Overview

Alembic is an exchange file format for computer graphics used in the animation and VFX industry, which has been widely adopted in the late years. Alembic files (.abc) can be exported from almost all animation software like Softimage, Maya, Max, Cinema4D, and so on. This format includes “baked” information about polygons, animation, particles, camera, transformations, and so on. With the alembic wofkflow in Slate, it’s possible to create alembic synced cutscenes and playback that animation in Unity, of course with real-time scrubbing as usual.

The purpose of this workflow is that you can create your cutscenes in your favorite animation software, and then import the exported alembic file into Unity and finally use Slate to build on top of it and add the final touches, camera shots, extra animations, and so on. Making changes to the original file and re-exporting, will also correctly update the animation in Unity. Please note though, that depending on the animation complexity, alembic files can potentially become very large, and as such this workflow may not be a good fit for games, but is here because Unity is not only used for games. This workflow is mostly meant to be used for high-end cinematics in Unity.

Requirement

You will first need to please download and import the “Alembic” package from the Unity Package Manager, as well as the Alembic extension from the downloads section of this website. The Alembic Unity package allows importing Alembic (.abc) files, while the Alembic extension for Slate includes the Alembic Track which is able to playback imported Alembic files in Unity.

Importing Alembic Files

Please read the Unity documentation here for how to import alembic files to your project.

The Alembic Track

Alembic Tracks can be added only on the Director group and each Alembic Track is able to sample one imported Alembic file.

The Alembic Track does not accept any kind of clips. Instead, a virtual clip is shown that represents the exported alembic file frame range from your animation software. Through the inspector of the alembic track, that virtual clip can be offseted by a specific number of frames. If you want, you can have as many alembic Tracks as required, but remember that each track is able to sample one imported alembic file only.

Using the Imported Cameras of the Alembic file

Any cameras that are included in the Alembic file can directly be used along with their animation if any, as Camera Shots in the Camera Track, and as usually easily picked through the Shot Picker in the Camera Shot clip inspector.

Download Example Alembic File

Add some extra things and you have a Unity cinematic synced with an exported alembic file.