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Aperture - Cutscene Editor

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by CorruptScanline, Oct 1, 2011.

  1. CorruptScanline

    CorruptScanline

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2009
    Posts:
    217


    Available now on the Asset Store for $40


    Aperture Cutscene Editor is a cutscene editor for Unity. It allows you to easily setup curve based animations for cameras, materials, characters, or anything else you want to animate. Aperture Cutscene Editor also has a powerful event system for triggering events, such as spawning/destroying an object, setting object velocity, or anything else you may need happen. See your animation in edit mode with the Play Preview button for quick revisions. Aperture Cutscene Editor can also be used to setup scripted gameplay event chains by designers and non-programmers.

    You can easily create extension Actions and Events to conform to your projects needs, and the entire editor is open source if you really need some low level access :).

    Update:
    Version 1.1 is now on the Asset Store. It fixes some problems with Unity 3.5 and has better compatibility with other tools.
    Download 1.1 HotFix - Fixes errors when creating a build.

    Some of the features:
    • Intuitive Interface.
    • Extremely powerful.
    • Animate any number or vector variable on any script/component on an object.
    • Trigger almost any function with custom parameters using Events.
    • Easily extendable.
    • Open source!
    • Editor play preview button.
    • Easily create animations with Curve Tracks.
    • Trigger functions with Events.
    • Trigger cutscenes from within other cutscenes.
    • Cutscenes can be anything from traditional camera and object animation to scripted gameplay events to invisible event chain triggering for non-programmers.
    • 3 types of Curve Track update modes, Action, Direct Variable Access, and Custom Expression.
    • Easily add custom Actions and Events with a little programming.

    If you have any suggestions of the types of video tutorials you would like to see I would love to hear them. Right now Im thinking of a basic interface overview, a simple cinematic cutscene, and a more complex gameplay oriented tutorial covering advanced animations and Events.

    Get more info at www.ApertureCutscene.com

    Here an overview of the main interface:




    And here are some screenshots:





    Here is a tutorial explaining the interface and features while creating a simple cutscene:


    Here is a test cutscene I made. Its pretty old but shows some of the things you can do. All animation was done with the editor.



    www.ApertureCutscene.com
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2012
  2. Reanimate_L

    Reanimate_L

    Joined:
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    2,788
    Aperture!!!??? Don't tell me that it has a core AI with codename GlaDOS.....o_O

    Btw it looks awesome..no demo video, about the usage or something?. This is interesting, the timeline remind me of after effect or adobe premiere (which is why it's looks user friendly/artist friendly. imo).
    Dang...stuff like this should be built in feature in unity...=.=.
     
  3. parnell

    parnell

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    Jan 14, 2009
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    Looks great!
    How much are you thinking?
    B
     
  4. Mark_T

    Mark_T

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2011
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    Looks really useful. I would love to give it a try.:)
    And tutorials and documentations are really important.So many visual scripting tools and all with such a poor documentation. Good learning sources will help selling it.
    Curious about the price.
    All the best.
     
  5. kenshen

    kenshen

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2011
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    would love to have this
     
  6. joel

    joel

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    Jun 12, 2010
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    This looks to be a great addon, and of high quality.
    please keep us updated :D
     
  7. mulova

    mulova

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    Apr 14, 2011
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    This looks awesome!
    Where can I download / buy this?
    I can't find it on AssetStore or the site www.ApertureCutscene.com
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2011
  8. impheris

    impheris

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    1,602
    this is great really, is very helpful...
    People like you, doing this kind of work... its great really
    sorry for my english
     
  9. Lime_x

    Lime_x

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    May 1, 2009
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    210
    This looks really great. Though I have some questions:
    1. Will I be able to animate so that the animated character moves from one place to another?
    2. Will I be able to animate the character's bones?(Skeletal animation)

    Also: If these features are included, then maybe some of the turtorials that you make could include how to use them properly?

    Other than that, I'd say that it looks very promising :)
     
  10. mulova

    mulova

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    How about the release schedule?
    I wanna use it asap! :)
     
  11. TheSin

    TheSin

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    this looks really good, can't wait for the release.
     
  12. JelleHusson

    JelleHusson

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    Oct 21, 2009
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    Yeah, looks good!
    We might need this in a month or two, when is it coming out?
     
  13. Quickfingers

    Quickfingers

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    This looks really great. Hope you get round to releasing it soon
     
  14. mulova

    mulova

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    It seems that KurtLoeffler is too busy to release this product. :(
    If the cutscene editor is open source as said above, it would be acceptable even if the cutscene editor is not stable enough.
    And we could fix it by collective intelligence. :)

    KurtLoeffler! please unveil the cutscene editor!
     
  15. CorruptScanline

    CorruptScanline

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  16. pkid

    pkid

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    I was thinking of buying this but it's hard to really see what it can do with just screen shots, a video would be nice.
     
  17. Duskling

    Duskling

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    This looks phenomenal! Just what I wanted!

    I would purchase it if I could see a video of it in action, and a tutorial series for it.
     
  18. RandAlThor

    RandAlThor

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  19. Quickfingers

    Quickfingers

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    yeah Kurt! So glad you got round to finishing this. Hope it does well for ya
     
  20. CorruptScanline

    CorruptScanline

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    Thanks. There is a small problem in Unity 3.5 until the latest version gets accepted on the Asset Store.

    If you are importing into Unity 3.5 you may get this error:

    Code (csharp):
    1. Assets/ApertureCutsceneEditor/Components/Events/Event_Expression.js(6,7): BCE0172: `UnityScript.Scripting.IEvaluationDomainProvider' interface member implementation must be public or explicit.
    For now to fix this you should just delete this file and everything should be fine:
    Assets/ApertureCutsceneEditor/Components/Events/Event_Expression.js

    I have already uploaded a new version to the Asset Store but it hasnt been accepted yet. It fixes this problem as well as moving ApertureCutsceneEditor folder into Assets/Plugins folder which should make it interact better with other tools.


    Here is a tutorial explaining the interface and features while creating a simple cutscene:
     
  21. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    This is sweet... now I can create all of the gory fatalities that I've always wanted to do...
     
  22. sipon

    sipon

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    Feb 8, 2009
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    i've been waiting for a such tool since so many time ! thank you ! instant buy :)
     
  23. TehWut

    TehWut

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    0_0

    this is awesome!
     
  24. dreamlarp

    dreamlarp

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    A few questions:

    First what do you mean by open source if its being sold on the asset store? Was this a mistake saying it is open source?

    Second do we need to use a third party software to capture the scenes or is this function built in? I didn't see it in your notes.
     
  25. unisip

    unisip

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    By open source, Kurt means that you get access to the source if you buy the package, allowing you to modify/improve it if you need to.
    You don't need any 3rd party tool to capture the scenes, aperture is basically an advanced animation editor that lets you easily animate object parameters and trigger scripts in sync to create complex cutscenes
     
  26. CorruptScanline

    CorruptScanline

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    dreamlarp, what unisip said.

    By "capture the scenes" do you mean recording a video? If so the best way to do that is to set Time.captureFramerate to something like 30 or 60 and have a script take screenshots each frame and render a video from those frames in a compositing program like after effects. I found this script online somewhere and I used it to capture the that example cutscene in the first post.

    Code (csharp):
    1.  
    2. #pragma strict
    3. // The folder we place all screenshots inside.
    4. // If the folder exists we will append numbers to create an empty folder.
    5. var folder = "ScreenshotFolder";
    6. var frameRate = 30;
    7.  
    8. private var realFolder = "";
    9.  
    10. function Start() {
    11.     // Set the playback framerate!
    12.     // (real time doesn't influence time anymore)
    13.     Time.captureFramerate = frameRate;
    14.  
    15.     // Find a folder that doesn't exist yet by appending numbers!
    16.     realFolder = folder;
    17.     var count:int = 1;
    18.     while (System.IO.Directory.Exists(realFolder)) {
    19.         realFolder = folder + count;
    20.         count++;
    21.     }
    22.     // Create the folder
    23.     System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(realFolder);
    24. }
    25.  
    26. function LateUpdate () {
    27.     // name is "realFolder/0005 shot.png"
    28.     var name = String.Format("{0:D04}_shot.png", Time.frameCount );
    29.     print(name);
    30.     // Capture the screenshot
    31.     Application.CaptureScreenshot(name);
    32. }
    33.  
    34.  
     
  27. dreamlarp

    dreamlarp

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    @ unisip and KurtLoeffler

    Thank you very much for your help in clearing up my questions. I had not expected such a complete solution for the Machinima part of my project. I had planned on building an entire engine for just this and using the game art assests to make the Machinima short film series to go a long with the game.

    I will buy this within the next two weeks. This saves me quite a bit of time and money.
    Thank you.
     
  28. buffonomics

    buffonomics

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    Jun 10, 2009
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    59
    I am lost on this one. the demo for camera paths and static objects was helpful, but how do I move and animate actual characters?
    I don't know how to use the cutscene character component and there is nothing in the doc explaining this.

    >> Can a character-centric cutscene tutorial be created? Or is that "CutScene Character" component useless and one should just stick to "Follow curves" and using events to trigger animations?

    >> also what's a good way to "skip" a cutscene?

    Thanks.
     
  29. CorruptScanline

    CorruptScanline

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  30. Zozo2099

    Zozo2099

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    Hi can I know please if it is compatible with Unity 4? Thanks.
     
  31. Koala_Dude

    Koala_Dude

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    Okay so I'm just trying to make a simple movement curve for the Main camera.

    I followed the instructional videos and I Ctrl+D'ed to make additonal paths for the camera to follow. But for some reason creating another path totally screws up the cutscene camera it is attached to. It is looking at some place weird totally opposite direction of where I want the camera to look at.
    And it seems the only way to undo this is deleting the new path node, and detaching the curve off the cutscene camera. Plus I have to rerotate the cutscene camera to where I originally wanted it to look at.

    All I want is the camera to pan across the in game field to give overview of the level to the player. Am I missing a step or is this intentional function in the Aperture plugin?

    Also if I have multiple paths in the curve, how do I adjust the rotation of the camera at certain points in the curve? Once the cutscene camera is attached to a curve I cannot adjust the camera further so I tried rotating the path node itself and it does not seem to do anything,

    please help thank you
     
  32. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    Mar 21, 2010
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    Is it possible to use this tool to make e.g. a lengthy `movie`, not necessarily interactive but not just a short cut-scene, more like using Unity as an animation tool to create a passively-viewed presentation ... like an audivisual documentary type of thing? Are there limits on how long a cutscene can be or that it would become a lot less efficient or something over time?
     
  33. lh

    lh

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    Dec 20, 2012
    Posts:
    10
    Using the Aperture plugin on OSX, there are a ton of errors in Monodevelop about not being able to import types from the Aperture library. Unity has no problem, however. Is this normal, or is there something I can do to fix it?

    Help would be much appreciated, as this is screwing with my ability to debug code.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2013
  34. seanmars

    seanmars

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    Get this error too!! please help!!
     
  35. e_marchenko

    e_marchenko

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    Oct 30, 2014
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    Hi! There is a task to create a cut-scene with a flyby camera length of 3.5 km of track and 224 control points. However, when this number of points, the speed is not constant and errors occur when rotating the camera. What to do?
     
  36. Thomas-Pasieka

    Thomas-Pasieka

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    Moved to Asst Store section.