A comparison between two XR-based tabletop solutions for 3D storyboarding

Storyboards are one of the most effective methods to pre-visualize a story: a sequence of illustrations or pictures portraying settings, characters, actions, and events. This graphical representation is a roadmap that guides industry professionals through the story. The storyboarding process is a key step for both movie and video game productions, allowing creators to visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. While storyboards are usually drawn or sketched in 2D, 3D approaches enable storytellers to achieve a better understanding of spaces, objects, lights, and camera movements: these approaches are usually named “3D Storyboards”. The feeling of immersion provided by extended reality (XR) technologies can further enhance these benefits. This manuscript investigates and compares two 3D XR-based storyboarding solutions, which share a common graphical user interface. The proposed systems have been tested with domain experts and students in a tabletop-scale scenario. Experimental results clearly indicate that the virtual reality-based solution, with the current interaction standards imposed by the chosen systems, outperforms the augmented reality in terms of usability; moreover, participants reported a lower workload when using an input interface based on physical controllers.