Using the Power of Cinemachine and Timeline to Create an Opening Scene
Objective: An summary on my process creating an opening cutscene for my portfolio.
Watch the opening and ending cutscenes here!
Table of Contents
· Inspiration
· Segment 1
∘ Playable Directors
∘ Cinemachine Virtual Cameras
· Segment 2
· Restarting Scenes
Inspiration
I was inspired by some of the camera shots and scenery from the opening of Jedi: Fallen Order.
I started by getting high-quality game assets from Filebase as they fit the visuals perfectly. I also added some HDRI skies and a city from the asset store.
Every asset was carefully curated to fit the Star Wars-esque visuals, and post-processing was made with a cold color pallet in mind.
Color palettes are a vital part of creating cohesive level design and branding for your game, so this is a great starting point for any creative project. All post-processing was meticulously catered to fit the initial vision.
Note: This is a portfolio project dedicated to creaitng cutscenes, as such I won’t be creating my own game assets.
Segment 1
Playable Directors
The Opening Cutscene is divided into two segments which are independent scenes connected by transitions.
Segment 1 was structured using two Playable Directors:
- Ships_Director: Handles all animations and camera angles related to spaceships. This is also considered the main director in the scene.
- Bot_Director: The bot director specifically handles a Bot object, its animation, and all pertinent camera types. This director was added to the main director via Control Track, making it a nested timeline so that every element can play from it.
Cinemachine Virtual Cameras
There are several cameras in the scene, each has been animated from scratch using Timeline, except for the Follow Cameras, which have been customized via Cinemachine to follow specific objects.
Example of Follow Cameras: This is vcam_followSpaceships.
Another unique camera to highly is the vcam_bot(vcam stands for Virtual Camera)has a Signal Emitter with an Impulse Trigger to create this neat camera shake effect.
This first segment focuses on teasing the Player with a view of the game world. Then with a fade-from-white transition, we move to the next scene(segment 2).
Segment 2
Segment 2 features a character walking alongside the bot from the previous scene. Both objects have been animated using Timeline, and the sound effects such as footsteps have been synchronized by tweaking the speed values on the respective audio file in the Unity Inspector.
This scene was structured with a single Playable Director, once again each camera has been animated from scratch except the follow camera.
Restarting Scenes
Each scene can be restarted by clicking the F Key, this is done by restarting the Playable Director via code.
By following this process, I was able to create an opening scene, an ending scene, and a cutscene that plays when the player remains idle in the Main Menu.
Check out my portfolio! Currently looking for opportunities in the game industry!
