Presenting

A project is made to be shown, and not only from the editor. This chapter covers the ways of showing it to an audience: in Viewer Mode, fullscreen, and on a second display such as a projector.

Viewer Mode and Fullscreen

Share in the Drop-Down Menu gives you a link that opens your project in Viewer Mode, without the editor, and Preview opens the same view for you (see Overview and Project Settings). Fullscreen, in the Drop-Down Menu or the Media Bar, makes the Scene Viewer fill the whole window or screen. These work on one display, in one window.

To keep the editor in front of you while the project is shown on another display, use Present….

On Another Display

To show the Scene Viewer on a projector or a second screen while you keep working in the editor, choose Present… in the Drop-Down Menu. It asks the browser to open a presenter window, and shows the same view in it.

1. Choose Present…. In Chrome and Edge a prompt asks once whether VerkLabs may see your displays; choose Allow, and the presenter window opens on the other display. If you refuse, or the browser cannot do it, the window opens next to the editor and you can drag it to the other display yourself.
2. Click anywhere in the presenter window to make it fullscreen, so it covers the whole display. This click is what lets the browser go fullscreen, so it always takes one. Press Esc to leave fullscreen again (or F11 in the browser’s own menu if a click does not work).
3. To stop, choose Stop Presenting in the Drop-Down Menu, click the “Presenting on …” message at the bottom of the editor, or close the presenter window.

The project keeps running in the editor window only, so the presenter shows exactly the editor’s frame, in step with the sound, with nothing to set up or keep in sync. The sound comes from the editor window as well.

• Size. The scene is drawn at the presenter window’s own pixel size, up to 4K wide, so a fullscreen projector gets a sharp image. The Scene Viewer in the editor shows it scaled to fit, like a fixed resolution; when you stop, it goes back. This is not saved in the project.
• Input. The mouse, touch and keys in the presenter window work the Mouse and Keyboard nodes (see Live Input), and the keys play a Live Music event at once, with nothing to click first. The presenter never selects or changes anything.
• Keep the editor visible. A minimized or fully covered browser window is slowed down by the browser, and the presenter slows with it. Keep the editor window on its own display, in view.
• Delay. The presenter adds a frame or two of delay, which is not noticeable for visuals.
• Browser. Placing the window on a chosen display works in Chrome and Edge. Other browsers open the window and let you drag it.

Advanced: Sending Input Between Browsers

For a setup where one window does the sensing and another shows the result, VerkLabs can pass input from one browser window to another through a small bridge server. It is an advanced feature, set up in Settings… under Development:

1. Start the bridge server from the project’s bridge-server folder (npm start). The windows reach it at localhost, port 8082, so the server and both browser windows run on the same computer.
2. In the window that has the camera and the mouse, turn on Send to External.
3. In the window that shows the result, open the project with &receive=1 added to its address, or turn on Receive from External.

The receiving window then uses the sender’s mouse position and button, last key, and hand and pose values in place of its own, in shaders. A window can send or receive, not both. Only input is passed on: the receiving window runs its own Runsheet and clock, and an instrument’s Mouse, Keyboard and camera nodes keep using the receiving window’s own input. To show a project on a second display with everything in step, use Present… instead.