You should be able to rotate along all 3 axis using the rotate tool (E). As far as I know that allows you to change all 3 axis, and rotate the model in whichever orientation you prefer.
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Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
Hey guys! With the public release of patch 1.5, I thought it would be a good time for a tutorial on the cinematic editor. This brand-new module has a more complicated interface than some of the other editors, but don't let it scare you off- this is a very powerful tool that you can now take advantage of. The editor is far more powerful than what you're going to read about here, but this a great entry-level guide for those who have never used the cutscene editor before. A big thank you goes out to Artestru, one of the Blizzard devs, who helped me work out a quite a few issues I was having with the module. So without further adieu, let's get started :)
Getting your bearings
The UI in the cinematic editor can be a little confusing at first. If you've ever used 3ds Max, you'll immediately recognize a few of the elements. If not, they're all explained below.
The Library is your go-to file browser. It lets you access any of the files in your map (things like actors and sounds) and place them into your scene
The Scene List is a list of all your different cutscenes. This is useful if you have more than one cutscene in your map.
The Viewports are your window into the scene. They let you see exactly what your scene will look like at any given time. Note that these are not 3 different scenes, they're just 3 different views on the same cutscene.
The Timeline allows you to move around to different times in your scene. For example, your marine may start on the left side of the map and walk to the right over a few seconds. The timeline lets you set your current time. The red slider here shows what your current time is.
The Timeline Tree is a list of every object contained inside your scene. This is where all the pieces of your scene will go. Using the scroll bar here will also scroll the timeline.
The box on the right labeled "not important for now" is your properties pane. It holds all of the different properties for various objects in your scene. We won't be using it for this tutorial, but just know that it allows you to control some very precise (and important) properties that you can't get to anywhere else.
You got that? None of the specifics are too important right now, but you can use the picture above to figure out what I'm referring to throughout the rest of the tutorial.
Configuring things
Before we start making our scene, we need to get a few important things set up.
First of all, go to file >> map important. Make sure all the options there are checked.
If you don't have 3 viewports like in the screenshot, or you would rather have only one or two (I highly recommend you always have at least 2, you will see why later), you can go to Window >> Show Panes and set your viewport count.
Go to Render >> Show Ground and make sure that 'terrain' is checked.
Go to view >> Camera Controls and set it to 'editor'. This makes the camera control like it does in the editor (RMB to move, hold ctrl to rotate)
It's important to note that, by default, the cutscene editor's only scene is the previewer. This is what's used when you want to preview actors or models. This previewer is the default scene, but is not saved and can't be used as a cutscene. But we're smart mappers, so we're going to create our own scene. Go to the file menu and choose New Cutscene. Select yes when you are asked if you would like to add the cutscene to the map (Cutscenes are just xml files, so this automatically imports the cutscene into your map when you're done).
You will note the new scene in your Scene list. Right click on your new scene (probably called Untitled Scene 1) and choose ''Activate Cutscene'.
Adding actors
Okay, so now we've got things set up and we've also got our very own scene. But nothing's really there, it's just a blank slate. First things first, we need to find our terrain if it's not already there. So click on your main viewport and scroll out until you can see your map's terrain. Once you find it, use the right mouse button to move around and use Ctrl + Mouse to rotate. Pick a spot on your terrain to place our scene.
We want to place a marine. So find the marine in the library (under the models tab, in the terran units folder) and click the 'add' button to plop it down into the scene. If all goes well, you should see a marine standing around in your scene. Chances are he's not quite where you want him though, and that's when manipulation comes in. There's a few ways to manipulate objects- things get a bit tricky, though, because we can use all 3 axis instead of just 2. X and Y are the same as they always are- your position along a plane (in this case, the ground). Z is your height (towards the sky). In most 3d editor, red arrows move x, green move y, and blue move z.
Select the marine in the timeline tree if it's not already selected
Press W on your keyboard to activate the movement controls. You'll see 3 arrows pop up.
You can click and drag any arrow to move in it's direction only. It's possible to move in 2 axis at once (like x and y) by grabbing the square that connects them, but it's not needed for our purposes
Move your marine to a spot that looks good, then press E on your keyboard to open the rotation tool.
You can use the red, green, and blue circles to rotate your marine on that axis
Get your marine facing the way you want
As a little bonus tip, Ctrl-Shift-Click will auto-move your selected actor to the point you clicked.
Controlling Cameras
Great, now you've got a marine that stands around and does nothing. But progress is progress, and we're certainly making some. ;) But there's a problem. We haven't created a camera for the player to look through. And a good cinematic always uses fancy cameras! So to do this, we'll need two things- Cameras, and a Director.
Move your viewport to the view you would like your player to have
Using the object menu at the top, choose 'add node' and then 'game camera'. This will create a camera, normally in the same position as you're in right now.
If you want to be extra sure your camera is lined up (or change it later), line up your view port, right click on your camera in the timeline tree, and choose 'set camera'.
You can (and should) rename your camera to something that lets you know what it's looking at by right clicking and choosing rename
Go ahead and make a second camera just for the heck of it. Place it somewhere else that's looking at your scene from a different angle.
Now we've got some cameras in our scene, but they can't do much themselves. We need what's called a director. This will direct the player's camera to wherever it needs to be during the cutscene. So go to object, add node, add director.
Right click on the director in the timeline tree and choose 'Add active camera node'. Although you can, don't add any more active camera nodes (it can cause some problems). This camera node will control our camera for the rest of the cutscene.
Make sure the red slider on the timeline is at the very far left (the start of our little movie). That's where we want to apply this camera
Right click your active camera node, choose 'add camera cut', and then choose your first camera
Slide the red bar down a little ways on the timeline. You're telling the editor when you want your 2nd camera to be applied (farther to the right is later in the scene, as shown by the numbers above it).
Right click your active camera node, choose 'add camera cut', and then choose your second camera. You'll see it's been added into your timeline.
So all of this is fine an dandy, but we want to actually see the cutscene from the player's (or camera's) eye. We could just press Ctr + D to open the director window, and then use spacebar to stop and start our scene. But we can do better than that, since we've got multiple viewports. Left click on one of your alternate (smaller) view ports, and then press D. The text at the top will then display 'director'. This window, from now on, will always show what the player would be seeing at any given moment. You can still use your main viewports to move around and edit the scene, but you'll always see the cutscene from the camera's perspective as well. You can move that red slider bar in the timeline to preview your scene.
Animating
Okay, so now you've got a fancy camera and a marine that does nothing. That's cool, but it would be cooler if something actually happened. There's 2 things that I'm going to show you how to do in this segment. First, using animation blocks. And second, using key frames. Both of these sound a lot scarier than they really are. If you use any type of 3d editor, you'll probably already know what both are.
Animation Blocks
The cutscene editor does not allow you to edit the models themselves like you can in 3ds max or blender. That means you can only use the pre-built animations that come with starcraft models (or custom models if you happen to have any). We can bring our scenes to life to using animation blocks, which are 'chunks' of animation. For example, most starcraft units have animation blocks like move, attack, stand, fidget, and spell.
Select the marine object in the timeline tree and make sure the dropdown is expanded (the little + icon next to 'marine'). You will see a blue bar that says 'Stand' to the right in the timeline.
The blue are shows at which points in time our marine will be playing- in this case, the entire animation. By default, these animations will automatically fill the entire timeline.
Let's turn off that auto-fill. Right click on the blue animation block and then uncheck 'lock to end'. Then click and drag the right end of the blue block to the left. This will make the block shorter. Make it as short as you would like it- Say, a few seconds.
Move your red time slider right after the blue animation finishes. This is when your next animation will start.
Right click 'Animation Layer' in the timeline tree and choose 'Add Animation Block'. This will throw another animation block just to the right of your red slider. Again, you can resize it to your liking.
Right click on the second animation block and choose 'change animation'. Set this to stand dance. Go ahead and drag your red slider to the start, and then press spacebar to play it. Fancy, eh?
If you need to move these blue blocks past each other, you can turn on 'ghost mode' using the buttons on the left. This lets you move animation blocks past each other until you turn it back off.
Good stuff. You can do a lot with animation blocks, but those were the basics.
Key Frames
Key frames are a bit of an unusual concept to get your head around. But really they're just that- key aka important) frames of the animation, that set the pace of everything else. Key-framing is when you place several key points in your timeline, and your models will automatically move between them as time goes on. What exactly does that mean? Here's an example:
Say I start my animation with my marine on the left of the screen. I place a key frame here. Then I move to 5 seconds into my timeline, move the marine to the right, and place a key frame there. Now I have 2 key frames- one with the marine on the left, and one 5 seconds later with the marine on the right. The cutscene editor will now (automatically) move your marine from the left to the right over those 5 seconds. Luckily for you, it'll move the marine over 5 seconds automatically. The autokey tool will automatically place this key frames for you. Hopefully this will become a little bit more clear in a minute.
Let's do it ourselves. Set the timeline to the very beginning, and then move your marine over to the left side of the screen using our move tool (select marine, press W).
Make sure our main viewport is selected, and then press the big button with a circle on it (or press N). This will turn on autokey mode. You'll learn to love it ;)
The autokey tool is now on. Every change you make from now on will create a key frame, until you turn it back off
Grab that red slider and put it a few seconds later. We're going to add a second frame a few seconds into the cutscene.
Now select your marine again, and drag him over to the right. Once you've moved him, press N to turn autokey off. You should now have 2 key frames, one at the start, and one 5 seconds in.
Go ahead and play your animation (drag the red slider back, the press space). Pretty cool, huh?
Autokey doesn't just work with moving- it also works with rotation, scale, cameras, and pretty much everything else. I'm sure you can see some of the possibilities.
My end result...
Here's a little cinematic I made with the cutscene editor, using only the tools and tricks described here. I did add a soundtrack (Just add it like you would anything else, using the library at the top). This uses a combination of key frames and animations to move units around and unburrow the hydralisk.
Warning: My computer is terrible, and can't record to save it's life. It's very laggy. It's not actually like this in the game. The weird glitching at the very start was a result of my video recording, not the cutscene editor.
Closing
This new cutscene module is very powerful. It can do tons of things that we haven't even mentioned here. Blizzard's documentation for the entire module is available here for those interested. As always, feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions, comments, or tutorial requests.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Here's this tutorial's random factoid: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically valid sentence in the English language. No, really. I'm not kidding.
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Curse Premium@OutsiderXE: Go
Glad to hear you got it working, that's definitely weird. It sounds more like a bug than an error your end, though.
@Doubleclick123: Go
No idea at all O.o Sorry about that. You might try posting your issue in the battlenet editor forums here.
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Curse Premium@Bilxor: Go
You should be able to rotate along all 3 axis using the rotate tool (E). As far as I know that allows you to change all 3 axis, and rotate the model in whichever orientation you prefer.
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Curse PremiumReserved just in case ;)
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Curse PremiumMaking Your First Cutscene
Introduction
Hey guys! With the public release of patch 1.5, I thought it would be a good time for a tutorial on the cinematic editor. This brand-new module has a more complicated interface than some of the other editors, but don't let it scare you off- this is a very powerful tool that you can now take advantage of. The editor is far more powerful than what you're going to read about here, but this a great entry-level guide for those who have never used the cutscene editor before. A big thank you goes out to Artestru, one of the Blizzard devs, who helped me work out a quite a few issues I was having with the module. So without further adieu, let's get started :)
Getting your bearings
The UI in the cinematic editor can be a little confusing at first. If you've ever used 3ds Max, you'll immediately recognize a few of the elements. If not, they're all explained below.
You got that? None of the specifics are too important right now, but you can use the picture above to figure out what I'm referring to throughout the rest of the tutorial.
Configuring things
Before we start making our scene, we need to get a few important things set up.
It's important to note that, by default, the cutscene editor's only scene is the previewer. This is what's used when you want to preview actors or models. This previewer is the default scene, but is not saved and can't be used as a cutscene. But we're smart mappers, so we're going to create our own scene. Go to the file menu and choose New Cutscene. Select yes when you are asked if you would like to add the cutscene to the map (Cutscenes are just xml files, so this automatically imports the cutscene into your map when you're done).
You will note the new scene in your Scene list. Right click on your new scene (probably called Untitled Scene 1) and choose ''Activate Cutscene'.
Adding actors
Okay, so now we've got things set up and we've also got our very own scene. But nothing's really there, it's just a blank slate. First things first, we need to find our terrain if it's not already there. So click on your main viewport and scroll out until you can see your map's terrain. Once you find it, use the right mouse button to move around and use Ctrl + Mouse to rotate. Pick a spot on your terrain to place our scene.
Controlling Cameras
Great, now you've got a marine that stands around and does nothing. But progress is progress, and we're certainly making some. ;) But there's a problem. We haven't created a camera for the player to look through. And a good cinematic always uses fancy cameras! So to do this, we'll need two things- Cameras, and a Director.
Now we've got some cameras in our scene, but they can't do much themselves. We need what's called a director. This will direct the player's camera to wherever it needs to be during the cutscene. So go to object, add node, add director.
So all of this is fine an dandy, but we want to actually see the cutscene from the player's (or camera's) eye. We could just press Ctr + D to open the director window, and then use spacebar to stop and start our scene. But we can do better than that, since we've got multiple viewports. Left click on one of your alternate (smaller) view ports, and then press D. The text at the top will then display 'director'. This window, from now on, will always show what the player would be seeing at any given moment. You can still use your main viewports to move around and edit the scene, but you'll always see the cutscene from the camera's perspective as well. You can move that red slider bar in the timeline to preview your scene.
Animating
Okay, so now you've got a fancy camera and a marine that does nothing. That's cool, but it would be cooler if something actually happened. There's 2 things that I'm going to show you how to do in this segment. First, using animation blocks. And second, using key frames. Both of these sound a lot scarier than they really are. If you use any type of 3d editor, you'll probably already know what both are.
Animation Blocks
The cutscene editor does not allow you to edit the models themselves like you can in 3ds max or blender. That means you can only use the pre-built animations that come with starcraft models (or custom models if you happen to have any). We can bring our scenes to life to using animation blocks, which are 'chunks' of animation. For example, most starcraft units have animation blocks like move, attack, stand, fidget, and spell.
Good stuff. You can do a lot with animation blocks, but those were the basics.
Key Frames
Key frames are a bit of an unusual concept to get your head around. But really they're just that- key aka important) frames of the animation, that set the pace of everything else. Key-framing is when you place several key points in your timeline, and your models will automatically move between them as time goes on. What exactly does that mean? Here's an example:
Say I start my animation with my marine on the left of the screen. I place a key frame here. Then I move to 5 seconds into my timeline, move the marine to the right, and place a key frame there. Now I have 2 key frames- one with the marine on the left, and one 5 seconds later with the marine on the right. The cutscene editor will now (automatically) move your marine from the left to the right over those 5 seconds. Luckily for you, it'll move the marine over 5 seconds automatically. The autokey tool will automatically place this key frames for you. Hopefully this will become a little bit more clear in a minute.
Autokey doesn't just work with moving- it also works with rotation, scale, cameras, and pretty much everything else. I'm sure you can see some of the possibilities.
My end result...
Here's a little cinematic I made with the cutscene editor, using only the tools and tricks described here. I did add a soundtrack (Just add it like you would anything else, using the library at the top). This uses a combination of key frames and animations to move units around and unburrow the hydralisk.
Warning: My computer is terrible, and can't record to save it's life. It's very laggy. It's not actually like this in the game. The weird glitching at the very start was a result of my video recording, not the cutscene editor.
Closing
This new cutscene module is very powerful. It can do tons of things that we haven't even mentioned here. Blizzard's documentation for the entire module is available here for those interested. As always, feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions, comments, or tutorial requests.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Here's this tutorial's random factoid: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically valid sentence in the English language. No, really. I'm not kidding.