Newbie using Unity for machinima -- is there a guide to recording cameras?

[jarretttowe]

Hi. I’m really new. I’m a 3d animator that wants to use unity to create machinima because of the power of the engine. Is there somewhere someone can point me to a tutorial that will help? At this point, I only need to be able to import fbx animated characters and play them back, with an animated camera. Small goal, but I need to break this down into learnable pieces.
Thank you for reading this!

[jessee03]

Unity has a built in animation tool that you can use. Or else there’s cutscene tools out there on the asset store.

Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making

[FuzzyQuills]

@jarretttowe

Hi. I’m really new. I’m a 3d animator that wants to use unity to create machinima because of the power of the engine. Is there somewhere someone can point me to a tutorial that will help? At this point, I only need to be able to import fbx animated characters and play them back, with an animated camera. Small goal, but I need to break this down into learnable pieces.
Thank you for reading this!

Unity for machinima? That’s something I haven’t heard of before.

[jarretttowe]

Thanks jessee03!
Hi FuzzyQuills! I come from a background of using iclone as an animation tool which is known as a real time animation renderer. The quality is good…but not as good as unity’s output. iClone has now announced PBR rendering coming soon, but in the time that I wait, I decided to learn unity. It is a more useful and valuable skill set, and it will allow me to make machinima using a high quality renderer, and the user base and asset store are massive benefits to the platform. Now I just need to learn how to make all the bits work together! A big task, I know, but I am willing to put in the time to learn it.

[FuzzyQuills]

@jarretttowe

Thanks jessee03!
Hi FuzzyQuills! I come from a background of using iclone as an animation tool which is known as a real time animation renderer. The quality is good…but not as good as unity’s output. iClone has now announced PBR rendering coming soon, but in the time that I wait, I decided to learn unity. It is a more useful and valuable skill set, and it will allow me to make machinima using a high quality renderer, and the user base and asset store are massive benefits to the platform. Now I just need to learn how to make all the bits work together! A big task, I know, but I am willing to put in the time to learn it.

Fair enough. I would recommend writing a tool (or downloading one from the asset store) that after you’re finished renders out frame-by-frame your animation into a set of PNGs or a video file. (For those who use blender, the set of PNGs could even be plugged into blender’s video sequencer allowing for cinema-quality stuff!)

[jarretttowe]

The Cinema Director asset has that ability, and much more. It allows for some complicated camera and event triggering – I just need to work out how to make the bits go! Also, there is an asset that allows me to see final camera effects in the editor window, so theoretically, I don’t have to compile, making rendering the final movie easier. The video effect assets available for unity are incredible as well. Stay tuned, or feel free to join in and accelerate my learning what I need to know…hopefully it won’t take too long!

[soonzzz]

This is a question regarding iClone to Unity Pipeline…

iClone can be used to animate character using

1. Bones (Body + Face) and
2. Body Bones + Facial Morph Targets.

The resulting animation can be transfered to Unity3D as an FBX.

My question is Can the animated FBX from Point 2 i.e Body Bones + Facial Morph Targets be employed for NPC to tell stories in between game play ?

The reason I ask is that I had read somewhere that Morph Targets can impact performance. Is the performance issue applicable only for the Morph Targets animated within Unity3D or the performance issue is also applicable for animated FBX that were animated using iClone.

Please Advise.

Thanks and Regards