App for making interactive images, visual stories?
DefaultName
Posts: 388
I'm wondering if anyone has experience or knowledge of any app or host site that can allow me to organize renders and use "hot spots" or other simple tools to move between multiple renders?
For example, one render in a kitchen, with a coffee pot. When you click the pot, it zooms in to a different render for more detail
Or another is a character in a meadow, if you click-drag left, a render of the character at a barn shows up, if you click-drag right they go to an old tree (render)
I thought it would be nice to make a visual story this way, layering renders almost like for animation, but instead making it interactive as something like a .svg file or a different interactive image. I do have Adobe Suite and use Photoshop for after effects.
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Comments
Seems like whatever Flash is called these days would be perfect for that, and I think you could even do it with HTML5.
I could try Adobe Animate, I wasn't sure though and wondered if anyone has used it. There are ways to code hotspots with HTML, but I'm out of my league there and was hoping for something more time efficient for me.
That sounds very much like what I'm after, thank you, I'll check it out.
Ideally I would like a visual novel/game, where the reader can click different parts of my renders to make choices and get different story outcomes.
AND actually, I was also trying to make an interactive image, like an interactive JPEG or PNG or something I can host on different platforms more readily that maybe isn't as in depth as a game. I was looking at "Genially" but that's also paid so I'm on the fence about that website.
If you want something less heavy than a Renpy-style solution and you are comfortable around writing HTML then you can just use image maps? See this example on w3schools.
Then you can host it anywhere that can handle static HTML (Netlify/Cloudflare/GitHub Pages/etc).
Yes I have seen that. I could resort to it if there's no app that can do it for me. I'm not experienced with that, like how to make a .png or .jpeg from a render into an HTML compatible image to begin with? I could trial and error writing the lines of code.
I was wondering if there was an app that just had tools and buttons I could experiment with to achieve it for a similar file type as the HTML method. A file I could host more widely than with Renpy.
If you're not looking to make an actual visual novel meaning that you have no need for characters, dialogue, branching choices etc. then Ren Py is overkill. If you do need these features then it would be worth learning. You will need to learn how to code but there are so many tutorials available on YouTube and elsewhere.
If you're looking to showcase your renders in a more interactive way rather than just a gallery (I think this idea is great btw!) then a standard website will suit you fine. Just be aware that this comes with its own problems as well...
You will want to make your site accessible to mobile users meaning you have no idea what aspect ratio or screen size your viewers will be using until they actually view it. No problem - just create a responsive web page and it adapts. The snag here is that image maps aren't responsive and what lined up nicely on your 16:9, 2560x1440 PC monitor is now completely borked on an iPhone in portrait mode. It just won't work. They can be brute forced into working but it's messy and very few sites still use image maps as a consequence.
So, we're back to using actual software which can export to the web, which RenPy can. I don't see any difference in picking a host for a RenPy game or a static web site other than checking that your host supports the MIME extensions that RenPy needs and that your content doesn't violate the company's terms of use. RenPy has the added bonus of allowing you to use other effects such as transitions or particles; fancy some steam coming out of that coffee pot you mentioned?
Your wishlist is a bit of a big ask to meet all the requirements. You want it free, you want visual scripting (i.e. no coding), you want web export and ideally you want drag and drop. Pick a couple of those, you can't have them all.
I'm not familiar with Genially but I had a look at the website and if you really don't want full VN functionality it looks really good for the price. You'd have to pay for hosting with the other solutions anyway (unless you went for a free option which would be slow and, due to the inherent nature of images, would likely hit download useage very rapidly) so why not give their free plan a trial and see if it works for you? Nothing to lose really.
If you are still looking for information there is this thread with some useful information.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/154591/visual-novel-support-group/p1