Prepare the Cutscene

In this article we will prepare the cutscene. This will be the first part. The next part is using the camera’s, switching and moving them like a director.

We got our environment made with assets and we got our actors. These are models rigged and animated specially for our cutscene. This is why quality may differ from our in game model quality.

Director’s Notes

Below we got some notes from the director.

Blocking the Scene

Placing our actors is also known as blocking the scene. We placed them at the right location in our scene. When we hit the play button the animation is automatically played. The orange selection is our actor.

Placing our Camera’s

For our camera’s we use Cinemachine. The Cinemachine is an asset made by unity from the asset store. You can install it from there for free.

Cinemachine > Create Virtual Camera

Select GameObject > GameObject (Toolbar top) > Align with view

Or alternatively press:

Ctrl + Shift + F

Cinemachine Virtual Camera

Status: Solo coz only one cam now
Look at Transform of gameobject
Follow a Transform of gameobject

Aim allows us to adjust the grid on the screen.
Soft Zone to decide what is important in the shot
Dead zone to keep track of objects. If it moves out of the dead zone it will for example follow the gameobject.

Rule of thirds

To create a nice looking shot there’s something called Rule of thirds.
Basically you create a 3 x 3 grid and align what you want focused on the corners of the center square. This way it doesn’t look that synthetic and you also get more environmental information in the shot.

Second Virtual Camera

We created a second camera and placed it. If we select 1st one again the view doesn't change.
Inspector > Status > Click Solo
With this button we can switch our cam to live
If we turn it off again the default cam will be the one with the highest priority under the Inspector. See the previous Inspector image.

In the background what happens is the main camera is repositioned at the place of the virtual camera’s
When you look at the Inspector of the the Main Camera game object you see there’s a script Cinemachine Brain. This is what allows this functionality.

Organizing Cutscene

A good habit is to organize the cutscene so it’s easy to come back to it later when we need to make changes.
Create Empty Game object with Transform to 0 0 0 and rename it to “Name Cutscene”
Put in all the Actors in a empty game object and name it “Actors”
Create Empty GameObject with Transform to 0 0 0 and rename to “CM Virtual Camera’s”
Put All Cinemachine virtual camera’s in it.