SLATE is the most efficient, easy and intuitive sequencer for creating cinematic or gameplay cutscenes in Unity, full of unique features and an artist friendly UI/UX for achieving the best workflow and results possible within a lesser amount of time.
SLATE will help you achieve your creative goals without the hassle, in a familiar track-oriented realtime editor, inspired by software like Adobe After Effects and Premiere right inside Unity.
Feature Highlights:
Unparalleled Realtime Editor Preview, Visual Feedback and deterministic Layer-Based Sampling.
Unique Camera Shot System makes directing cameras a snap and creating āmovingā shots intuitive.
Shot Transitions like CrossDissolve, Fade Out/In (DipToBlack) and EaseIn.
Optional automatic Gameplay Bending from and back to gameplay camera.
All rendering is done from a single and ConsistentRender Camera, which allow for consistent image effects applied (like color correction) across the whole cutscene length, with the added possibility of animating them.
Audio System with track oriented settings instead of per clip, with the added ability of sending audio to the new Unityās Audio Mixer for finer control and applying effects.
Unique Animation System, which allows layering animation clips on top one another for smooth blending and transition between them and track oriented settings for affected bones and blend modes. (For legacy animation system. Mecanim is also supported, but without layering feature, until Unity release and make Playables possible in editor).
A familiar Curve Editor and a new advanced DopeSheet Editor for animating any component property/field (of the supported type) on the actor gameobject, or within itās whole transform hierarchy.
A handful of Premade Action Clips for animating environmental variables (time, fog, light), adding screen effects (subtitles, titles, image overlays), sprites, UVs, material color, blend-shapes, expression, even up to pathfinding with complete editor preview.
Animatable Action Clip Parameters! Meaning that it is possible to animate some of the action clipās parameters directly within the clip, similar to After Effects or other animation software.
Action Clip Blending, for easily easing in and out the clipās effect/presence/weight.
Virtual Actor References, for working with prefab and localized cutscene actors efficiently.
Optional Rendering to GIF, MP4, PNG or EXR Image Sequence.
Alembic Workflow, to import and work in sync with alembic files exported from any animation software.
Time Sections and SubCutscenes for organizing and re-organizing cutscenes efficiently, as well as allowing for playing only a specific section at runtime.
Specialized Character clips supporting BlendShape-based facial expression groups and making head look-at easy.
Complete PlaybackControl. Play Once, Loop, Ping Pong. Play forwards, backwards, a specific section, or any combination of the above, with runtime rewinding.
Totally Extendable for creating custom clips or even tracks.
Full Source Code is included for both runtime and editor.
Hey nuverian, what would you say would be the key differences between this and Cinema Director?
I donāt want an asset duke-out, but Iām just wondering since I donāt have experience with cinematic sequencers. Iām leaning towards SLATE simply because of my great experience with NodeCanvas!
(Also, how long is the sale on for? Iād like to try it out when Iāve got some time, but donāt want to miss out on the deal)
Edit: Actually, I bought it anyways, I have faith! Iām still curious about any differences though, until I have time to check it out myself.
Hey @Async0x42 ! Thanks for getting SLATE and for your faith :). I appreciate that!
There are a lot of differences really, but here are the most important ones:
The variables of most clips are animatable and such they allow for the clipās effect to be animated. For example in the LookAt clip, you can animate the target position variable of the clip, directly in the clip over the period of time that the clip has, instead of the target position variable being static along the clipās whole time.
The above also happens in the camera shot clips, which means that a camera shot is able to be animated directly within the clip, instead of having to have another whole track just for animating that camera shot.
Most clips have a blend in and out effect (as seen in the screenshots). These two parameters together allow for smoothing the effect of the clip in and out. So for example in the mecanim SetFloat clip, the float can be smoothly transitioned from itās current value and to the specified new target value, instead of āpopingā to the target value instantely. The same blend in/out parameters can be seen across most clips having various different effects like fading volume, fading weight of animation, fading the camera etc. depending on what the clip does.
All cutscenes in SLATE are rendered from a single render camera, which means that you can add image effects just in this render camera for the whole cutscene to have a consistent look instead of having to add the same image effects in all camera shots used in the cutscene and those image effects can also be animated easily.
The curve editor in SLATE is exactly the same as the one Unity has and there is a complete DopeSheet for managing keys easily like moving keys, copy/pasting keys, scaling keys, smoothing selection etc, that can be used when animation curves are collapsed.
There is a whole sub-system included for creating and animating character blendshape facial expressions, as well as head look at.
The animation system in SLATE, allows you to have animation tracks on top one another and as result play animation clips on top of other animation clips with options to affect specific bones with per-track specified weights instead of per-clip. So in effect, each animation track of an actor, represents a different animation layer.
There is total freedom in the cutscene playaback. For example you can choose to playback only a specific time section of the cutscene with the option to loop that section or ping pong it.
Here are some more differences that come in mind in random order: animation path visualization, camera shot thumbnails, gameplay camera blending, audio and animation clip looping, follow path action, pathfinding action with editor preview, 2D sprites animation support, unity audio mixer support, cutscene sections, sub-cutscenesā¦
Iām looking forward to hearing your feedback when you get the time to work with the tool and thanks again for getting SLATE If you have any questions feel free to ask away of course.
Hello everyone. I have send a new version to the asset store fixing the audio waveform preview for Unity 5.4. The introductiory sale is also removed with this release and the price is set to itās normal.
Finaly Iāve also added some animated gifs in the first post of this thread
Hello,
There is already the ability to render a cutscene in an image sequence using the āScreenCaptureā clip found under āUtilitesā category of the director group. The time range of the clip also controls when the capture starts and end. So in the example bellow an image sequence will be rendered from 1 to 10 sec in playmode.
Please let me know if you mean something different.
Thanks.
āEDITā
This is now obsolete. Slate includes a complete rendering utility
We just bought Slate last week, for evaluating and eventually switch from CinemaDirector. It seems promising, but why didānt you gave any demo scene ? Itās so helpful for testingā¦
I am not a c# coder, and our animators too. I would like to know how to trig easily a particle effect with Slate ?
Cheers
Hello,
Thanks for getting Slate.
I will very shortly create an exaple scene and will be available for download as soon as I complete the next update which is huge and will post about it here in the comming days.
A particle system can be played in an Action Track of the Director group. There is a clip named āSample Particle Systemā under the āControlā category. You simply assign the Particle System you want to play in the inspector.
If the particle system is set to Looping the length of the clip will be free to adjust and which will show when and how long the particles will be active. If the system is not a looping one, the length will be fixed and equal to the particle system duration.
It would also be good to of course set the particles āPlay On Awakeā setting to false since you want to control it in the cutscene.
Let me know if you need any further help, or have any suggestions.
Thanks!
is there any need to integrate this with Dialogue manager from @TonyLi ? im currently using CinemaDirector that can be triggered easily in DM by using Lua, only problem is cinema director workflow is not perfect and require one camera per shot which is not easy to manage when your camera have complex setup.
Okay, SLATE integration wonāt be in the upcoming 1.6.0.2 release, but itāll be in the one after that. Iāll also publish the integration package on the Dialogue System Extras page as soon as itās available.
