Some Slate Questions (Please Help)

[evade123]

Hello! Purchased Slate awhile ago, but had some questions 🙂

– How can I achieve effects like depth of field blur?

– Can the camera follow a path as well?

– How does the cutscene activate in the scene? Does it need to be triggered by code?

– Does it work with rogo digitals lip sync animations as well?

Thank you for your time!

[Gavalakis]

Hello and welcome 🙂

Thanks for purchasing Slate. Please let me address your questions:

– For depth of field, you can simply add any image effect on the Render Camera object (found as child in the automatically created object named “Director Camera”. All cutscenes are rendered from within this camera and as such any image effects attached there will take effect. Slate also has direct integration to control depth of field parameters if you are using Unity’s Post Processing Stack v1 (version 2 is planned for the next Slate update). As such if you do indeed use Post Processing Stack v1, you can then enable “Post Processing Stack Integration” (in the Slate “gear” preferences window) and this will allow you to control the depth of field from with each Camera Shot clip added in Slate Camera Track.

– You can make a Shot Camera follow a path, but I would not recomend this really since it requires you to add each Camera Shot you need follow a path as an Actor in the cutscene which can be a bit convoluted. What I do recomend instead, is to animate each Camera Shot directly by keyframing it’s Position and Rotation parameters found within the Camera Shot Clips themselves. It’s not really much different that making the camera following a path (you still get to see a path in the Scene View for example), and is also cleaner since no extra groups, tracks or clips are needed.

– You can completely control a cutscene by code of course, like for example calling Cutscene.Play, or Cutscene.Stop among manby other functions. There are also included a few scripts that can trigger play a cutscene. You can create these automation script thought the top Unity menu “Tools/ParadoxNotion/Slate/Extra/”. For example the “Cutscene Starter” script, will simply start a cutscene you select, as soon as the scene is started (when you enter play mode).

– The Slate / RogoDigital LipSync integration can control the lipsync animation specifically and is irelevant of how the body animation for example is controlled. The body animation can be played back from within Slate with an Animation Track if you want, or can be played independently by other means. Is that what you meant?

 

If you need any further help or clarifications on the above please let me know!

Thanks!

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/97q2Rjh

[evade123]

Awesome thanks! So I enabled the post processing in the preferences, but see no new options. Will the option appear in the shot camera? All I see is this (attached Image). I’ve tried messing with Focal point/range, but see no changes. Thanks for the help

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[Gavalakis]

Hello again,

 

Enabling the Post Processing stack in the preferences will make no new options appear. It will rather make the existing ones (Focal Range and Focal Point) actually work. 🙂

Focal Point and Focal Range are indeed what you want to modify/animate, to control the depth of field. Can you please confirm that:

• You have enabled the option in the preferences (at the very end).
• You are using Post Processing Stack version 1 and that there are no compile errors in the console.
• You have corretly set-up the post processing image effecets (create a profile, attach the PostProcessingBehaviour in the “Render Camera” and enabled Depth of Field module).

Let me know.

Thanks!

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/97q2Rjh

[woodyy]

No ‘Tools’ Menu appears in my version of Unity

…Is there another way that I can get SLATE to start?

Looks like a wonderful program, I can’t wait to get started.

Thanks!

[Gavalakis]

Hello and sorry for the late reply due to summer vacation!

Hmm. If you are not seeing “Tools” in the Unity top menu, then it most than probably means that there is a complilation error, which will need to be solved first. Do you see any error logs in the Unity console?

If you do and you see any errors related to Slate or PostProcessing Stack, please first try this:

• Go to your Unity “Player Settings” (File -> Build Settings… -> Player Settings…).
• Find the Unity Inspector that will open, find the entry for “Scripting Degine Symbols”.
• If there is anything in the text there which starts with “SLATE_USE_xxxx”, like “SLATE_USE_POSTSTACK”, please delete it and hit enter.

If you still get any other compilation errors that are Slate related, please let me know.

Thank you!

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/97q2Rjh

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