No image
1Boathouse: wide
shot: widebackground: boathouse_night
Night. The lamplighter searches the boathouse by lamplight.
Turn a Dialogue into a Storyboard
A Guide to the Storyboard:
Scenes, Shots & Reference Images
from your Meta Areas.
8 min read
A branching dialogue is a graph of nodes, and nobody reads a graph shot by shot. Directors, artists and actors want a board: one picture per shot, with the camera, the place and a note. So teams redraw the scene in another tool, and a week later the board and the script disagree.
The Storyboard is a fourth mode of the game page, next to Build, Translate and Export. It turns the Meta Areas you already drew on the canvas into numbered cards, in the order you read the canvas, each with a reference image from your world's gallery. Because the cards are the Meta Areas, the board can't drift away from the script.
The example: Inside the boathouse
We continue with the dialogue from the Meta Areas guide. The lamplighter searches the missing ferryman's boathouse at night, finds the ledger with a name in red ink, hears a boot on the jetty, and meets Ida outside at dawn. On the board, that is two scenes and two shots:
- 1 Boathouse: wide
- 1.1 Close-up: the ledger
- 1.2 Over the shoulder
- 2 Jetty: dawn
If you haven't used Meta Areas yet, read that guide first. In short: a Meta Area is a note you draw around nodes on the Dialogue Builder canvas, and its meta data (like shot = wide) goes to every node inside.
1. Draw scenes and shots as Meta Areas
Open the dialogue in Build and draw a Meta Area around each scene. Then draw each shot as a smaller area completely inside its scene. That's the whole structure: an area drawn entirely inside another one is a shot of it. A shot inside a shot works too.
| If an area is | On the board it is |
|---|---|
| Not inside any other area | A scene: 1, 2, 3 |
| Completely inside another area | A shot of the smallest area around it: 1.1, 1.2, and 1.1.1 for a shot in a shot |
| Only partly over another area | A separate card. The nodes in the overlap follow the usual priority rules |
Give every shot a higher priority than its scene: P2 inside a P1 scene. A shot inside a scene is also an overlap, so if both setshotat the same priority, the nodes inside get a conflict and no value. With P2, the close-up wins and the nodes getshot = close_up.
2. Include the areas in the Storyboard
Not every Meta Area is a shot. Some are notes to a teammate, some only set the music. So no area is on the board until you say so. Select an area, and in its Settings in the inspector turn on Include in Storyboard. A clapperboard appears after the area's title on the canvas.
Do it for every scene and every shot. The Storyboard ignores the other areas completely: they get no card, aren't a parent of anything, and give no rules to the cards. On the canvas they keep setting meta data on their nodes as before. A marked area inside an unmarked one is a shot of the next marked area around it, or a scene of its own.
3. Open the Storyboard
Click Storyboard, the fourth button at the top of the game page. It works on the dialogue you have open, so it stays greyed out until you pick one in the explorer on the left. Opening another dialogue keeps you in the Storyboard.
Above the cards, a summary line says how many scenes and shots there are and how many of the dialogue's nodes are inside a marked area. "In no area" is the number of nodes no card covers, which is a quick way to see whether part of the dialogue has no shot yet.
No image
Boathouse: wide
shot: widebackground: boathouse_night
Night. The lamplighter searches the boathouse by lamplight.
1.1Close-up: the ledger
shot: close_upmusic: tense
The drawer gives. Inside, the ferryman's ledger and a name in red ink.
No image
Boathouse: wide
shot: widebackground: boathouse_night
Night. The lamplighter searches the boathouse by lamplight.
1.2Over the shoulder
shot: over_shoulder
A boot creaks on the jetty. The lamplighter turns to the door.
No image
2Jetty: dawn
shot: widebackground: jetty_dawn
Ida waits at the end of the jetty with her back to the sea.
If the board is empty, it tells you why: the dialogue has no Meta Areas at all, or none of them is included in the Storyboard yet.
4. Read the cards
Cards follow the canvas in reading order: top to bottom, then left to right. Each scene comes first, then its shots, then the next scene. Every card shows its number and title, the area's meta data as chips, and the note, cut after three lines.
A shot's card starts with its parent scene, its title, chips and note, and then shows the shot's own block below it. Card 1.1 tells you it is a close-up of the ledger, and also that it happens in the wide boathouse at night, without opening card 1.
You can't drag cards into another order. The order always comes from the canvas, so the board and the dialogue never disagree. To move a shot, move its area on the canvas.
5. Pick a gallery folder for the dialogue
Reference images are kept in your world's Images gallery, the same one your documents use, with one gallery folder per dialogue. The first time you add an image, LoreHub asks which folder to use. Pick an existing folder, or create a new one; it suggests the name storyboard-<dialogue name>.
The folder shows at the top of the sidebar, under Images in folder, with its images as thumbnails. You can switch to another folder there, or create one with the folder button next to it. Images you already linked stay linked when you switch.
6. Add reference images
Each card has one image. There are several ways to set it:
| To | Do this |
|---|---|
| Upload a new image | Click No image on the card and choose a file, or drop an image file from your computer onto the card. It is uploaded into the dialogue's folder. |
| Use an image from the folder | Select the card and click a thumbnail in the sidebar, or drag the thumbnail onto any card. |
| Upload without a card | Upload to folder in the sidebar adds an image to the folder for later. |
| Remove the image | Select the card and click Remove image under Card image. The file stays in the gallery. |
If you click No image before the dialogue has a folder, LoreHub asks for the folder first and then opens the file picker, so the upload has somewhere to go.
A shot without its own image shows its scene's image, faded, with Inherited from and the scene's name. That's often all a shot needs: the ledger gets its own close-up, while the over-the-shoulder shot borrows the boathouse until somebody draws it.
2 scenes · 2 shots · 7 of 7 nodes covered · 0 in no area
1Boathouse: wide
shot: widebackground: boathouse_night
Night. The lamplighter searches the boathouse by lamplight.
Boathouse: wide
shot: widebackground: boathouse_night
Night. The lamplighter searches the boathouse by lamplight.
1.1Close-up: the ledger
shot: close_upmusic: tense
The drawer gives. Inside, the ferryman's ledger and a name in red ink.
Inherited from Boathouse: wide
Boathouse: wide
shot: widebackground: boathouse_night
Night. The lamplighter searches the boathouse by lamplight.
1.2Over the shoulder
shot: over_shoulder
A boot creaks on the jetty. The lamplighter turns to the door.
2Jetty: dawn
shot: widebackground: jetty_dawn
Ida waits at the end of the jetty with her back to the sea.
An image is a link to the gallery, not a copy, so it counts once against your gallery storage. If you delete it from the gallery, the card quietly falls back to its parent's image, or to No image.
7. Edit a shot's title and meta data
Click a card to select it. The sidebar shows its Title and Rules: the area's meta data as field and value, with Add rule and a cross to remove one. Change them and click Save.
SIDEBAR · 1.2 OVER THE SHOULDER
Title: Over the shoulder: the door
Rules: shot = over_shoulder · camera_focus = door
Save
Save writes to the Meta Area itself, not to a copy. The area on the canvas gets the new title, and every node inside it gets the new values, just as if you had edited the area in Build. The Storyboard keeps no data of its own except the image links.
8. Go from a shot to its lines
Under the editor, Details lists the card's number and priority, the scene it is part of, the rules it inherits from its parents, and the full note. Below that, Nodes inside lists the nodes in this shot, in reading order, with the speaker and the first line. A node in a scene is listed under the scene's card only when it isn't inside one of its shots.
Player choice
The node has options, so the dialogue branches here.
Also in … · this area wins (P2)
The node is also in an area that isn't part of this shot, and the priority says whose values it gets. "Same priority, no value" means a conflict to solve on the canvas.
Click a node and LoreHub switches to Build with that node selected and in view, so you can fix the line right away.
9. Change the board from the canvas
Because the board is your Meta Areas, every change to the order happens on the canvas. Move an area and its card moves. Draw a new area inside a scene and include it, and a new shot appears. Delete an area and its card is gone; the image stays in the gallery.
Anyone who can open the world can read the Storyboard. Saving, picking a folder and changing images need the owner or writer role.
A checklist for your own dialogue
I. What are the scenes?
Draw a Meta Area around each one, named after what the player sees.
II. Where does the camera change inside a scene?
Draw each shot completely inside its scene and give it a higher priority.
III. Which areas belong on the board?
Turn on Include in Storyboard for each scene and shot, and leave notes and music-only areas off.
IV. Is every node covered?
Check "in no area" in the summary line and draw areas for what's missing.
V. Does every scene have a picture?
Pick a gallery folder, give each scene an image, and only the shots that look different need their own.
A storyboard made in another tool is a copy of the script, and copies drift. This one is the script: the same rectangles that set the shot on every node are the cards your artist draws from.
Try it in the LoreHub app, read more about the Dialogue Builder, and for feedback, please join Discord.