Adding elements to a story
Attach graphics, clips, camera actions and streaming actions to a story, and set when each starts and how long it stays on air.
Elements are the executable cues inside a story: the things that actually go on screen during the broadcast.
How to add an element
- Inside a story, click Add element.
- Choose a category: - Graphics: an overlay from Helmo Graphics, Viz Flowics or Singular.live - Camera: an OBS or vMix action: scene switch, source show/hide, overlay show/hide - Streaming: a YouTube, Twitch, Kick or Restream action
- Choose the integration, then the specific target: the overlay, the subcomposition, the scene, the source.
- Configure it: the fields that graphic exposes, the scene name, the input number.
- Set the timing, then create it.
The two timing questions
Both live in the Inspector on the right, and they are separate:
- Starts: At a set time (counted from the start of the story), With previous, or After previous. Only "At a set time" is typed; in the other two the moment is a result, so there is nothing to type.
- Stays on air: For a set duration, or Until the end of the block for a lower third that should hold the whole item.
See When an element starts and How long an element lasts for the details.
What an element airs
Open On air in the inspector to see what this element actually puts on screen:
- Clips: assets from Drive, each with its own duration mode: Fixed, Full length or Loop. Add breathing room before a clip and the one before it holds its last frame through the gap.
- Field changes: timed text or asset changes that happen while the element is on air. Change a headline five seconds after the lower third comes up.
Fields you do not touch air exactly as the graphic ships them.
Editing an element
Click any row to open it in the inspector. Everything is editable while the rundown is in Draft. In Ready the content is frozen; put it back to Draft. On air it is locked behind the padlock.
Reordering, suspending, deleting
- Drag a row to change the running order, or drag it into another story.
- Suspend from queue takes it out of the run without deleting it. A suspended element is not on air, so it is not anybody's "previous" either.
- Delete from the row's ⋮ menu.
Watch for the two warnings the rundown puts on a row: "it never reaches the screen" (it enters exactly when its block ends) and the file-duration mismatch. Both are cheap to fix in Draft and expensive to notice on air.