While building experiences with Unity and Spatial’s Creator Toolkit give you full control, no-code templates can be used to quickly get a space up and running without the hassle & learning curve of third-party software.

Our no-code templates are perfect for:

Meeting spaces
Events
Galleries

If you’re looking to build an interactive experience such as a game, you’ll need to use Unity and the Creator Toolkit.

Spatial offers two ways of building no-code spaces:

Utilizing our provided templates which are divided into two categories: free and premium or,
Uploading your own environment, created using a program like Blender, in one of our supported file formats.

Pros and Cons

Pros

No need to learn Unity & the Creator Toolkit
Quick and easy to set up
Lightweight & optimized for performance*

Cons

Limited interaction (no access to Spatial components such as Quests or Points of Information)
No scripting
No analytics

* Custom templates must be optimized by the creator

Free and Premium Templates

All Free and Premium templates can be used to create spaces but there’s important distinctions to take into consideration.

Free templates, can be made public and are accessible by everyone on Spatial, as long as they do not exceed the Free tier’s limitations
Premium templates cannot be made public without a subscription
Premium templates created by Spatial, can have their environment changed
Premium templates created by Spatial Community Creators, cannot have their environment changed

See here for information about changing the environment.

A Premium template created by Spatial

A Premium template created by a Spatial Community Creator

Viewing Templates

To view Spatial’s current templates:

Navigate to https://www.spatial.io
Create an account or log in
From the home page, click the + New Space button located in the upper-right corner of the screen
This will open the Create New Space dialog
The Create New Space dialog is split into two sections: a filter for categories, and the matching templates
Clicking on Create a blank space will create an empty space where you can upload your custom environment and all supporting assets
Clicking on Create a space in Unity will open the Creator Toolkit installation documentation in a new tab

Creating a Free space

Note: spaces can only be created using a desktop browser

Open the Create New Space dialog and select one of the Free spaces by clicking on its thumbnail (Free spaces do not have a blue Premium label in the upper-right corner).

A space will be created using the selected template and after a brief moment the page will refresh, you’ll be loaded into your new space. (If you’re presented with a dialog to upgrade, this can be closed by clicking the close icon located in the upper right corner of the window)

The video below demonstrates creating a free space.

Creating a Premium space

Note: spaces can only be created using a desktop browser

Creating a Premium space is no different than creating a Free space; simply select a Premium template.

As previously mentioned, there are two types of Premium templates: those offered by Spatial, and those offered by Spatial Community Creators. Once you create a space with a premium template created by a community creator, you cannot change the environment. In other words, if you’d like to try a different template, you’ll have to create a brand new space.

Creating a custom space

Open the Create New Space dialog and select the “Create a blank space” option.

A bluish, grid-lined void will be created for you. If you’ve previously uploaded environments or skyboxes, you can add them from your Content window by clicking on them; this will add them into your space. If the assets have not been uploaded, you can add them directly using drag & drop: find the supported file in your file system, drag it into the space, and drop it. Spatial will process it, add it to your Content, and place it in the scene.

Note: The environment needs to be set before you can set the skybox.

Select the item in your space (it’ll be tiny, it’s OK). This will open the Transform panel. At the bottom of the Transform panel is an option labeled, “Set as environment”. Click this and select “Environment”. Spatial will enlarge your asset and you can further adjust by selecting the “Edit” button.

The process is the same for setting the skybox and if you decide you want to change either.

Adding content to your space

From within your space you add content, such as 3D models, images, or more, by either dragging and dropping the supported file directly into the space view, or by accessing the Add Content menu & uploading the item and then selecting it to place it in the space.

Items added through the drag and drop method will be immediately placed in the space and accessible in your Content window. See the Editing content section to learn more about Spatial’s editing capabilities.

Clicking this will open the Content dialog.

The Content dialog is where you access any previously uploaded

Editing content

Note: The template environment cannot be edited; you can add content to the spaces created, but you cannot edit any of the materials or geometry built into the template.

Items placed into the space can either be directly selected or selected using the Layers panel.

Clicking the pencil icon will open the Layers panel in the upper left corner of your screen. This panel will display all objects that have been placed in the space.

Once you’ve got an item selected the Transform panel will open on the right hand side of the screen.

Section 1, Toolbar

From left to right:

Lock/unlock: allows you to lock an asset so it cannot be inadvertently edited
Duplicate: will duplicate the object
Delete: will delete the object from the space (the object will remain in your Content window)

Section 2, Transform Controls

This window displays the selected item's Position, Rotation, and Scale. Each of these can be edited by directly changing the numerical value in the textbox or by clicking & dragging on the X, Y, or Z labels. The Scale has an additional button where you can adjust the object’s scale uniformly.

The selected item can also be positioned by clicking and dragging it around the space, using a mouse.

Section 3, Selected Asset

If the asset can be previewed, a preview of it will be displayed in this section. The “Replace” button will allow you to replace the selected asset with another from your Content, while retaining the transform settings.

Section 4, Pedestal Option

Enabling this option will place a “pedestal” (a plain cube) underneath your object, as if it’s on display in a luxurious museum.

Section 5, Setting Environment

See here

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
Do NOT use this option on an object that is not intended to be the Environment. Selecting this will overwrite your environment and cause your space to become unusable. There are no tools to restore your space.

Additional content

In the Content window’s bottom left corner, there are three more usable assets:

Note: Sticky notes, Web Search, and Portals are not displayed in the Layers panel.

Add Note: this places a yellow sticky note into the space where you can leave messages or write notes.
Web Search: this opens a web search textbox where you can enter a URL to a web page. Note: the web page is static, you cannot interact with the web page.
Create Portal: when you select this you’ll be prompted to choose a URL to a space or to an external web page. Portals are a convenient way to guide your visitors to external websites or to additional spaces on the Spatial website. When the user clicks on the portal, they’ll be prompted with a message asking them to confirm if they want to open the URL.

Changing the environment

If your space was created using a template created by Spatial or a custom environment built by you, you can freely change the environment.

Open the space's settings and under the Space tab, select the Environment Settings button

The Environment Settings window will allow you to choose a new environment (pick from the existing templates) or upload a new environment.