Last year, Unity released a suite of virtual production and cinematic tools, followed by the launch of a closed beta program to gather information on what creators need to realize or animate films and television shows. And we’ve been thrilled by the success our users are seeing.
Now the Unity 2022 series gives us the opportunity to update and refresh many of these capabilities. Read on for the latest updates on Recorder, Sequences, Python, Live Capture, and FBX Exporter.
When creating linear content like a film sequence, animation, or cinematic, the desired end state is often a video. That’s where Recorder comes in.
Recorder enables you to export what’s in your Timeline and Game view – ultimately, time-based data, which in most cases means video and still images. However, it can also export animation data, audio, and intermediate Arbitrary Output Variables (AOVs) for compositing or effects work.
Key feature improvements include:
For this release, we focused on movie quality, codec support, and overall performance. We also updated our new accumulation motion-blur feature based on your recent feedback.
Here’s a summary of these updates:
Timelines in movies are different from timelines in games. In games, time can branch off in many directions. Sometimes you need to trigger multiple timelines at once or interrupt a timeline because, well, things happen. This can lead to some complicated wiring. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the in-Editor Timeline is optimized for an entirely different set of use cases than what a filmmaker might want.
A linear story is different. Everything happens in a predictable order, so most of the process can be automated, and many of the complex steps eliminated. You can organize your project using industry-standard terms and folder structures, just as Sequences does. It accelerates the creation of your cinematic while simultaneously maintaining flexibility.
Key feature improvements include:
In this release, we started to address user feedback around scalability, especially when it comes to collaborating on larger projects with more assets.
See a summary of these updates:
Python is the most widely used scripting language in the animation and VFX industries due to its flexibility and simple syntax. In the vast majority of studio pipelines, toolchains are connected using Python, and all major Digital Content Creation (DCC) apps ship with Python scripting APIs (e.g., Maya, Blender, Houdini, and Nuke).
With Python in the Unity Editor, you can:
Key feature improvements include:
This release of Python focuses on stabilization, updating dependencies, improving pip access, and ensuring cross-platform support.
Here’s a summary of the updates:
FBX is at the heart of model and animation import into the Unity ecosystem. In a film environment, however, it’s often more useful to roundtrip this data between Unity and other programs. The FBX Exporter enables a straightforward workflow for sending geometry, lights, cameras, and animation data to any application that supports the FBX format.
Key feature improvements include:
While listening to user feedback, we decided to focus this release on extending the Export API.
See a summary of these updates:
Live Capture is a core tool that supports motion capture in live performances. The Live Capture package is built to be extensible and act as a platform for a wide range of motion-capture systems.
To make everything work well together, Live Capture incorporates timecode synchronization, with support for sources such as TentacleSync and NTP servers.
In 2023.1, there are two versions of Live Capture available:
Key feature improvements include:
It is now easier than ever to shoot and review takes. Thanks to improved integration with Timeline and a simpler way to animate cameras, you’ve got it covered.
With Live Capture 4.0.0, you can leverage:
Prior to 4.0.0, Live Capture 3.0.0 took existing features and made them more powerful and intuitive to use. It is now part of the 2022.2 Tech Stream (with minimum Editor version 2020.3.16f1).
With Live Capture 3.0.0, you can leverage:
Discover how Unity can help bring your next production to life by joining our beta program for early access to the latest artist tools and features. If you need more bespoke support, reach out to our solutions team.