I think I've said this before, but the Unity Timeline is fantastic! (Despite not playing sound). It works very similarly to Premiere Pro, a software I'm familiar with enough to transfer the skills over to Unity.
For my final film, I imported my animation one file at a time and made sure they were set up correctly in the timeline before moving onto the next import. As I'm using alembic cache, I have to have a new model for each animation so after speaking to my classmate Diebrig, she told me that I can use an activation track to switch the geometry off and on which is much easier than animating it off and on. So my general timeline for 1 shot looks something like this:
Now, in this first shot, the character loses two polygons which are separate cached objects meaning they need their own tracks. The first green track is an activation track for the duration that this walk cycle animation is running. The next track is the alembic cache of the walk cycle animation. The white bars above it show that it is looped and also sped up. The next track is the animation to move the model as she walks. This is slightly sped up to counter any foot slide.
After these initial tracks are the tracks for the dead polygons. This includes the same alembic cache of walk cycle animation so that the dead polygons move with the model. Then there is an animation track containing two animations where the polygon fades and then falls off the model. There are two dead polygons and in total this gives an extra 14 tracks between the different animations that need to be layered.
The final two tracks are animations for the devices on the character that pulse blue and red.
As well as tracks for the character, I also have different activation tracks for the depth of field. In total, I have 7 different depth of field objects for different shots. Many of these can be reused on various shots and you can see where different ones are on or off depending on where the activation track is.
The first track in this image is the only animated depth of field. This object contains two different depth of fields, one for a close image and one for a wide shot and as the camera pans up I need to change between them. You can see this in the 3 key frames on this track.
So between character animation, including dead polygons, depth of field, the background planes that float around and other objects that are only seen at certain points of the film, my timeline eventually looked like this. (Thank God for groups). Every track that begins with a number is a character animation shot.
For my final film, I imported my animation one file at a time and made sure they were set up correctly in the timeline before moving onto the next import. As I'm using alembic cache, I have to have a new model for each animation so after speaking to my classmate Diebrig, she told me that I can use an activation track to switch the geometry off and on which is much easier than animating it off and on. So my general timeline for 1 shot looks something like this:
Now, in this first shot, the character loses two polygons which are separate cached objects meaning they need their own tracks. The first green track is an activation track for the duration that this walk cycle animation is running. The next track is the alembic cache of the walk cycle animation. The white bars above it show that it is looped and also sped up. The next track is the animation to move the model as she walks. This is slightly sped up to counter any foot slide.
After these initial tracks are the tracks for the dead polygons. This includes the same alembic cache of walk cycle animation so that the dead polygons move with the model. Then there is an animation track containing two animations where the polygon fades and then falls off the model. There are two dead polygons and in total this gives an extra 14 tracks between the different animations that need to be layered.
The final two tracks are animations for the devices on the character that pulse blue and red.
As well as tracks for the character, I also have different activation tracks for the depth of field. In total, I have 7 different depth of field objects for different shots. Many of these can be reused on various shots and you can see where different ones are on or off depending on where the activation track is.
The first track in this image is the only animated depth of field. This object contains two different depth of fields, one for a close image and one for a wide shot and as the camera pans up I need to change between them. You can see this in the 3 key frames on this track.
So between character animation, including dead polygons, depth of field, the background planes that float around and other objects that are only seen at certain points of the film, my timeline eventually looked like this. (Thank God for groups). Every track that begins with a number is a character animation shot.
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