# Open a tour with a little planet intro URL: https://www.panoramr.com/help/little-planet-intro Category: Design and branding Keywords: little planet, tiny planet, intro animation, opening animation, stereographic, planet view, intro, start animation, cinematic intro Last checked: 2026-10-31 Switch on Little planet intro and the tour opens on a tiny round world that unwinds into the first room. When it plays and when it does not. The little planet intro is a short opening animation: the room the tour opens on is first seen from above as a tiny round world, which turns half a turn and unwinds into the room's starting view in under three seconds. It plays once each time the page is opened, never when the visitor moves to another room. **Who can use it.** - The owner, and a collaborator whose role includes the **Design** tab (Admins, by default). **Save & Render** also needs the **Settings** tab in the role. - Any plan can set it, and it is in both the **Basic** and the **Advanced** view. ## Little planet A little planet is a 360° photo drawn as if seen from far above, with the ground curled into a small round world and the sky around it. Panoramr does not make little-planet pictures for you to save. It uses the look to open a tour: switch on **Little planet intro** in the card **Panorama change** of **Transitions and cameras** and the tour opens on a tiny round world that unwinds into the first room. Your branding patch shows on the world if the tour has one. Visitors who ask their device for less motion go straight in. ## The two controls Both are on the **Panoramas** tab of [Transitions and cameras](https://www.panoramr.com/help/design-transitions-and-cameras), in the card **Panorama change**. ### Little planet intro Opens the tour on a tiny round world that unwinds into the first room. **Where:** the Transitions and cameras panel (Design tab > Transitions and cameras), **Panoramas** tab > card **Panorama change** > **Little planet intro**. Basic and Advanced view. **Default:** `off` **What it does:** The hint reads `The tour opens looking down on a tiny round world that unwinds into the first room. Visitors who ask their device for less motion, or who touch the tour, go straight in.` Click **Save & Render** to publish it. The intro unwinds into the room's starting view, so set that first: see [Set the starting view](https://www.panoramr.com/help/setting-the-initial-view-heading-pitch-for-panoramas). A tour opened from a link to one of its rooms plays it on that room. Applying a theme from **Themes** does not change the switch. **What visitors see:** What the next section says. Visitors get it on every plan, on the public page and in embeds, because the switch is not part of a theme. **Related:** [Transitions and cameras](https://www.panoramr.com/help/design-transitions-and-cameras), [Set the starting view](https://www.panoramr.com/help/setting-the-initial-view-heading-pitch-for-panoramas). ### Play it in the preview Plays the intro once in the preview beside the panels. **Where:** the Transitions and cameras panel (Design tab > Transitions and cameras), **Panoramas** tab > card **Panorama change**, under **Little planet intro**. Basic and Advanced view. The button shows only while the switch is on. **Default:** none **What it does:** Plays the intro once on the room the preview shows, towards where the preview is looking. The preview never plays it by itself, since it reloads as you edit. **What visitors see:** Nothing; this is only for you. **Needs:** **Little planet intro** on, and a preview that is live (its header says `Preview is live`). It does nothing on a device set to reduce motion. **Related:** **Little planet intro**. ## What visitors see - The room the tour opens on, looking straight down at the floor, drawn as a small round world with the sky all round it. The floor patch (the tripod cap) is in the middle of the planet as the tour shows it, with its words and logo, or Panoramr's picture patch, so the tripod does not show. If the logo or the picture cannot be loaded, the planet shows the words alone, or a plain disc in the patch's colours. With the patch hidden, there is none in the planet either. - Over 2.6 seconds the world turns half a turn and opens out into the starting view, then fades in 0.35 seconds into the tour itself. The tour's bars and buttons stay where they are the whole time. Hotspots come in once it is over, with their **Entrance animation** if they have one, and **Autorotate on idle** starts after it. - With a start screen, the tour waits on it until the visitor presses `Start tour`, and the planet unwinds as it fades, so nobody misses it. On Explore, a tour with the intro and no start screen waits for the visitor to press Play. - With an [intro page](https://www.panoramr.com/help/intro-page) on, the planet waits under it and unwinds once the visitor starts the tour from it; clicks on the intro page do not skip it. - The planet is drawn from the small picture the tour loads first, so it is softer than the room itself. The room under it sharpens as it loads, and the fade at the end hands over to it. The room's colour adjustments (the **Panoramas** tab's **Image Adjustments**) are in the planet too, so the colours do not change at the fade. Only **Sharpness** and **Vignette**, which work on the screen rather than on the room's colours, come in during it. ## When it is left out The tour opens as it does without the intro, at once, when: - the visitor clicks, taps, scrolls or presses a key, or picks another room: the intro gets out of the way in a fifth of a second and the same drag already turns the tour; - the visitor's device is set to reduce motion ([Accessibility](https://www.panoramr.com/help/accessibility-settings-reduced-motion-and-screen-reader-support-in-360)); - its picture does not arrive within 5 seconds, or the browser cannot draw it (no WebGL); - the room is a tiled picture that is not a cube (cube rooms and single pictures play it); - the page is a theme's preview in the Theme Library, or the Design tab's own preview (use **Play it in the preview** there); - the tour's address has `?intro=0` on it, for a page of your own that frames the tour and wants it to open at once. A tour in a frame lower down a page waits with the planet until at least half of the tour is on screen, so the visitor sees it unwind. ## What visitors get - **Little planet intro** is not part of a theme, so visitors get it on every plan, on the public page and in embeds. A free download is the Standard design, which has no intro. - **Save & Render** refreshes the stored copy that visitors get, unless the tour uses [Draft Workflows](https://www.panoramr.com/help/draft-workflows): then nothing reaches them until you click **Publish changes**. [My changes do not show for visitors](https://www.panoramr.com/help/when-do-changes-show) has the rest. ## Troubleshooting **I switched it on and the preview does not show it.** The Design tab's preview never plays it by itself: click **Play it in the preview**. To see it as visitors do, open the tour's public page after **Save & Render**. **Play it in the preview does nothing.** Your own device may be set to reduce motion, or the preview may still be loading. Wait until its header says `Preview is live` and click it again. **Visitors do not see it.** They may have clicked or scrolled as the tour opened, their device may ask for less motion, or the page they see was stored before your change: see [What visitors get](https://www.panoramr.com/help/little-planet-intro#what-visitors-get). **The planet is blurry.** It is drawn from the small picture the tour loads first, so that it can start at once. The room is as sharp as ever once it has handed over.