Official Cinematic Studio Sample: details and documentation

Cinematic Studio includes a set of features that makes moviemaking a first-class experience within the Unity Editor, and sample content to demonstrate their use.

The ways to get the Cinematic Studio tools and sample depends on the Unity version you're using.

TLDR
(details follow)

• In Unity 2020.3: get the Cinematic Studio Sample from the Asset Store
• In Unity 2021.2+: get the Cinematic Studio Feature Set from the Package Manager (features only)
• In Unity 2021.2.2+: get the Cinematic Studio Template from the Unity Hub (features + content)

What are the Cinematic Studio tools and features?

• Timeline: the backbone of any cinematic (documentation)
• Sequences: a workflow tool to keep your movie’s editorial content organized, collaborative, and flexible (documentation)
• FBX Exporter: a workflow that allows you to roundtrip content to DCCs (documentation)
• Alembic: a file format for optimized playback of complex animations (documentation)
• Cinemachine: our camera system for framing and following all the action (documentation)
• Recorder: a tool that captures and exports videos, stills, arbitrary output variables (AOVs), and more (documentation)

All the above features are installed, regardless of whether you choose the Cinematic Studio Sample, Cinematic Studio Template, or Cinematic Studio Feature Set.

What is the sample content (included in the Sample and Template)?
A short cartoon called MICH-L, made with Unity's High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) by our friends at Plip! Animation to show how the Cinematic Studio features work together.

How to install
How to install the Cinematic Studio Template (Unity Editor 2021.2.2 and later)
The installation steps depend on the version of Unity Hub you're using.

Installing Cinematic Studio Template via Unity Hub v3

1. Click on New project.
2. At the top of the screen, select Editor Version 2021.2 (minimum).
3. In Core templates, search Cinematic Studio, select it and click on Download template.
4. Once the template is downloaded, set your project name and then click on Create project.

Installing Cinematic Studio Template via Unity Hub v2

1. Open the drop down menu beside the New button and select Unity Editor version 2021.2 (minimum).
2. In the Templates list, search Cinematic Studio, select it and click on Download.
3. Once the template is downloaded, set your project name and then click on Create.

How to install the Cinematic Studio Feature Set (Unity Editor 2021.2 and later)
Note: If you installed the Cinematic Studio template, you don’t need to install the feature set.

1. In Unity Editor 2021.2, open the Package Manager (Windows > Package Manager).
2. In the upper left corner of the Package Manager window, select Packages: Unity Registry.
3. Under Features find Cinematic Studio.
4. In the lower right of the Package Manager window, click on Install.

How to install the Cinematic Studio Sample (unity Editor 2020.3 only)

1. Go to the Unity Asset Store
2. Download the free sample project using the latest release of Unity 2020.3 (LTS).

Notes:

• To get more detailed instructions to install and set up the sample available on the Asset Store, download the PDF guide (Cinematic-Studio-Sample-Startup-Guide.PDF) attached to this post.
• A series of tutorials is also available on the Unity Learn platform to help you familiarize yourself with the sample and its features.

How can I provide feedback?
Start a thread in this forum and let us know what you think! Are you happy? Did you build something using the tools? Let us know! Are we missing something you need? Let us know! Found a bug? DEFINITELY let us know!

We hope you're as excited to use these tools as we are to bring them to you.