There appears to be some changes in the Cutscene Editor:
The Properties Window is now a pane by default. It looks like you can make it a window again under the Window menu.
The Create Cutscene action no longer requires position, and they added a new Create Cutscene at Position action. Presumably this lets you not worry about the magic 64,64 position.
There's a new "Active for Shot" menu under models and lights. It looks like it lets you specify a certain object is only visible when a specific camera is active. That should make it convenient to set up lights and models on a per-camera basis without having to worry about manually hiding them (hiding models is a common "movie magic" trick when things are in the way of a good shot).
That's all I've found so far. Hopefully bugs and crashes have also been fixed. I'd guess if there are these changes in the Cutscene Editor, there's likely also changes throughout the rest of it (but probably subtle changes and/or bug fixes).
I played around a bit with the trigger side of cutscenes, and there's some cool stuff here. There's two sides of it - triggers that let you control the cutscene and events that let you respond to the cutscene.
Create Cutscene: This will make the cutscene and can auto play immediately. Use Last Created Cutscene to get the index for future use.
Play/Pause Cutscene: Standard playback control.
Set Cutscene Time: Standard "go to time". Useful for restarting the cutscene.
Stop Cutscene: Kills the cutscene. After it's stopped, it no longer exists.
Go To Cutscene Bookmark: Go to a bookmark in your cutscene. Bookmarks are added to the Director in the Cutscene Editor.
Go To Next Bookmark: Go to whatever bookmark is the next one in time.
Set Cutscene Filter: This one is neat. Each object in the cutscene can have a filter set. If there's a filter on the cutscene, it needs to match in order for that object to play back. I tried it with two lights on a marine - one green and one blue. I then gave the two a filter named after the color. When there's no filter, they both light up. When the filter is "green" only the green one shows, etc.. It seems like you can do some cool stuff here.
Set Global Cutscene Filter: Same as above, but for all cutscenes.
Wait for Cutscene to End: Standard Wait, but for cutscenes.
Then there are the events. I didn't realize they were there at first because there's no cutscene label (bug?). You can find them by searching, though:
Cutscene Bookmark Fired: This event fires when you pass a specific bookmark. So let's say you have a bookmark named "test" (via the property Bookmark Name in the Cutscene Editor). If you have this event that fires on the bookmark "test", and you have it spit out a debug message, it will display as soon as that bookmark is passed.
Cutscene EndScene Fired: Odd name, but it fires when the cutscene finishes.
It seems to me that there's some neat things you can do with the bookmark event. Let's say you wanted a cutscene to loop during an idle period while waiting for the user to press a button. When bookmark "loop end" is fired, you can tell it to go to bookmark "loop start", causing a loop, whenever the variable "loop" is true. Then when a button is pressed, you can switch the "loop" variable to false, so the next time the bookmark is passed, it won't go to "loop start" and will instead just play through. Heck, you can probably extend this all the way out to some kind of choose your own adventure system if you went crazy.
Hey guys, I noticed there wasn't a whole lot of discussion on the new Cutscene Editor, so I thought I'd take some time to learn how to use it and share what I've figured out since I'm a long-time lurker.
To start the Cutscene Editor, click Modules->Cutscenes. You'll notice the window starts a little funny, so resize it larger.
To add a new cutscene to your map, go to File->New Scene and select Yes to add it to your map. This will add a new Untitled Scene under Document Files. All scenes that live inside your map are listed under Document Files. The (Previewer) cutscene appears to be just an empty workspace for previewing animations like we used to in the old previewer window. It doesn't save with your map, so make sure you don't work in the (Previewer) scene!
Also, it looks like selecting things in that scene list will show them in the timeline below. For now, expand Document Files and select UntitledScene1.
Once you've added a new scene to your map, you can rename it if you'd like to something more meaningful. Next, we can add models to the cutscene. In the top left is an asset library - search for the model you want (Marine) and double-click it to add (just like the old Previewer). You'll see the marine has been added to the center of your screen. If you can't see him, hit C a bunch of times until the camera says "Game".
For fun, let's make him dance. Right-click the blue animation bar and choose Change Animation->Stand Dance. You can scrub the timeline ruler to see how it looks and use spacebar to play/pause.
You probably want a camera to make your scene more interesting. Click Object->Add Node->Game Camera to add a camera looking out your current view. As a refresher, all camera movement on the mouse is with the Middle Mouse button - use Shift, Ctrl, Alt, etc. to change the direction you move. Now rename the camera to "Start" so we don't get confused.
The camera won't do anything by itself, though. You need a Director to tell the cutscene which camera should be active. Click Object->Add Node->Director. This will add a Director node to your scene, which doesn't do anything by itself. Now right-click the Director node in the tree on the bottom left and choose "Add Active Camera Node". This will add a child node to the Director called Active Camera. Next right-click the Active Camera node and from "Add Camera Cut" choose the newly created camera (Start).
You'll notice a new yellow bar was added on the timeline. That tells the cutscene when you should cut to the new camera. Move it to the start if it's not there by dragging it left. When you're in normal editing mode, though, you won't actually see when the camera changes. For that, you need to look through the Director. Go to Window->Director Window to see exactly what the cutscene sees. You can also change any of the three viewports to a Director view by clicking it so it has a yellow border and choosing View->Camera->Director.
We can cut to a different camera by adding another. This time move the camera close and add another Game Camera (Object->Add Node->Game Camera). Rename that to Closeup. Click on the ruler around the 3 second mark to move the cursor there, then right-click the Active Camera Node and add a camera cut to Closeup. Playback the cutscene to watch your amazing dancing marine!
One final thing I want to touch on is keyframing. By turning on AutoKey, it looks like you can animate almost any property on the timeline. Click the grey circle just under the main viewport to turn on AutoKey. The viewport will go red, and now any changes you make to any property will record on the timeline. Click on the Marine node on the bottom left, then change to the Translation Gizmo (W). You'll see some axes pop up that let you move your model around. Move him around at different points in time to add some position keys. (There appears to be a bug where you can't use the gizmo if you have a viewport set to the Director, so hit C on that viewport to change it). You can also change properties in the Properties Window by right-clicking a node and choosing Properties. Try keyframing Tint Color, too, by keeping autokey on and changing the color values in the properties window.
Finally, you probably want to use your cutscene in your map. First, save your map (Ctrl-S)! Be careful, don't choose "Save Scene", that appears to make a .SC2Scene file instead of saving the cutscene in your map. Just hit Ctrl-S to be safe.
Next, open the Trigger Editor and add an action under the Cutscene (not Cinematic!!) category called Create Cutscene. For the File Path field, click Value and you'll see your Cutscene listed there.
Next is the tricky part, and this took me a while to figure out. Play your cutscene with an XYZ point at position 64, 64, (Height at 64,64). The position 64,64 will make sure it lines up with your map (if necessary) and the height will make sure it plays above the terrain. You can play it at other positions if you want, but that position will make sure it lines up if you care about your cutscene running around hills or whatever. Also, leave Auto Play on if you want it to play automatically when you create it.
Now launch your map, run your trigger, and watch your cutscene! Don't forget to reveal the map otherwise Fog of War will dim it.
It looks like there's a lot more in this thing that I haven't played around with much - lots of triggers, paths, lights, fog, bookmarks, and about a billion properties on each node. Play around and post some cool tips here if you've found them!
0
There appears to be some changes in the Cutscene Editor:
That's all I've found so far. Hopefully bugs and crashes have also been fixed. I'd guess if there are these changes in the Cutscene Editor, there's likely also changes throughout the rest of it (but probably subtle changes and/or bug fixes).
0
I played around a bit with the trigger side of cutscenes, and there's some cool stuff here. There's two sides of it - triggers that let you control the cutscene and events that let you respond to the cutscene.
Create Cutscene: This will make the cutscene and can auto play immediately. Use Last Created Cutscene to get the index for future use.
Play/Pause Cutscene: Standard playback control.
Set Cutscene Time: Standard "go to time". Useful for restarting the cutscene.
Stop Cutscene: Kills the cutscene. After it's stopped, it no longer exists.
Go To Cutscene Bookmark: Go to a bookmark in your cutscene. Bookmarks are added to the Director in the Cutscene Editor.
Go To Next Bookmark: Go to whatever bookmark is the next one in time.
Set Cutscene Filter: This one is neat. Each object in the cutscene can have a filter set. If there's a filter on the cutscene, it needs to match in order for that object to play back. I tried it with two lights on a marine - one green and one blue. I then gave the two a filter named after the color. When there's no filter, they both light up. When the filter is "green" only the green one shows, etc.. It seems like you can do some cool stuff here.
Set Global Cutscene Filter: Same as above, but for all cutscenes.
Wait for Cutscene to End: Standard Wait, but for cutscenes.
Then there are the events. I didn't realize they were there at first because there's no cutscene label (bug?). You can find them by searching, though:
Cutscene Bookmark Fired: This event fires when you pass a specific bookmark. So let's say you have a bookmark named "test" (via the property Bookmark Name in the Cutscene Editor). If you have this event that fires on the bookmark "test", and you have it spit out a debug message, it will display as soon as that bookmark is passed.
Cutscene EndScene Fired: Odd name, but it fires when the cutscene finishes.
It seems to me that there's some neat things you can do with the bookmark event. Let's say you wanted a cutscene to loop during an idle period while waiting for the user to press a button. When bookmark "loop end" is fired, you can tell it to go to bookmark "loop start", causing a loop, whenever the variable "loop" is true. Then when a button is pressed, you can switch the "loop" variable to false, so the next time the bookmark is passed, it won't go to "loop start" and will instead just play through. Heck, you can probably extend this all the way out to some kind of choose your own adventure system if you went crazy.
0
Hey guys, I noticed there wasn't a whole lot of discussion on the new Cutscene Editor, so I thought I'd take some time to learn how to use it and share what I've figured out since I'm a long-time lurker.
To start the Cutscene Editor, click Modules->Cutscenes. You'll notice the window starts a little funny, so resize it larger.
To add a new cutscene to your map, go to File->New Scene and select Yes to add it to your map. This will add a new Untitled Scene under Document Files. All scenes that live inside your map are listed under Document Files. The (Previewer) cutscene appears to be just an empty workspace for previewing animations like we used to in the old previewer window. It doesn't save with your map, so make sure you don't work in the (Previewer) scene!
Also, it looks like selecting things in that scene list will show them in the timeline below. For now, expand Document Files and select UntitledScene1.
Once you've added a new scene to your map, you can rename it if you'd like to something more meaningful. Next, we can add models to the cutscene. In the top left is an asset library - search for the model you want (Marine) and double-click it to add (just like the old Previewer). You'll see the marine has been added to the center of your screen. If you can't see him, hit C a bunch of times until the camera says "Game".
For fun, let's make him dance. Right-click the blue animation bar and choose Change Animation->Stand Dance. You can scrub the timeline ruler to see how it looks and use spacebar to play/pause.
You probably want a camera to make your scene more interesting. Click Object->Add Node->Game Camera to add a camera looking out your current view. As a refresher, all camera movement on the mouse is with the Middle Mouse button - use Shift, Ctrl, Alt, etc. to change the direction you move. Now rename the camera to "Start" so we don't get confused.
The camera won't do anything by itself, though. You need a Director to tell the cutscene which camera should be active. Click Object->Add Node->Director. This will add a Director node to your scene, which doesn't do anything by itself. Now right-click the Director node in the tree on the bottom left and choose "Add Active Camera Node". This will add a child node to the Director called Active Camera. Next right-click the Active Camera node and from "Add Camera Cut" choose the newly created camera (Start).
You'll notice a new yellow bar was added on the timeline. That tells the cutscene when you should cut to the new camera. Move it to the start if it's not there by dragging it left. When you're in normal editing mode, though, you won't actually see when the camera changes. For that, you need to look through the Director. Go to Window->Director Window to see exactly what the cutscene sees. You can also change any of the three viewports to a Director view by clicking it so it has a yellow border and choosing View->Camera->Director.
We can cut to a different camera by adding another. This time move the camera close and add another Game Camera (Object->Add Node->Game Camera). Rename that to Closeup. Click on the ruler around the 3 second mark to move the cursor there, then right-click the Active Camera Node and add a camera cut to Closeup. Playback the cutscene to watch your amazing dancing marine!
One final thing I want to touch on is keyframing. By turning on AutoKey, it looks like you can animate almost any property on the timeline. Click the grey circle just under the main viewport to turn on AutoKey. The viewport will go red, and now any changes you make to any property will record on the timeline. Click on the Marine node on the bottom left, then change to the Translation Gizmo (W). You'll see some axes pop up that let you move your model around. Move him around at different points in time to add some position keys. (There appears to be a bug where you can't use the gizmo if you have a viewport set to the Director, so hit C on that viewport to change it). You can also change properties in the Properties Window by right-clicking a node and choosing Properties. Try keyframing Tint Color, too, by keeping autokey on and changing the color values in the properties window.
Finally, you probably want to use your cutscene in your map. First, save your map (Ctrl-S)! Be careful, don't choose "Save Scene", that appears to make a .SC2Scene file instead of saving the cutscene in your map. Just hit Ctrl-S to be safe.
Next, open the Trigger Editor and add an action under the Cutscene (not Cinematic!!) category called Create Cutscene. For the File Path field, click Value and you'll see your Cutscene listed there.
Next is the tricky part, and this took me a while to figure out. Play your cutscene with an XYZ point at position 64, 64, (Height at 64,64). The position 64,64 will make sure it lines up with your map (if necessary) and the height will make sure it plays above the terrain. You can play it at other positions if you want, but that position will make sure it lines up if you care about your cutscene running around hills or whatever. Also, leave Auto Play on if you want it to play automatically when you create it.
Now launch your map, run your trigger, and watch your cutscene! Don't forget to reveal the map otherwise Fog of War will dim it.
It looks like there's a lot more in this thing that I haven't played around with much - lots of triggers, paths, lights, fog, bookmarks, and about a billion properties on each node. Play around and post some cool tips here if you've found them!