Unity Cutscene Creator / Camera Path - uSequencer [RELEASED]

Mecanim could work incredibly easily, and in fact we are looking into writing Custom Unity 4.0 Events as we speak, if you'd like to request some, please, ask us!

Is it just animation control you'd like for Mecanim? (Play Anim, Stop Anim, etc?)

In case you where wondering about PlayMaker, it is supported out of the box.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello everyone,

We just wanted to let you all know, we've just about finished up our support for uSequencer and prefabs, and have quite a simple demo.

Basically, we created the simplest of cutscenes, created a prefab out of it, and with three clicks we where able to add it to a new scene, and retarget the whole cutscene.

The Basic Cutscene

You can see, there is a spinning, scaling cube, and a light, that changes it's colour. This is all defined with the cutscene.

And, two extra scenes, with the same prefab, but 're-targetted' (to a different Game Objects)
Re-target 1
Re-target 2

We'll let you know when we've been accepted to the store, so you can get cracking with making amazing cutscene.

Next up, Unity 4.0 Mecanim support!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Can you also keep unity 3.5.6 supports once unity 4 is out? I'm not yet ready to upgrade, thanks

 

Hello Lars,

Don't worry about support for 3.x, we have no desire to split our user base, or restrict the number of people who can use uSequencer and so, we'll continue to support older versions as well as Unity 4.0. We aim to get all of our features working on 3.5.6 as well as 4.0.

The Mecanim events will be the only exclusive Unity 4.0 feature in the package, and they'll be bundled as an importable package, for anyone who is interested.

Regards,
Well Fired

 

This is quite interesting and the price is not bad at all... will I be able to do stuff like have an on screen death sequence like in Mortal Kombat... such as triggering the cutscenes I make with button inputs or triggers?

 

I purchased the uSequencer , it's a really nice pulgin! But I have a problem and don't know how to solve.
I create a property timeline, and animate a curve to control the property, but I found when I start the game, the value of the property I animated will automatically becomes the start value of the curve, but I still don't play the sequence.
For example, I animated the property "x" and want when I play sequence, "x" will be increased form 1 to 3. But when I start the game and still don't play the sequence , "x" will immediately become to 1……

How to solve this problem ? Thank you !

 

Hello 2DBoomer, We've just sent you an email, which should answer your question!

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Yes, Absolutely!

uSequencer can be used absolutely anywhere you want such a scripted event to occur, we even have one customer using it exclusively to run paired, synchronised background animations on characters, also, used in a fighting game!

We do plan to expand our current examples and tutorials to show as much as possible, of what uSequencer can do.

If you have any more questions, or want a specific demo, feel free to ask away!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello everyone!

We just wanted to let you all know that uSequencer V 1.184 has been submitted to the Asset Store.

As usual, you can try before you buy at the uSequencer Website.

New Features in 1.184:
Prefab Support!
Further Improvements to uSequencer for Unity 4.0 AND uSequencer 3.5.x
New Example Scenes, a total of 7 new example scenes, covering Prefab Support, and Gameplay => Cutscene Transitions.
Updated Documentation.
Further optimisations to the Editor.
Added a new Load Scene Additively Event.

Bug Fixes:
All Events now work without Affected Objects
Fix for a couple of unhandled Exceptions.
General Bug Fixes.

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Well, that summed it up nicely... because I am looking to do things like dismemberment, model swapping... and an angry mob in a town square... Perhaps you can show a demo on how to handle stuff like dismemberment

 

Hey Neptune_Imagine,

We would love to do such a thing for you. Fire us an email over to support@wellfired.com and we'll talk about it further

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Hi,

I'm trying out the evaluation version of uSequencer with a view to buy, and I have a question. Is it possible to apply say a rotation additively? Example:
I have created a test cutscene to rotate an object. Works fine. But then, the object may move around the scene via physics, and if I try to start the cutscene, the object snaps to the rotation that is baked in the cutscene and animates from there. I would like it to take on the current rotation as the first keyframe, and animate relative to that.

Many thanks,
Paul

 

Hey Paul,

You probably just need to whap your object to the origin and use the localRotation and localPosition instead of Rotation and Position, this will apply animations with respect to the objects current transformation.

One thing I should not however, is that Unity does not like it when you modify the transform of a Non-Kinematic Rigid Body, so if you're applying the transform to a physical object it may not work, regardless of what you do. There is more information on that topic here.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Thank you for the prompt reply. I will try that.

 

Hey there... an email has been sent

 

Hello everyone,

Version 1.184 was released to the asset store last night, grab it if you'd like some Prefab Support, or more sample scenes with your uSequencer!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello everyone,

we've just pushed a new version of uSequencer. (V1.185) to the Asset Store, this version mainly consisting of Bug Fixes, which have been outlined below.

As usual, you can try before you buy at the uSequencer Website.

Bug Fixes
Dragging within the uSequencer window, would sometimes cause the scrub bar to be pulled.
Starting a cutscene no longer sets all properties to the values stored at 0 in the cutscene.
You can now release the mouse outside of the editor window, you no longer have to mouse up within the window.
Fix for the null reference exception that sometimes happens, when playing with the animation curves.
Sometimes when scrubbing, keyframes would be accidentally added to your sequence.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

This is now available for everyone to download from the Asset Store!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

I've recentily bought uSequencer. I don't know if I'm missing some points, but is it possible to zoom in the Timeline Pane vertically? When animating Gameobject with no properties the curves area gets too small.

 

Hello Jandaia,

Zooming vertical would certainly be possible to implement, we've had a couple of users request this functionality, we're just looking into the best way to fit this into uSequencers interface in an intuitive manor.

You can zoom faster in the scrub pane, in one of two ways.
1) Change the default zoom speed in the uSequencer preferences (Edit -> uSequencer Preferences).
2) Hold down the control key when you zoom for much faster zooming.

I hope this information helps you.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello all,

We've just pushed V1.186 to the asset store!

New Features
Full support for event based animation weighting and layering through animations, as well as playing animations additively.
Exposed an API, so users can record sequences without accessing the uSequencer Editor Window.
Editor Performance increases.
Runtime Performance increases.

Bug Fixes
Various Bug Fixes.

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Version 1.186 is now available in the asset store for you all to pickup and use!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

nice update, I like the performance increases

 

Hi,

Recently i tried to animate a single game object with 2 sequences, however the animation seems to conflict each other.

Using unity 4 and usequencer free version here.

 

Hello KillQ87,

Could you please elaborate a bit more. It's hard to understand what you mean, by conflict each other.

Do you mean that you created two sequences, with a property timeline each, and you're trying to play them at synchronously ?

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hi there,

I am animating a single game object in 2 sequences. So the game object moves from A > B > C

Sequence one would be moving from A > B
Sequence two would be moving from B > C

However when i set up A > B its fine, when i set up the second sequence B > C, the first sequence will be in different positions.

 

Hello KillQ87,

Unfortunately, I still really don't understand your problem. You're making movement, A->B->C, and you have it in two separate sequences. A->B and B->C? So far, so good.

What exactly do you mean by the first sequence will be in different positions? At runtime? Edit time? Are you trying to play two sequences at once, and hope that they will blend together? I guess you should play one sequence, and then when that is finished, play the next one.

Are you animating the localPosition and localRotation?

We'd definitely love to help you resolve this issue, please get back in touch, and we'll do our best.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Cheers Lars, we'll obviously keep going with these, since we're supporting every official platform, from WebPlayer to iOS. It's really critical that uSequencer delivers on the performance front.

Regards,
Terry

 

Hi ArtOfSettling,

I was using Transform/Position to move game elements around. It affects both runtime and edit time. I am also not playing both sequences together.

Let me clarify again, there are only 2 sequences, played one by one. The animations are to move one single game element from positions A to B in the first sequence, and from B to C in the second sequence.

No localPosition or localRotation was used.

Will make a clip later to show you in awhile.

 

Please can I know if it is compatible with Unity 4?

 

@Zozo2099: I'm using it in Unity 4.0 right now. So far, I see no issues that I would attribute to Unity 4.0.

I bought this a short while ago and it really makes it much less painful to set up cut-scenes in Unity. Especially custom events are proving extremely useful in producing a tidy timeline that lists events by name instead of just plotting out interpolation curves. Great work!

Whilst building a small example project to get up to speed with uSequencer, I did come across a few rough edges:

1. Event boxes on the timeline always have the same size. It would be great if they reflected the length of an event (I've seen the box change size with the USMatchObjectEvent once, so maybe this should already be the case but something is going wrong for me?)


2. When selecting event boxes, I often accidentally move them. Couldn't these have a safety threshold where they only start moving after the mouse has been dragged by at least 4 pixels or so?

3. When I do move an event box around, the ProcessEvent() method is not called, so to see the changes in the animation, I have to scrub the timeline forth and back a tiny amount.

4. It seems I cannot animate properties on events. I had a text event in mind, with an opacity property that I could animate while the event takes place. This might be a bit difficult to implement, but still would be nice to have

5. Tweaking paths for GameObjects would be much easier if I could see and move the keyframes around in the scene. Though it is already easy to achieve this by combining an external spline path library with a custom event, direct support by uSequencer would be a bonus.

 

Apologies for the delay with the response here Zozo2099, we're currently on holiday and the office is closed until the 7th January, we'll still check, but feedback will be a bit more sporadic than usual. Apologies for that.

We can confirm that uSequencer is fully functional with Unity 4.0 and Unit 3.5.x. We've chosen to support the newer version and retain support for the older version as we don't want to segment our users, or discontinue support for the majority of our users.

I hope that answers your question,
Regards,
Well Fired

 

Apologies for the delay with the response here Cygon4, we're currently on holiday and the office is closed until the 7th January, we'll still check, but feedback will be a bit more sporadic than usual. Apologies for that.

We're really glad that you like uSequencer and that you're enjoying working with it. After all, making an awesome, easy to use tool was one of our primary intentions

I'll try my best to answer your questions one at a time:
1) Yes, Event boxes should be linked to the duration of the event. You have rightly noted that some indeed are. For instance, Play Animation Events, Fade Screen Events and Display Image Events. It is also true that not every event has a valid duration, Debug Message events, for instance. It might well be that some of the events that do use a Duration have been overlooked, these certainly shouldn't all be the same size, and if you know of any please let us know which events and we'll be certain to update them.
2) I guess we must have incredibly un-sensitive mice, because we've never noticed this problem, it will however be a quick fix and as such, we'll probably implement this right away and add an option in the uSequencer Preferences.
3) The ProcessEvent method should be called, and we apologise for this inconvenience, ideally, the events would update in exactly the same way the keyframes do when they are manipulated. This should be a quick fix.
4) you should be able to do this, you'll need to find the event. (It's within Unity's Hierarchy). You'll find this in your hierarchy, if you click on the event in the uSequencer window, the event will ping in the hierarchy, drag that bad boy into the uSequencer window and animate away!
5) You should be able to see the paths in the scene view (when the property timeline is expanded in uSequencer), but you're right in that the keyframes won't appear and be manipulatable. This would definitely be a nice feature to have, and we'll look into this.

Unfortunately, we'll still be out of office until the 7th January, but we'll look into implementing these features for you as soon as possible.

 

I like usequencer, though just starting to get a handle on it. Using Unity 3.5.7.

I'm able to automatically generate a flythru at the beginning of a scene.

How do i disable the usequence camera and assign my own camera at the end of the flythru?

as well, i want to turn on some control functions on the new camera at the same time.
e.g. camera follow, etc.

thanks,

shwa

 

Hello shwa,

Do you use any other tools for Unity, such as Playmaker or uScript? Both of these are integrated with unity, so they'd probably be something you could look into, if you're not a coder. Though you should be able to do both of the things you want with uSequencer.

Basically, you'd want to add some Enable Object events with an event timeline in uSequencer. Put an event timeline on your camera object and add an Enable object event. You'll want to put this event right at the end of the cutscene, this should turn on your new camera, and any scripts that are attached to it. You'll want to do the same thing, for your cutscene camera, though you'll likely want to disable your cutscene camera as opposed to enabling it.

uSequencer also has built in support for camera cuts. You'll see this with the observer timeline, and there is a handy tutorial video for you to watch here :

I hope this answers your question, but if not, feel free to ask away.

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Hello everyone!

We just wanted to let you all know that uSequencer V 1.189 has been submitted to the Asset Store.

As usual, you can try before you buy here : http://www.usequencer.com/purchase

New Features in 1.189:
Hot key support! (The same as the Animation Window)
All Event Boxes will now autosize to the duration by default, though you can override this behaviour, if needed by implementing a custom Editor.
ProcessEvent is now called when dragging an event box around in the editor.
Performance Increases

Bug Fixes:
Various

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Tx for the info Well Fired.
I'm still stuck.
I've got a sequence Camera 8.
Added an event timeline.

What specific event in the event timeline list do i need to choose to turn the camera 8 off, and turn on my other camera?
I'm trying toggle object, which i'm guessing will allow me to turn off Camera 8, but can't figure out what i need to use to turn on a different camera.

thanks.

shwa

 

Hello shwa,

If you decide not to use the Observer timeline (as the video above), you can also do the camera enable / disable with uSequencer Event Timelines.

So, for instance, if you want to enable camera 2 and disable camera 1.
1) Add both camera 1 and camera 2 to your uSequencer sequence, by dragging them into the uSequencer window.
2) Add Event timelines to both of these cameras, in the uSequencer window. Right click on camera 1 -> Add Timeline -> Event, Right click on camera 2 -> Add Timeline -> Event.
3) Add an enable object event to camera 1. Right click on the event timeline for camera 1 Add Event -> object -> ToggleObject.
4) Click your new event and in the inspector, check the enabled flag is set to false.
5) Add an enable object to camera 2. Right click on the event timeline for camera 2 Add Event -> object -> ToggleObject.
6) Click your new event and in the inspector, check the enabled flag is set to true.

Now, when these events are hit, the cameras will change. Be sure to set them to an appropriate time. If you're looking for an instant switch at the end of your timeline, set both events to have the same FireTime.

I hope those instructions where easy to follow, but if not, or any part confuses you, please get back in touch.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hi!,

I'm really interested in usequencer but would like to make some questions before buying.

1) What tweening engine is it using? I have Hotween built into my game and won't like for example itween there (slow as hell and memory angry). This is mainly because I aim mobile platforms.
2) Could it be used to create guided tutorials? I know this could seem a dumb question but I would like to know if anyone have used to accomplish this. I'm a programmer there's not problem running parts of the tutorials when actions are done, but would like if it could fit in this scenario.
4) Can sequences be ran at will? Can be done without coding? My Artist would be happy if this can be accomplished.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hello.

1) We use our own Tweening Engine. This is built with the Unity Animation System in mind, so you'll see great performance. (It's very efficient on mobile devices, Memory wise, it is in no way Memory Hungry, what you need is what is there, nothing extra). We are, also constantly improving performance with our updates. Feel free to try out the free version, you will not be disappointed.
2) uSequencer is incredibly flexible and you can extend it to your own needs, adding custom events to do whatever you want (Interfacing with your own systems for example), you can also use the large selection of built-in events to interface with Unity's built in functionality. You can communicate, from uSequencer to code, and vice versa. The exposed API is very clean. As well as this, if you're using PlayMaker, or uScript, uSequencer has some out of the box support.
You'd likely want to create small sequences and using logic (coded, or Visually Scripted), call through and play these smaller sequences.
3) You can run a sequence when you like, you can do this in game, with the uSequencer Window, or in the editor.
If you want to integrate this into your own tools in some way, there is a simple API. it's as simple as calling a Play function on the sequence object.
As well, we have PlayMaker and uScript support for the playback of Sequences.

I hope this answered your questions, but if you need more information, ask away!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hi!,

Thanks a lot for the answers. You´re really kind.

Just one more questions, would it be a good option to migrate from HotWeen to uSequencer tweening engine?.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hello, unfortunately, our internal system IS available for you to use and manipulate, but I wouldn't advise you to switch over. It is specially optimised for uSequencer.

Regards,
Well Fired

 

Ok thanks.

 

Hello everyone!

Version 1.189 of uSequencer is now available for you all to pick up in the Asset Store!

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello,



Can we use mecanim animations as event with Usequencer ?

 

Hi,

I just purchased uSequence and I am going through the docs.
I have a few basic questions:
1)How can I launch a sequence from script?
2)I'd like a Camera to follow a path, but be able to look around(only rotations). How can I achieve this?

Thanks!

Stephane

 

Hello,

There are currently no Mecanim events for uSequencer, simply because we're maintaining backwards compatibility with pre 4.0 versions of Unity. We are however working on a separate 4.0 extension that will include Unity 4.0 events, Mecanim Animation support is in there.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello Stephane,

These tasks you're trying to achieve should be incredibly simple, so I'll outline the steps below.

1) Are you sure you need to write a script to do this? We provide a selection of 'Getting Started Prefabs', which will trigger sequences for you. For example, inside the package you'll find some prefabs to trigger cutscenes on scene load, on trigger volume enter, and a selection of others.

If you're still sure you need a little script, you could write something like this :

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public class StephanesCustomSequencePlayer : MonoBehaviour
3. {
4.     public USSequencer sequence = null;
5.     void Start()
6.     {
7.         if(sequence)
8.             sequence.Play();
9.     }
10. }
11.  

2) You can achieve this quite easily, simply make a camera path, using a property timeline. Here is a little tutorial on how to do that :

and then add the MouseLookScript to your camera (It's provided by Unity).

We'll try and get a small example scene of this running and I'll post a link here, it would also be useful for you to see it as reference.

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Hello Stephane,

We've created a small sample scene. The scene has a very simple cutscene, the cutscene moves the camera along a path, and rotates it a little bit. This cutscene loops.
You'll notice that you can also move the mouse around a little and the camera should move slightly.

We hope this reference scene is useful, it will also be included in the package for future reference.

View attachment $TestLookAt.zip

Regards,
Well Fired.

 

Wow ! Thanks man!