The Way to Be a Director in Game- Game Dev Series 60
Quick guide of Unity Timeline.
I used to be a video editor, which is using a lot of different video editing programs. In these programs, timeline is the main function to create videos.
In timeline, you need to compose every elements that needed to create a video clip. Which is exactly the same idea of timeline in Unity.
What are in a timeline?
There are tons of objects that we can add in a timeline.
Create camera with designed movement to make some cutscene; use audio on specific time to create off-screen sound; make the model of character to walk into the scene.
Here is a sample clip of what I created in my stealth game.
As you can see, we got 2 cameras, actors, camera movement, disappear game object, and a fade alpha layer in timeline. These elements create this 5-second clip.
Timeline is the matter about timing. Which timing of there objects should appear, which timing not.
Camera in timeline
Instead of using default camera in Unity, we use Cinemachine to create complex camera movement. You can easily find the Cinemachine in Unity if your editor version is 2019.4.21. If not, you can also find it in Package Manager by searching “Cinemachine”.
Cinemachine is just like a huge upgrade of the default camera. It adds more guides to camera that allows the user to adjust details of it.
For example, with its Look At function, we can easily follow the target game object without scripting it.
That’s all for this quick guide of Unity timeline.
Later, we will create more complex cutscene with more elements.