Unity's Timeline vs Slate

[atomicjoe]

Hello there!

Can anyone tell me how Slate compares to Unity’s built-in Timeline sequencer?

Is it really better, faster or more user friendly?

I know Slate was released before Unity’s Timeline so, is it still relevant now that Timeline exists?

Thank you 🙂

[Gavalakis]

Hello,

I am obviously biased since I am the developer of Slate, but here are a couple of things that make Slate still relevant.

• There are dozens of pre-made clips to control everything.
• Creating custom clips is very easy if still want to.
• Camera animation is “built-in” Slate and it’s very easy to make shots, both manually animated and semi-procedural (ala cinemachine).
• Slate shows “motion trails” for all position related keyframes in the scene view (ala Cinema4D).
• There is a handy feature called Virtual Actor References, which helps with prefab actors.
• Some clips have the option to be animated either in Global, Cutscene, or Local space, which can be powerfull for re-usable cutscenes.

The above are just a couple of things, but in general Slate strives to be an all-in-one and easy package for cutscenes in Unity and it’s still very relevant, hence the reason I still work with it, support and update it 🙂

Thanks!

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[atomicjoe]

Thanks for the details!

What about Cienmachine? Does Slate integrate seamlessly with it?

Right now I’m using Cinemachine virtual cameras for easily transitioning between several camera shots placed in the scene (like God of War 1,2,3 or Resident Evil 1,2) and an orbit camera that follows the player.

How does Slate interact with Cinemachine? Will my Cinemachine system blend smoothly with Slate?

[casanuda]

Hi,

Second party opinion here.

There is a free plugin in the downloads section for Cinemachine (but the slate camera shot system works well.)

Whilst most of the base level stuff is comparable,  right now for me, Slate is more robust. If you want to, for example, animate IK in timeline you are going to have to code it yourself where Slate has this built in. As well as a whole bunch of other clip types.

The “steering” mechanism for walk animations, for example, is invaluable – asking the the timeline team how I would achieve it ended with “you’ll have to code your own clip”.

As someone who only has basic coding skills – and just wants to get on with animating – Slate has me covered.

Hope that helps

Cas

 

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