Hey All,
I’m a unity newbie about to start making a Rail Shooter in Unity, where the Camera and game/scene objects are controlled by timelines, and I was hoping that I could benefit from the relevant expertise of people on this board.
It’s really important to me that designers and artists can see and edit the timelines in the Unity Editor. Also I want to be able to have multiple timelines to support branching choices in one level.
So basically what I’m looking for is to have a set of controls similar to making an in-game movie cutscene, but I also need to be able to “decorate” the timeline with gameplay event stuff (like a way to say wait here until this boss is dead, etc.)
The picture of how stuff like this would work that I have in my head, is basically for a dev to be able to see a list of the timelines in the level, select one, and get a timeline control where they can go frame-by-frame, and be able to position the camera object positions for that selected frame, and see a preview of the world through the camera at that point.
So what existing Unity features are good for building this functionality out of? What parts of what I’m asking for are not already in Unity? In terms of extending the Unity Editor itself, what are the names of the API’s or integration options that would let me customize the editor in useful ways for my needs?
The two approaches that I’ve seen to in-Unity level editing are:
Customize the editor to allow for editing of levels in the scene view, inspector, and/or custom windows.
Implement the editor in the game view (just like the game itself), and have the editor write out data that is then read in by the game scenes.
The first approach is more difficult in my experience, but has the advantage that you don’t have to switch between scenes repeatedly during the edit-play cycle.
The second approach has the advantage that there’s really not much you can’t do editor-wise (since you have full access to all of Unity’s most well-documented features, including the built-in GUI and event processing functionality); you could definitely implement something like what you describe if you go that route (although it will still probably be a lot of work). Customizing the editor itself would probably work as well, but might be slightly more difficult and/or time-consuming. (Or maybe not - that’s just based on my own experience.)
Start here. In particular check out custom windows and custom inspectors, and also the OnSceneGUI() function for implementing custom functionality in the scene view.
Hey Jesse - the second approach hadn’t crossed my mind at all, that’s a fascinating option. That link you shared looks awesome too - the “Custom Editor Interface by Serious Games Interactive” screenshot on the page looks like exactly what I’m looking for.
(the Custom Editor Interface by Serious Games Interactive)
Does anyone know of a custom editor like this or would I need to build one from scratch? I know how to do it, I just don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel. =D