Automate markers on timeline withe .cue file

Unity Engine
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1

Hi,
To make my cut-scenes more efficient and to optimize my workflow, I merge my entire dialogue into one long mp3 file. After that, I create a cue file (some sort of “chapter” divider) with all timestamps regarding which character is talking.

I’d like to create a script that adds up each marker on the timeline automatically by taking the information from the timestamp/ character from the cue file:

Scnene #3 dialogue
    FILE "Dialogue-3" MP3

      TRACK 01 AUDIO
           TITLE "01-Character01.mp3"
            INDEX 00:00:00

      TRACK 02 AUDIO
            TITLE "02-Character02.mp3"
            INDEX 00:02:30

      TRACK 03 AUDIO
            TITLE "03-Character01.mp3"
            INDEX 00:04:05

      TRACK 04 AUDIO
            TITLE "04-Character03.mp3"
            INDEX 00:09:06

      TRACK 05 AUDIO
            TITLE "05-Character01.mp3"
            INDEX 00:12:52

Thanks!

2

Sounds cool! But I was not sure what the question was…? Are you trying to add markers? Create audio tracks automatically? Create a new custom track type? And what were you after for help?

In case of interest, I have been using Unity for animation. I have been trying to automate it from a single screenplay script. I automatically create tracks from parsing the screenplay text using a simple markdown-ish like syntax. https://github.com/alankent/OrdinaryCartoonMaker

3

Thank you for your response! Indeed, it wasn’t really clear. A picture is worth a thousand words :slight_smile:
As you can see from my image, I want to automatically place the cursors on the timeline based on my text file. In addition, curers are also assigned to the correct character.

8845609--1205683--upload_2023-3-1_20-49-40.png
8845609--1205683--upload_2023-3-1_20-49-40.png1203×819 53.8 KB

Many thanks!

4

My approach for something similar (that project I shared) was to create a window with a multi-line text input field and a button. Clicking the button would parse the string in the field (which I copy and paste from a Google doc) and find the relevant tracks etc (e.g. look at the animation track bindings to work out which character a track is bound to).

But I am currently thinking about a slightly different approach using a custom track for lipsync control per character and an audio track with a clip per piece of dialog. I plan to create separate clips per piece of dialog instead of one long clip like you have (you can specify the start and end offset for a clip out of the longer audio file). That will let me adjust timing easier by sliding the audio clips for each line of dialog around. The lipsync instructions I will then line up with the audio clips. But still thinking it through.