#Assemblies

Save any combination of props, lights, and materials as a reusable bundle — drop it into any project with one click.

Assemblies are EVT3D's answer to design patterns that show up over and over. A VIP lounge with chairs, side tables, an Aria stack arrangement, and uplighting. A registration desk with podium, signage, and queue stanchions. A DJ booth with risers, gear, and a backwall. Build it once in a scene; save it as an Assembly; reuse it across every future project. Update the saved version; every fresh placement gets the update.

#What it does

#Two kinds

• Prop assembly 🧩 — a general-purpose bundle. VIP lounge, DJ booth, registration desk, entry moment, sponsor activation.
• Venue assembly 🏰 — a full venue model (ballroom, hall, theater). Has a richer structure with named slots (Ceilings, Walls, Floors, Airwalls, Lighting, Options) so the editor and the producer can talk about it section by section.

Both kinds live in the same library, organized by tab — prop assemblies in the Props tab (with a 🧩 corner badge), venue assemblies in the Venues tab.

#Save anything as an assembly

Group the props, lights, and any nested containers you want into one container in the hierarchy. Click the container row's 🧩 button (or right-click the row → Save as Assembly…). In the Save as Assembly dialog, choose the kind (Prop assembly or Venue assembly), name it, and pick a scope: Mine (just you), Team (your team), or Global (System Admin only). Click Create. It's now a library item, ready to drop into any project.

#Place into any project

Drag the assembly tile into your scene. All the props, lights, materials, and nested folders inside the recipe land at the cursor in their saved arrangement — instantly. No re-modeling, no re-positioning, no re-skinning.

#Place it many times for free

Place the same prop assembly three times in a scene — say, three identical VIP pods — and EVT3D batches them on the GPU so they cost roughly the same to render as one placement. Edit a material on one and (if they're still linked as a family) all three update together. Need a divergent variant? Make Unique forks one off into its own family; the other two keep their shared look.

#Family color in the hierarchy

Linked assembly placements share a color in the hierarchy panel, so at a glance you can tell which placements move together. Right-click the family badge for Change Color, Select Family, or Make Unique to split the placement off.

#Edit the saved version

Double-click a prop assembly tile in the library to open the 🧩 Prop Assembly Editor. You get:

• A 3D preview of the whole bundle, framed with a ground ring and a forward-pointing arrow.
• Thumbnail capture — pose the preview the way you want the library tile to look, click Save Thumbnail.
• Metadata — Name, Category, Vendor (if applicable), Keywords (comma-separated), Description.

Venue assemblies work a little differently. Saving one runs a short wizard: sort each part of the container into a venue slot, then add venue info (hotel, room, operator, address) — skippable, and editable later. Double-clicking a venue assembly tile opens the venue's detail window.

#Options layer (advanced)

Author named Options on a prop assembly — knobs the person placing it can adjust without breaking the bundle. In the editor's Prop Assembly Options section, each row picks an object and an attribute: Change color, Change texture, Change material, Hide on/off, or Swappable. Examples:

• "Chair Color" option that recolors every chair in the assembly with a color picker.
• "Branded Signage" option to hide / show a signage element.

Today Change color and Hide on/off work end-to-end — author them in the editor, and runtime users see the controls in the Options section of the assembly's properties panel and watch the scene respond live. Texture, material, and swap options can be authored, but their runtime controls are still coming.

#Make Unique

Need one placement of an assembly to diverge from the others? Click Make Unique (in the placement's Instancing section, or from the family badge). That placement forks into its own family — your edits affect only it. The rest of the family stays in lockstep.

#Explode an assembly

Click the 💥 icon on a prop assembly's row in the hierarchy (or Explode Assembly in its right-click menu or properties panel) to break the bundle apart in place — every prop and light comes out of the assembly container and stays where it was. One undo restores the bundle. Useful when you've placed an assembly as a starting point but want to customize it further without retaining the recipe link.

#Versioned updates

Each assembly is versioned. New placements always use the current version; existing placements stay on the version they were placed against. The placement's Version section shows which version it was placed as; when the library has a newer one, click ↥ Update to v… (or Update all … placements) to rebuild it from the saved recipe, keeping its position, rotation, name, and folder.

#Visibility scopes

• Mine — only you see it. Use for in-progress work or one-off designs you don't want cluttering the team library.
• Team — your team sees it. The default for sharing within your organization.
• Global — every EVT3D user sees it. System Admin promotes recipes to Global once they're polished enough to be part of the curated catalog.

#How you use it

#Saving an assembly

1. Build the bundle in a scene. Position the props, set the lights, paint the materials, group what you want grouped.
2. Put it all in one container. Everything the assembly should carry goes inside a single container row in the hierarchy.
3. Click the row's 🧩 button (or right-click → Save as Assembly…). Pick the kind (Prop assembly / Venue assembly) and the scope (Mine / Team / Global).
4. Name it and click Create. It's now a library item.
5. Polish the tile. Double-click it to open the 🧩 Prop Assembly Editor — frame the preview the way you want the library tile to look and click Save Thumbnail; add keywords and a description if you want it findable, then click Save.

#Placing an assembly

1. Open the Library, find your assembly. In the Props or Venues tab, look for the 🧩 (prop assembly) or 🏰 (venue assembly) badge.
2. Click or drag it into your scene. All the contents land in their saved arrangement.
3. Move, rotate, scale. The whole assembly behaves as one — transforms apply to the whole bundle.
4. Tweak Options if any are authored. Select the assembly; any author-defined Options (chair color, sign visibility, etc.) appear as live controls in the Options section of its properties panel.

#Editing an assembly

1. Double-click the tile in the library. The 🧩 Prop Assembly Editor opens.
2. Update metadata, change the thumbnail, author new Options. All changes apply to the saved version.
3. Save. New placements use the updated version; existing placements keep their old one until you update them from their Version section.

#Linking and unlinking placements

1. Place an assembly multiple times in one scene. They start linked (same family color in the hierarchy).
2. Edit a material on one. Every linked placement updates together.
3. Need a one-off variant? Right-click the family badge → Make Unique. That placement gets its own family color and stops syncing with the others.

#Sharing and scoping

1. Change an assembly's scope from the Library. In Edit Mode, select its tile and use Move to… → Move to Mine / Move to Team / Move to Global (the options depend on your role and where it lives now).
2. Team-shared is the right default for collaborative design — everyone on your team can pull from the same library.
3. Global requires System Admin approval; reserved for polished assemblies that belong in the curated catalog.

#Why it matters

Most event designs reuse the same patterns over and over. A registration check-in. A coffee station. A VIP pod. A keynote stage with a 16-by-9 LED behind it. Without assemblies, you rebuild those bundles every project. With them, you build them once and they become first-class library items — versioned, sharable, thumbnailed, searchable. The library grows with your team's design vocabulary, and every new project starts further along than the last.