View source for World and session thumbnails/en

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Within Resonite, [[worlds]] and [[sessions]] have thumbnails which give a glimpse of the world or session without needing to join it. These thumbnails are 360 degree photos of the world or session at various points, which can be either world-defined or automatically positioned based on users in the session.

== Encountering thumbnails ==

Thumbnails can show up in a number of places:

* In Resonite within the [[world browser]]. These previews can be panned around using the [[laser]].
* In Resonite within [[World orb|world/session orbs]].
* On the [[Main Page#Social_links|Resonite Discord]] within the <code>#active-sessions</code> channel. These images will look warped and distorted as the 360 degree image is projected on a flat surface.
* On third party sites or tools. Depending on how the site/tool displays the image, it may also look distorted.

== Thumbnail capturing behavior ==

=== Sessions ===

When there is an active session of a world, the process for capturing a thumbnail is as follows:

# Every few minutes, each user in a session automatically takes a 360 photo at a session capture point and stores it locally.
# The session host's computer negotiates with the users in a session to randomly choose one of the taken photos.
# The session host's computer uploads the chosen thumbnail to the [[cloud]] and thus update the thumbnail of the world.

Custom session capture points can be set using the [[Component:SessionCaptureThumbnailSource|SessionCaptureThumbnailSource]] component. If a slot has this component on it, the capture will be taken from said slot. If multiple slots have this component on them, one of them will be chosen at random, weighted such that points with more [[users]] nearby are more likely to be captured from.

=== Worlds ===

When the host of a session saves the world, a thumbnail is captured at a world capture point and applied to the world. By default, this capture is taken from the host user's head slot and excludes all users from the capture. This thumbnail can be customized in two ways:

# A custom world capture point with the [[Component:WorldCaptureThumbnailSource|WorldCaptureThumbnailSource]] component. This component allows the option to include or exclude users from the capture.
# A completely custom world thumbnail with the [[Component:WorldTextureThumbnailSource|WorldTextureThumbnailSource]] component.

If multiple slots have either of these two components on it, a slot will be uniformly picked at random to capture from.

=== Overlays ===

Both the [[Component:SessionCaptureThumbnailSource|SessionCaptureThumbnailSource]] and [[Component:WorldCaptureThumbnailSource|WorldCaptureThumbnailSource]] components allow one to specify an <code>Overlay</code> image to impose on the capture. For session captures, this overlay must have an average alpha channel value of 25% or less or else it will not be applied. World captures do not have this limit.