Keyframing post process FX values with Timeline

Hi all,

Is there a way to use an Animation Track (or any track) in Timeline to keyframe the individual values of a specific post process FX, such as the Depth of Field effect's Focus Distance or Aperture?

Although there are threads and videos about this area they seem to all be discussing the deprecated scripts, before Cinemachine Post Processing became an Extension. It's a little confusing.

Adam Myhill mentions in a comment on this video (

) that it is possible to keyframe everything, rather than blending entire cameras together to achieve the same result. Can someone explain how?

Thanks very much.

 

Ah, OK. I understand. Thanks for the reply!

 

Yes and you can also use the PPS volumes as a way to drive values, blending between different volumes is effectively a set of keyframes for as many values as you want. You're not directly keyframing, but you're blending between different volumes of desired settings.

 

why has this to be so hacky? I see no reason not to allow to animate this kind of stuff. Especially for Cutscenes...

 

I really agree with oumur.
The post process has never been static on any content...

 

I think it would be convenient to be able to use Timeline to control post-processing, maybe a custom track or something.

 

I really wonder what is the reason for this. Animating Post-processing effects is useful in many situations. How to request this as a feature?

 

My natural inclination was to start animating the post processing values as I would any other value but I quickly saw that this was not possible. While it would be nice to be able to directly animate these values I am willing to learn how to do this using multiple volumes. I just need a better picture in my head to get started. So are you saying we could duplicate our current post-processing volume, create a new profile, change the values we want, make it Not Global and then have the physical volume "box" slide into place via animation?

 

Ah bingo! Thank you as always Sir Gregoryl!

 

Compared to other software the whole setup of Unity and their post-processing and volumes is so annoying! Why does it have to be so hard to animate a DOF in this software! I don't personally like the idea of blending between volumes in this instance. Plus all cameras in a scene may have different DOF which means you can't really animate a focal shift cleanly with an override or can you?

If you are using a timeline for camera animation, why can't it just see all the keyable properties for the volume overrides even if it is its own asset?
As if you are using DOF and in manual mode, I personally want direct animation control of it. As if someone picks up my file they can clearly see what's been affected and animated and not have to go through every volume in a scene to find out what one had X setting... Seem very un artist-friendly and slow to get results.

 

Currently, you can write a script to set your PostProcessVolume's values at runtime, then you keyframe the values on your script.

gameObject.GetComponent<PostProcessVolume>().profile.TryGetSettings(out yourPostProcessEffectSettings);

yourPostProcessEffectSettings.yourParameter.value = newValue;

Note that .profile will instantiate a new cloned profile like mesh and sharedMesh, but since it's in a cutscene so you probably want to use this instead of .sharedProfile to not messing around with your asset.

 

Yeah the design decision is really weird, maybe there is a reasonable explanation, Philip's method seems to be the way

 

I really wish they would let us change the values inside an animation or timeline. I understand they are shared, but sometimes we just want to apply an effect for a brief period of time and have it fade in and fade out.

 

Would be great if it was more artist intuitive than just constantly applying volumes to everything to band aid the approach. It really would be great if you could do it inside the object you want x to happen. All these extra things you need to keep adding makes unity very messy. Why is it even called a volume? surely you want it call it something that is almost universal in the naming.

I do like Unity but I personally get frustrated that things are all over the place and in all different menus and not at all logical at the best of times. Admittedly I am coming to this from many years VFX and having learned multiple different software's and pipelines over the years. Maybe this is normal in game engine software.

 

@Gregoryl using volumes to animate post effects is hacky. The method you describe works if you want to animate a single group of effects linearly, but if you want to animate individual effects more granularly then the volume setup balloons quickly. There are a lot of screen effects out there that work with Unity's post processing system and there isn't a great solution for animating them.

 

@Gregoryl Hi Gregory, I have been doing the blending two volumes methods, but I encountered massive lag and jittering during the blending. I have tested it in different computers, even with a gtx 1080Ti. The lag is all over the place while blending the two volumes. Is there any workaround for that? Thank you.

ps: I used a frame debugger and found out that there is a CommandBuffer VolumeBlending happening, and then there are two 4096x4096 luts under the commandBuffer. I assume it is causing the lag due to creating large resolution luts every frame?

 

I do this in a script to animate post processing. I create a Volume and VolumeProfile on the fly and animate the properties of them directly. This results in not needing a VolumeProfile asset.

Code (CSharp):

1. void Start()
2. {
3.         m_volume = gameObject.AddComponent<Volume>();
4.         m_volume.isGlobal = true;
5.         m_volume.priority = 10;
6.         var p = ScriptableObject.CreateInstance<VolumeProfile>();
7.         m_lensDistortion = p.Add<LensDistortion>();
8.         m_vignette = p.Add<Vignette>();
9.         m_chromaticAberration = p.Add<ChromaticAberration>();
10.         m_volume.profile = p;
11. }
12.  
13. void Update()
14. {
15.     if (m_lensDistortion)
16.     {
17.         m_lensDistortion.active = LensDistortion.Enabled;
18.         m_lensDistortion.intensity.Override(LensDistortion.Intensity.Evaluate(ts));
19.         m_lensDistortion.xMultiplier.Override(LensDistortion.XMultiplier.Evaluate(ts));
20.         m_lensDistortion.yMultiplier.Override(LensDistortion.YMultiplier.Evaluate(ts));
21.         m_lensDistortion.scale.Override(LensDistortion.Scale.Evaluate(ts));
22.     }
23.  
24.     if (m_vignette)
25.     {
26.         m_vignette.active = Vignette.Enabled;
27.         m_vignette.color.Override(Vignette.Color.Evaluate(ts));
28.         m_vignette.center.Override(new Vector2(Vignette.CenterX.Evaluate(ts), Vignette.CenterY.Evaluate(ts)));
29.         m_vignette.intensity.Override(Vignette.Intensity.Evaluate(ts));
30.         m_vignette.smoothness.Override(Vignette.Smoothness.Evaluate(ts));
31.     }
32.  
33.     if (m_chromaticAberration)
34.     {
35.         m_chromaticAberration.active = ChromaticAberration.Enabled;
36.         m_chromaticAberration.intensity.Override(ChromaticAberration.Intensity.Evaluate(ts));
37.     }
38. }
39.  

Where the LensDistortion, Vignette and ChromaticAberration look something like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. [Serializable]
2. public class LensDistortionParams
3. {
4.     public bool Enabled = false;
5.     public AnimationCurve Intensity = new AnimationCurve();
6.     public AnimationCurve XMultiplier = new AnimationCurve();
7.     public AnimationCurve YMultiplier = new AnimationCurve();
8.     public AnimationCurve Scale = new AnimationCurve();
9. }
10.  
11. [Serializable]
12. public class VignetteParams
13. {
14.     public bool Enabled = false;
15.     public Gradient Color = new Gradient();
16.     public AnimationCurve CenterX = AnimationCurve.Constant(0, 1, 0.5f);
17.     public AnimationCurve CenterY = AnimationCurve.Constant(0, 1, 0.5f);
18.     public AnimationCurve Intensity = AnimationCurve.Constant(0, 1, 1.0f);
19.     public AnimationCurve Smoothness = AnimationCurve.Constant(0, 1, 0.0f);
20. }
21.  
22. [Serializable]
23. public class ChromaticAberrationParams
24. {
25.     public bool Enabled = false;
26.     public AnimationCurve Intensity = AnimationCurve.Constant(0, 1, 0.0f);
27. }
28.  

 

people could use this in a lot of scenarios. in my case i want to make the vignette animation intensify whenever the player is holding down the aiming button

 

Would be good if this design flaw could be addressed. Pretty sure you could easily animate values using the old, pre volume post processing system.