Cinematics using Matinee

Game Development 2

Goals

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Create a Matinee to create a cut scene for your game.

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What are matinees?

The Matinee animation tool provides the ability to animate the properties of Actors over time, to create either dynamic gameplay or cinematic in-game sequences. The system is based on the use of specialized animation tracks in which you can place keyframes to set the values of certain properties of the Actors in the level. The Matinee Editor is similar to the non-linear editors used for video editing, making it familiar to video professionals.

Activity 1

Creating a Cinematic Intro

Setting up the Level

1. Create a new level called “Cinematic”
1. Use the Default Template
2. Change the Game Mode to the Default “GameMode”
2. Delete the PlayerStart from the Outliner
3. Drag an animation sequence of your actor onto the level floor.
4. Test your game

Making the Cinematic

• Use the Cinematics drop down to add a Matinee
• Right click under Tracks to “Add a New Camera Group”
• Name it Camera 1
• Back on the Camera Group
• Add Key
• Rotate and move the Camera to the desired view in the main game viewport
• In the Matinee
• Move down the time timeline and add a new key
• Rotate and move the Camera to the desired view in the main game viewport

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Making the Cinematic

• Right Click under the camera group and add a New Director Group
• In this director group timeline add a key
• Select the camera group you made in the prior step

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3. Pressing play in the Matinee will preview the cinematic in your game viewport.

Activity 1

Playing the Cinematic

Playing the Cinematic

• Open the level Blueprint
• Create a reference to your matinee actor
• From the referenced matinee create a play cinematic node
• Attach the play node to the “Event BeginPlay”
• Test your level
• How can you make your game transition to the next level?