Common pitfalls

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Viewport is slow or unresponsive

Chrome hardware acceleration is turned off. This is the most common cause of a sluggish 3D viewport — check it before troubleshooting anything else in the scene.

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Camera or asset moves break on playback

You forgot to toggle Keyframes on for the asset or camera before moving it. The interface does not warn you. Select the object, enable Keyframes in the asset settings panel, then redo the move.

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Composited actor looks giant or doll-sized

The splat scale is wrong. Return to the Location Settings panel, drop in the six-foot reference figure, and rescale. Every camera distance and composited element downstream depends on correct scale.

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An imported object seems invisible

It probably isn’t missing, just tiny or enormous. USD objects carry their own scale on import and it isn’t guaranteed to arrive correct, independent of whether the location splat is scaled correctly. Select the object and check its transform values.

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Teammate sees a different script version

You did not publish the latest version. Open the version sidebar and click Publish on the version you want everyone working from.

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Teammate cannot see your environment

You used Load Locally instead of Upload when importing the location file. Load Locally keeps the file on your machine for the current session only — collaborators opening the same scene will not see it. Re-import with Upload so the file writes to the production library.

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Scene loads in the Spark web app but fails on iPhone or iPad

Your splat exceeds the roughly 5 million splat cap on the Spark iOS app. Downsample the splat for the phone and keep the full-resolution version for the browser and Jetset.

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Pre-animated USD sits frozen on iPhone or iPad playback

You dropped the animation clip on the timeline but did not toggle Keyframes on for that object. The Spark web app may render it correctly in the browser while the iOS app does not.

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Parented camera does not hold position on the device

This is a known intermittent issue, most often seen in a freshly built scene. Reload the scene, or toggle to another camera and back, as a workaround. Also check for duplicate object names — two objects sharing a name can cause parenting to grab the wrong one.

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Lightning bolt does not engage

Tap it again. The handshake between the Spark iOS app and the Spark web app occasionally needs a second attempt.

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Driving across a large scene is slow

Drop a stationary camera at every action point and jump between them instead of flying — see iPhone or iPad camera controls.

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Splat chokes the browser

If a splat exceeds roughly 7 GB, keep a downsampled version for previs and reserve the full-resolution version for Jetset on set.

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AI video tool output looks wrong

Download the MP4 from the Gallery. AI video tools produce cleaner output from a real Spark camera move than from a text prompt, because the move is already locked and consistent.

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Weak chroma key

Usually a lighting or color-pick issue. Re-pick the color on a cleaner patch of the screen, adjust the black/white clipping controls, or switch to Person / AR key mode, which often rescues a difficult keying environment.

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Device gets hot during a long compositing session

Frame rate degrades when the device is hot. Use a phone cooler for sustained shooting, defer composite rendering until after the shoot (see compositing and recording), drop to joystick mode between takes, or close the app to let it cool down.

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Older devices crash repeatedly

Older iPads in particular have shown repeated crashes in the field. Prefer the newest iPhone or iPad hardware for sustained shooting sessions.