Annnd Action! Composing a cut scene in Unity

In this article I will go over how I composed a cut scene based on the previs elements in the previous article.

I will “block out” this scene using a prefab animation which will replace the player and guard in the game. As I know I will have many cutscenes I have also added some empty game objects to organise them in the hierarchy.

Next, we begin composing the cut scene shots. I will be using Cinemachine in my project for cameras. Make sure you have cinemachine installed and then go to Cinemachine > Create Virtual Camera. This will create a new virtual camera called “CM vcam1”. Rename this to something more appropriate, I named mine “Sleeping_Guard_Previs_vcam1” (this camera will be used to display the shot for the first previs element our director provided us with).

The camera is likely not aligned to where you want your scene to start. A quick tip is to align your scene view with where you want your shot to be and press “ctrl + shift +f”, this will align the camera with your view.

To present the best view for this shot we are going to use a photography rule called the “rule of thirds”. The rule of thirds is a guideline where the photographer/ cinematographer will split an image with 2 equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines (real or imagined lines).

The focus of the image is then aligned to one of these lines. This rule helps create a better more full looking scene.

On the left an image not following the rule and on the right an image following the rule

Using the rule of thirds and the director notes we can make the shots for the cut scene.

Now we have our first shot we can create another virtual camera for our next shot and position it in the correct spot as per our director notes.

To switch between your camera press the “solo” button on the virual camera

The final shot from the notes.

In my next article, I will go over how to string these shots together in time line to create a cut scene.

Thats all for now.