SLATE (Complete Gameplay Cutscenes & Cinematics Sequencer)

Curiosity and possibly oversight, got the better of me, and after reading through all the documentation and liking features like path finding for actors and blending of mecanim built in, I have to admit - I'm comparing Slate a lot to what I've been used to - Cinema director.

So... help me out here:
1) Why haven't I found a simple way to "start" a cutscene from the get go of hitting the play button in Unity.
Writing bits of scripts like little post-its to get something done is fine for coders, but Unity is also finding it's way as a pure artist's tool so 'dumbing down' an interface is a good strategy.

2) Is there no 'trigger' object that is generated by Slate that when entered can be set to play a new cutscene or asynchronously load another level/unity scene etc?

Pls do point me to place in the documentation if I've missed these somehow.
Best Regards.

 

Hello,
Thanks for your interest in Slate. To answer your questions:

Does Slate support Windows Store Apps 8.1?
Yes it should work fine. I haven't specifically tested it against that platform, but I can if you want.

Can you animate object properties?
Yes of course. You can animate any property or field of any component.

Can you animate NGUI objects?
Yes, since NGUI uses normal fields/properties Here is a screen of what can be animated for the NGUI UITexture for example:


Can I change the affected objects of a sequence in runtime?
Yes. Affected objects (Actors) can be changed with a simple function SetGroupActorOfName.

I will prepare a trial version as soon as the new version is ready. Meanwhile, let me know if you have any other questions or need any further clarifications.

Thanks!

Hey,

Comparisons are welcome. So ...
1) Do you mean something like "Play On Awake"? I will include several pre-made scripts such as this in the next version coming very soon. Of course if the purpose is previewing the cutscene in play mode, you can press the Play button in the Slate editor once in play mode and it will start playing. But yes, I will include such scripts in the next version.

2) In Slate, you can play cutscenes from within other cutscenes, using SubCutscenes clip. This is not a fire and forget Play Cutscene trigger, but it is rather a cutscene played within another cutscene, that is also preview-able in the editor when you scrub the time. Here is the documentation about SubCutscenes. I can definitely add a Play Cutscene "trigger" if the above is not something that work for you. Let me know.
As for loading level action clip that is something I honestly forgot to add, so it will be there in next version as well

Of course, do let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks!

 

Thank you for your answer. I think I did not clarify something in my previous post. uSequencer works with NGUI in every platform (Android, iOS, Standalone, WebPlayer, WebGL) except Windows Store Apps 8.1. Right now, I think it is a reflection problem in uSequencer, but I am not sure. We are porting our games to Windows Store Apps 8.1, and even though we now have a fix (hack) for our problem, we intend to change the plugin in future projects.

I know it is a lot to ask but, if you find the time, can you run a simple test?
Can you animate the width (or alpha) of a UISprite using Slate and build to Windows Store Apps? The problem only occurs in the final application, not in the Editor.

Anyway, thank you for your time. Slate is looking really good.
Oriam

 

Thanks, much!
I've sent you an email via your website's contact form taking the discussion further. Excuse the many typos.
Best wishes.

 

Hey,
I will check it out tomorrow first thing and get back to you, but it should work fine yes.
Thanks!

Hey,
I'll promptly reply to your email
Thanks.

 

Hi,

I'm currently working on a 2D game which uses ProCamera2D - it would be great to be able to control the camera using ProCamera2D features - is that something you plan or do I have to create my own ActionClip ?

Thanks

 

Hey,
Do you mean that each camera shot be controlled by ProCamera2D dynamically?
Also, if you remove the Camera Track from the cutscene, then the Director Camera will not take over and your main game camera (or whichever camera is active) will remain in control.

Let me know.
Thanks

 

Version 1.4.0 is soon to be live on the asset store. Meanwhile I though of posting the changes

Animated Parameters
Animated Parameters both in terms of workflow and UI have been redesigned to be more "standard". Specifically:

• Parameters are no longer forced animated and will become so only if there is a keyframe. So you can select which parameters to animate and which not to, as well as test out different values before commiting a keyframe.
• Values can be changed without folding out and are no longer disabled when cutscene time is outside of the clip.
• There are new relevant buttons for Key/RemoveKey as well as Next and Previous Key.
• There is now a mini DopeSheet along with the curve editor when parameter is expanded, for easier key manipulation.
• The curve editor can now be zoomed in/out, scroll up down both with a relevant scrollbar on the right as well as with common shortcuts.
• Double clicking a keyframe in the DopeSheet, now sets the cutscene time to that keyframe time.

• The DopeSheet will now also highlight the range of keyframes within the length of the clip (as illustrated above).
• DopeSheet keyframe icons will now show the tangent mode of the key.

• Position-based Vector parameters, now have an option to select the local space within which they take effect. Options include:
  • World Space
  • Cutscene Space
  • Actor Space

- The Cutscene Space, will offset the whole animation of the parameter along with the Cutscene Root.
- The Actor Space, will offset the whole animation of the parameter within the local actor space and such when the actor is moving, so will parameter's animation. For example here, the actor is moving, but the look at target position is moving as well within it's actor space. Needless to say, this is a huge time saver in specific situations.



Such kind of parameters can also now be offseted as a whole (all keyframes) within the scene view by holding down Shift:



Clips

• All Mecanim parameters in Mecanim Track clips, are now animatable.
• Overlay Text clip parameters are now animatable, so you can basically animate the text on screen.
• Expression, Blend Shape, Look at weights are now all animatable as well.
• Environment clips (light, fox, time etc) now have blend in/out properties.
• Added Mecanim IK Look At clip with correct editor preview
• Added Mecanim IK Limb clip with correct editor preview.
• Added Animate Visibility clip.
  
• Added Simple Grounder clip, which will ground the actor y position to the closest object beneath.

The Rest

• Better Undo.
  
• Cutscenes in editor can now be panned in negative time as well, so that it's more relaxing to work with.
• Exposed Frame Rate option in Image Sequence Render Utility.
• When in Frames Mode, action clip inspector now also display frames.
• Inspected clip will now show an indication when it is sampled.
• Shortcuts for Play, Next Key, Previous Key now also work in scene view.
• Raise Unity Event clip now displays better information label.
• Curve Tracks have been renamed to Properties Track.

• Fixed clip inspector time ranges to be clamped correctly to next/previous clips.
• Fixed legacy animation related crashes in some cases.
• Fixed "Clip outside of playable range" warning, when in fact it was not.
• Fixed copy/pasting DopeSheet keyframes.
• Fixed Gizmos that were not being displayed immediately, until enter/exit playmode.
• Fixed keyframe icons to now be pixel-perfect.
• Fixed right click to no longer move clips.
• Fixed right click to no longer move keys.

 

Hi,

Not sure how to explain that and don't want to say stupid thing ;-) In my game which uses a 2D scrolling along the X axis I have a parallax which is managed by ProCamera2D. So, if I use Slate to create a cinematic in which my camera travels from X0 to X1 I assume my parallax won't be compute and it sounds logical. So I was wondering, how Slate could in a way or other "managed" the ProCamera2D script in order to uses its features.

Does that make sense ?

Thanks

 

Hello,

Yes that makes sense Since both ProCamera2D and Slate are altering camera transforms and settings it is not very possible to work well together without some tight integration. The closest solution I've come up with as far as parallax only goes, was to add ProCamera2D on Director Render Camera, enable Parallax and make all settings be exactly the same as the ProCamera2D added on the Main Camera, except Update Type, which I set to FixedUpdate (on Director Render Camera).

I hope that works for you. Let me know.

 

The new version is now live on the asset store
Cheers!

 

Does anyone have some noob tutorials on Slate they could point me to?

 

mmm, I can't make alembic work in Android build.
It gives me "DllNotFoundException: AlembicImporter" error.
The original alembicImporter gitHub page says that the plug-in is windows only for now so is that the reason?
Is there anything you can do with this issue?
Your asset store description says Slate is compatible for all platform and my main reason for the purchase was for using alembic in Android build.

Your tool working great other than Alembic though.
Great asset!

 

When I use Character component,
After pressing "Add Blend Shape" button,
Skin says "NONE" like this.



Is it a bug? I use mistakenly?

---

For the time being, I add this code to CharacterInspector.cs

===
GUILayout.BeginVertical();
var skin = shape.skin;

// I added to escape "NONE"
//skin=character.GetComponentsInChildren<SkinnedMeshRenderer>().Where(s=>s.sharedMesh.blendShapeCount>0).First();

var name = shape.name;
var weight = shape.weight;
...
===

 

Hello,

Some tutorial and examples will soon be available on the website, but meanwhile let me know if I can help you in any way. Thanks!

Hello,

Thanks a lot. I'm glad you like Slate!
Unfortunately Alembic is a very special situation and exception, as it is maintained by Unity Japan and there is not much I can do in this regard. I've included alembic support/integration for those high-end cinematics (eg: Adam) as an extra feature targeted to such content creation specifically. To be honest it would not be very good to use alembic within a game build, and especially a mobile build, due to the huge size alembic files can come up being and depending on the situation. Considering the above, if I can help you in any way, by all means please let me know.

Thanks again!

Hello,

Indeed this is a bug. Thanks for spotting this.
To fix this better, please open up EditorTools.cs and replace line #117 to this:
GUI.enabled = stringedOptions.Count > 1;

By the way, you can also use the Character component on the root of the gameobject/character instead of only the gameobject that has the SkinnedMeshRenderer attached. The dropdown will list options for all SkinnedMeshRenderers with blendshapes within the whole gameobject hierarchy to be chosen from. I suppose you already know that though after seeing your edit .

Let me know if the fix works for you.
Thank you.

 

Is this asset totally open source?

 

Hello,
Yes, both runtime and editor full source code is included, except the Alembic Importer and Frame Capturer which is maintained by Unity Technologies Japan on github.
Thanks.

Hey,
Thanks.I am glad you like Slate
To remove this, please select the CameraTrack of your cutscene and set Cinebox Time to 0.
Let me know know if that works for you.
Cheers!

 

Thanks man. this asset really amaze me how perfect and pro it is.

 

Thank you very much! I really appreciate your feedback

 

Hi!

Sorry another problem.
When I repeatedly play/pause/rewind/reverse a cutscene, the playback speed goes much faster sometime.
Can you think of any reason?
My cutscene only contains 2 actors with one animator track each.
I think rewind cutscene cause the play speed up more often than pause/reverse.

 

Hello!

I honestly can't reproduce this somehow (I also don't see any reason for this to happen :-/ ).
Can you please provide a bit more information, like are you referring to doing this through the editor window, or some script? If through some script can you please post the script, and if through the editor, can you please clarify the steps?

Thanks a lot.

 

Thank you for your time!

I'm making an app for cardboard/GearVR and have separate gaze slider buttons for play, rewind, pause etc.
Code for playing cutscene is as follows;

using System;
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
using UnityEngine.UI;
using Slate;

namespace VRStandardAssets.Utils
{
public class PlayButton : MonoBehaviour
{

private SelectionSlider m_Slider;
[SerializeField]
private Cutscene cutscene;
[SerializeField]
private UImain m_UImain;

// Use this for initialization
void Start()
{
m_Slider = GetComponent<SelectionSlider>();
m_Slider.OnBarFilled += OnFilled;
}

void OnFilled()
{
m_Slider.GetComponent<Collider>().enabled = false;
float cTime = cutscene.currentTime;
if (cTime >= cutscene.length) cTime = 0.0f;
cutscene.Stop();
cutscene.Play(cTime);
}
}
}

For rewind, I use either
cutscene.Stop();
cutscene.Play(0.0f);
or
cutscene.Rewind();

 

Hey,
If the goal here is to loop the cutscene as far as I can tell, you can simply set the cutscene wrap mode to Loop in it's inspector. Is there a reason you want to handle this manually, or maybe I miss something?
Still, I can't replicate a case that the cutscene playback speed becomes faster :/ . Can you please PM me small reproduction project so that I can check that out, or reproduction steps that this issue definitely happens?
Thank you.

 

I'm really hoping that there is a demo as well. I currently am an iClone movie maker, and find Slate to be as powerful a sequencer, with the benefit of the rest of Unity behind it!

I'm very impressed looking at what you've made. It feels like it is targeted at character animation.

Rampa

 

Oh, and can you use Skele (the bone IK poser) with Slate?

 

This tool looks fantastic.. One question, please, about possibility that is of most importance for me (us) who are using Unity as filming environment: is it possible to just fly through our scene and with simple shortcut make camera path points during flying? Which we can then further tune.
If something like this can be done easily (what was my reason to start to look at new Cinematic tools for Unreal4) Iam forgetting Unreal and going back to Unity...

 

Hey,

Thanks a lot! I'm very glad you like Slate.
Indeed, character animation is a very strong focus of Slate, since most cinematics are about characters after all
I haven't used Skele yet, so I can't really tell for sure at this point. As far as I see though, Skele uses it's own modified version of the open-source Animator plugin. Still, Slate is more focused on imported animations and ways to playback them easily and in many ways (like layering and blending animations), since in reality most animators prefer to animate characters in their favorite DCC software rather than within Unity anyway

Thanks again!

Hey,

Thanks a lot!
There is a feature in Slate, which let's you "Look Through" a camera shot. Doing this, you can basically use the Unity scene view controls to position the camera and frame your shot as desired. If the shot is animation enabled, it will automatically keyframe itself at the current time of the sequencer as well. The animation curves can then be fine tuned in the inspector if required.
Generally speaking, there is a lot of effort put into making, framing and animating shots in Slate to be as convenient as possible

Thanks!

 

O, my....
This is exactly what I was hoping for. There are other ways to do that in Unity, but none is so elegant. You got yourself new customer. Thank you a lot!

 

I am very glad that was the feature you were after
Thanks a lot!

 

Have you removed all the runtime allocations in the last update?

Hopefully there will be a sale soon, I have almost all the sequencers assets already and been disappointed in some way from all of them, so I am a little wary

 

Hello,
There are still some minimal allocations due to reflection when animating properties, but still Slate has better performance than the rest of the sequencers I've test against and is certainly much different in many aspects as well
If you have any questions that you are wary about, feel free to ask.
Thanks

 

There is an error on Unity 5.4b22 that doesn't let me build the game.

Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cutscene Editor/Directables/Clips/Runtime/AnimatorTrack/PlayMecanimAnimation.cs(6,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

It's the version you gave me.

 

Hey,

This has been fixed in the past few version already. What version are you using?

 

Hi, Is there a trial version? watermaked etc will be just fine.
I'm currently with Cinema Director on an on-going project ( http://realvision.ae/blog/2016/06/the-dilemma-of-positional-tracking-in-cinematic-vr-films/ ), but would like to see how far things have come in cinematic filmmaking in unity. CinemaDirector has been playing up in a few areas (scrubbing randomly resets characters, the animation curves are cumbersome in handling)

One thing CD does really well is enabling/disabling script behaviors on components, which is invaluable to a non-coder. Hoping Slate has this feature too.

 

Hey,
Thanks for your interest in Slate. Regarding a trial version, please send me an email at support_at_paradoxnotion.com.
Slate does indeed have the feature you are after, along with a whole lot more

Cheers!

 

I've uploaded a new extension for Adventure Creator with which you can add great Slate cinematics right inside your AC projects with ease You can download it now from the Slate website!
Cheers

 

Slate looks really promising!

Just a few questions before purchasing:

• Is it recommended to animate Unity UI elements as well (image, text, button, with complex hierarchy)?
  
• will all animated parts be visible and moving in the editor (while scrubbing the timeline)

Thanks!

 

Hello and thanks for your interest in Slate

Animating UI elements is definitely possible, yes! All animated elements are also visible and previewed in the editor, while scrubbing the time.

If you have any other question, just let me know.
Thanks.

 

Thanks!
I have purchased Slate and it rocks!
There are some more detailed questions, I will send you a email to support@paradoxnotion.com.

 

Maybe a bit off-topic but: complete newbie in Unity (just played a bit with Unreal) and not a programmer, just basic experience in 3d.
I'm evaluating the best tool for storytelling, and I was oriented on iClone.
Want to know if Slate can add to Unity the same animation creation approach, hiding the need for coding.

 

Hello,

Thanks for your interest in Slate!
I do not have much experience with iClone, but Slate is definitely a tool made for artists and not for programmers. You don't need any programming knowledge at all to create cinematics with Slate in Unity, but of course being familiar with the Unity Editor itself and how Unity overally works is required.

Please let me know if you have any more questions and I would gladly help
Cheers!

 

@nuverian
Thanks for your answer. Considering I'm at all not interested in game creation, there is a specific learning path of Unity+Slate, so to avoid any unnecessary topic? There is any demo available?

 

@davide445 You are very welcome. There is certainly a learning path if you are not familiar with Unity at all, which is of course highly recommended since Slate is a Unity plugin . I've just send you a PM by the way.
Let me know.

 

@nuverian
Yes but Unity can achieve many many things I'm not interested on as storyteller (AI just as example), so was thinking if there are any suggestion about a tailored learning path for Slate usage as cinema sequencer tool, avoiding the navigation, learning and discovery of the huge number of available Unity trainings.

 

Hi,
The problem with renderer on Mac OSX:

DllNotFoundException: FrameCapturer
Slate.fcAPI.fcGuard (System.Action body) (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Utility/UTJ/FrameCapturer/fcAPI.cs:77)
Slate.MP4Recorder.ReleaseContext () (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Utility/UTJ/FrameCapturer/MP4Recorder.cs:70)
Slate.MP4Recorder.OnDisable () (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Utility/UTJ/FrameCapturer/MP4Recorder.cs:231)
UnityEngine.Behaviour:set_enabled(Boolean)
Slate.DirectorCameraisable() (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Cameras/DirectorCamera.cs:185)
Slate.CameraTrack:OnReverse() (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Directables/Tracks/Director/CameraTrack.cs:136)
Slate.CutsceneTrack:Slate.IDirectable.Reverse() (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Framework/CutsceneTrack.cs:104)
Slate.TimeInPointer:TriggerBackward(Single, Single) (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Framework/TimePointers.cs:63)
Slate.Cutscene:Sample(Single) (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Framework/Cutscene.cs:412)
Slate.CutsceneEditor:Stop(Boolean) (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Design/Editor/CutsceneEditor.cs:318)
Slate.CutsceneEditor:OnEditorUpdate() (at Assets/ParadoxNotion/SLATE Cinematic Sequencer/Design/Editor/CutsceneEditor.cs:360)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallUpdateFunctions()

 

Hey,

Do you get this error when trying to render the cutscene through the Slate Render Utility? The plugin used for the offline rendering feature (FrameCapturer by Unity Tech Japan) seems to have some issues with Mac, which I would either need to resolve or completely swap with a custom solution soon.
If you don't need the offline rendering feature please try adding "NO_UTJ" in the Scripting Define Symbols under "Edit/Project Settings/Player" and let me know if that works for you. If you do need the rendering feature, please allow me a couple of days to take a look at this and provide a solution.

Let me know.
Thanks!

 

I installed NodeCanvas extensions, and when I add TriggerActionTask to the timeline, there are null errors because the actionlist is null. I use NodeCanvas 2.5.6c/SLATE 1.4.5/Unity 5.3.5/Unity 5.4.0.

Can you help me?

Thx.

 

Same here. When I try to record my cutscenes I get this error. It seems recording utility is not working on OSX.
I tried with OSX 10.10.5 and Unity 5.3.6f1.

 

SLATE uses native Windows library (FrameCapturer.dll) for rendering. It will not work in OSX or Linux. For that the FrameCapturer project should rebuilt targeting OSX.

 

Hi @nuverian committed myself in evaluating Unity + Slate against iClone + 3dxchange I discovered in Unity roadmap alpha an upcoming native Cinematic Sequencer. There is any relationship with Slate? What are the differences?