360 image interactions: variables & trigger

These are interesting ideas. Markers technically have Visited states, even if they're not exposed upon instantiation of a new marker. They can be added from the state portlet and can be checked like the dot-notational property you reference.

Hotspots are more challenging, but it's been my understanding they're superceded by buttons, which like the markers also contain their own native Visited state. Everything I know of that hotspots can do, buttons can do better, and with the added accessibility that hotspots lack. Many designers and developers are actually forbidden from using hotspots for compliance reasons so I would be surprised if Articulate expanded the functionality of hotspots when they're already somewhat like substandard buttons.

Your idea about rotating a camera is interesting, though it suggests that there's a camera to rotate. It's my understanding that to implement a camera would require hooking into a library like three.js. I've been able to simulate a camera in native Storyline by translating 2D elements around the screen, but it would be amazing to have some sort of camera object with aperture and depth of focus and such.

The Next button can be co-opted as you describe just using native triggers and without any JavaScript. Conditionals on the triggers allow us to determine when the learner can progress to the next slide and when the state of a "next" object should highlight. JavaScript definitely makes it easier, especially now that states can be directly read and changed using the API. Maybe we'll get a simulated camera in the API someday.