Build a set

A set is grey geometry at real-world scale. Each object wears a guide colour, and the prompt names the object by that colour. The look comes from the object’s description, its reference images and the scene’s Vibe, never from the grey shapes.

Start the set

An empty scene shows the Build your set panel over the viewport.

• Describe it: type the set, such as a street at dusk with a taxi parked left, and click Build. The agent panel builds it for you. This option shows only when the agent is available.
• Start from a set: click Street, Room, Studio or Open ground. Each places a few stand-ins and sets the camera’s lens: Street at 28 mm, Room at 24 mm, Studio at 50 mm, Open ground at 35 mm.
• Blank: hides the panel for this visit. Add stand-ins from the Objects rail.

Add objects

1. Click + at the top of the Objects rail.
2. Pick a tile under Stand-ins or Primitives.
   • Stand-ins are 25 everyday things at real size: Person (1.75 m tall), Child, Car, Van, Bike, Tree, Bush, Rock, Building, House, Wall, Door, Window, Stairs, Table, Chair, Sofa, Bed, Desk, Screen, Lamp post, Crate, Boat, Horse and Dog.
   • Primitives are Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone, Capsule, Plane and Wedge.
3. Click the tile to put the object on the ground in the centre of the lens, or drag the tile into the viewport to drop it under the pointer.

The new object is selected and the Object tab opens. A second person becomes Person 2.

Import a model

1. Click +, then Import model….
2. Choose a USDZ, GLB or self-contained glTF file.

Cask Film copies the file into the project, makes every material grey and stands the model on the ground. A model with no sensible units (largest edge under 1 cm or over 50 m) is scaled to 1 m. The object takes the file’s name.

Dropping a model file from Finder onto the viewport does nothing. Use Import model….

The Objects rail

The rail lists Shot camera (with its focal length), Sun (with the sky), every object with its guide colour, and Ground. The count beside Objects includes those three fixed rows.

• Click a row to select. ⌘-click adds to or removes from the selection.
• Double-click a row to rename it.
• The eye hides an object. A hidden object is left out of the guide and the render.
• The lock keeps an object still: it gets no gizmo and can’t be dragged.
• Clicking Shot camera opens the Camera tab. Sun and Ground open the Environment tab.

Look around the viewport

The toolbar switches between Lens and Free. Press C to toggle.

• Lens looks through the shot camera, letterboxed to the project’s aspect. Depth of field previews here.
• Free is a work camera for building. It shows a 1 m grid and the shot camera as a frustum. Four views sit beside the toggle: Perspective, Top, Front and Side. Each frames the whole set. Orbiting from Top, Front or Side goes back to Perspective.

In Free view:

• Drag on empty space to orbit.
• Right-drag, middle-drag or ⌥-drag to pan. Two-finger scroll on a trackpad pans too.
• Scroll the mouse wheel, pinch, or ⌘-scroll on a trackpad to zoom.
• Press F to frame the selection, or the whole set when nothing is selected. F switches to Free view.

Color by object shows the guide colours in the viewport. Turn it off to work in grey. The guide frames keep their colours either way. Thirds and safe frame draws composition guides in the Lens view.

Move, rotate and scale

Press W, E or R, or use the toolbar, to pick Move, Rotate or Scale. The gizmo follows the world axes: X red, Y green, Z blue.

• Move has an arrow per axis and a square per plane. Dragging an unselected object selects it and slides it along the ground.
• Rotate has a ring per axis. Hold Shift to snap to 15° steps.
• Scale has a box per axis and a centre square for uniform scale.

Press Esc during a drag to cancel it. Each drag is one undo step. If the object is already animated, the drag sets a key at the playhead instead of changing the whole move.

Click empty space to clear the selection. Shift-click adds to it.

Describe each object

Select an object and open the Object tab.

• Name: what the rail calls it.
• Color: click the swatch to pick one of 23 guide colours. The palette shows which colours are already taken. The word beside the swatch is what the prompt calls this colour, and you can change it.
• Description: what the object is, for the render. “A tall woman in a rust raincoat” works better than “Mara”.
• Reference images: up to 4 per object. Click + to pick from the project’s images. Hover a slot and click ✕ to remove one.
• Generate: makes reference images for this object. The popup takes a description (filled in from the name and description), a model, and how many images, up to the free slots. Generate shows the total credits before you spend them. Each image is a square shot of the subject alone on a plain background, named Name · Reference.
• Transform: position, rotation around the vertical axis (Y) and a uniform scale (×). For tilt or a non-uniform scale, use the gizmo.

If an object moves faster than 3 m/s, the tab warns you that it moves faster than a person runs.

Set the world

The Environment tab holds the parts of the scene that are not objects.

• Vibe: mood, genre, era and weather in your own words. A new scene starts with “Cinematic and photorealistic, motivated light, real-world materials, subtle film grain.” Replace it or add to it. It goes into every prompt.
• Sky: Clear day, Golden hour, Overcast, Night or Studio.
• Sun: Direction (0° to 360°) and Height (0° to 90°). The prompt turns them into words such as “low sun from camera left”.
• Ground: Show ground turns the grey floor on or off.

The blockout only places the key objects. The render builds the rest of the location around them, guided by the Vibe.

Result

The set sits in the viewport, each object in its own guide colour, with a description and any reference images on it. In the Lens view you see the frame the render will follow.

If it doesn’t work

You can’t delete an object. The editor has no delete or duplicate for objects yet. Press ⌘Z to take back an object you added, or hide it with the eye so the render leaves it out.

An import fails. “uses separate files” means a glTF points at textures or buffers beside it. Export it as GLB and import that. “has no geometry” means the file holds no mesh. A model that later goes missing shows as a 1 m grey box.

An object won’t move. It is locked or hidden. Check the lock and the eye in the Objects rail.