap to the nearest step boundary, so you don't have to pixel-hunt. Drag a clip's body to slide it in time; drag its edges to retime just one end.

Note. Everything you just did on the Mac can also be done in the headset. Chapter Vision has its own timeline, action chips, inspectors, and gizmos, and its edits sync back to Chapter Studio live. Many authors block out timing on the Mac, then fine-tune placement in the room.

Where to next