Video Tutorials¶
A full course, in the order we recommend watching it. Each lesson is short and does one thing; each one also appears at the top of its matching guide.
Videos are in production — the frames below mark what's on the way.
Start here¶
Zero to a working install, and the mental model everything else builds on.
Trailer
Octo Scene Assembler in 60 seconds.
What OSA Is
Why you stage a scene before importing it, and what a single press of Assemble actually builds.
Installation & Activation
From download to a licensed tool launching inside Harmony.
Interface Tour
Browser, Staging and Inspector, the toolbars and the feedback bar — what each region is for.
Your first scene¶
The shortest complete round trip: a folder on disk becomes a hierarchy in the Node View.
Concepts & Vocabulary
Slot, staging, tag, magnet, art layer, super node — the words the whole tool is built out of, and why every row is the same row.
Your First Assemble
Drag a folder in, look at the Details column, press Assemble, read the report.
Tagging: P, G, C, D, BD
Writing structure into names — in Photoshop, in Windows folders, or in the tree itself.
The Inspector
Ticking components, naming them, and the link button that keeps a name following its slot.
Bringing artwork in¶
Every source OSA reads, and what each one becomes.
Image Sequences & Frames
Numbered files become exposures: range detection, holds, and the Frames folder.
Importing a PSD
Groups become branches, layer names become tags, masks become mattes.
Art Layers & Subart
Aiming artwork at Underlay, Colour Art, Line Art or Overlay — and stacking several images on one of them.
Original Bitmap
The mode with no art layers, what it is for, and how the flatten source is chosen.
SVG & Harmony Templates
Vector artwork, and dropping a `.tpl` into the tree as a single block.
Transform Sync (.anm / .pvt)
Bringing animation curves and pivots across from Octo Transform Sync.
Shaping the tree¶
The verbs: routing, re-parenting, breaking apart and putting back together.
Magnets
Named destinations, aliases, and dropping a whole delivery folder that sorts itself.
Drag, Drop & Drag Conversion
Re-parenting inside the tree, and what Drag Conversion changes about the drop.
Split & Merge
Breaking one slot into its parts, the two split modes, and Merge Down.
Splitting & Merging Frames
Turning one exposure into many and many into one, without losing artwork.
Creating Frames
The Add Frames dialog: prefix or suffix naming, how many, and the exposure each one holds.
Super Nodes
One slot that swallows its children: fewer rows to read, one name to rename.
The Wide Bus & Nested Backdrops
Why the Node View comes out readable, and how a backdrop is measured from the inside out.
Effects & generators¶
The Effect Chain
Effects are a chain in series: the list order is the wiring order, and the ＋ only offers what is missing.
Transparency & Cutter
The two modes of Transparency, and picking a matte for the Cutter.
Glow, Blur & Blending
Radius, colour, blur types, and the blend mode list.
Colour Filters
Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Levels, Tone and Highlight.
Colour Card & Gradient
Generators are holders, not effects — why they sit beside the drawing instead of in the chain.
PSD Adjustment Layers
What crosses over from Photoshop, what does not, and how the import tells you which is which.
Shipping the scene¶
Assemble & The Report
What the one destructive verb writes, what it refuses, and how to read what comes back.
Sessions & Crash Recovery
Why a Harmony crash does not cost you the tree, and how to bring a session back.
Preferences & Shortcuts
Preference sets, the defaults every new slot is born with, and rebinding keys.