Unreal Matinee Ch. 13

1. Unreal MatineeCh. 13 CIS 488/588 Nick Martineau UM-Dearborn

2. What is Matinee? • UnrealEd tool to enable the creation of in-game cinematic sequences

3. A Basic Matinee Sequence • On your map, click on the Matinee button in the toolbox to open the Matinee interface • In the Scenes tab, click the Add New Scene icon to add a Scene Manager Actor to your Scene • Select your SceneManager and click on the actions tab

4. A Basic Matinee Sequence - 2 • In the Actions tab you will be able to see all of the different actions you have in your scene (starting out there should be none) • There are now two things you can do: • In the actions tab you can add new actions (camera positions “ActionMoveCamera”) and later on add an interpolation point and associate it with that action under the “MatAction” property OR, under the Tools tab of the Matinee control panel you can move the camera to where you want it and click on “Add Interpolation Point & Action”

5. A Basic Matinee Sequence - 3 • After you have added all of the points you want, go back into the Actions tab • Under each action in the “Time” property there is a duration field • The duration refers to the time it takes to move from the previous point to this point • Each action must have a duration or else UnrealED will crash • Caused by the fact that Unreal will read this as the camera location being in the same place at the same time, which is of course impossible

6. A Basic Matinee Sequence - 4 • Once all of the durations are set and you have all of your points in order save your progress • Click on the preview button and watch your amazing Matinee sequence

7. Matinee Sequence - Trigger • To add a trigger to the Matinee sequence you just created • Go back into the Matinee Scene Manager and expand the “Events” tab • Under “Tag” type in “StartMovie” • Now open up the Actor Class Browser • Navigate to Triggers and expand it • Click on Trigger and add one directly under the first Matinee sequence point

8. Matinee Sequence – Trigger 2 • Double click on the trigger you just created to access its properties • Expand the “Events” tab • Where it says “Event” type in “StartMovie” • What this essentially does it that when a person comes close to the trigger, the sequence itself will broadcast “StartMovie” the trigger will intercept that message and start the sequence

9. Testing the Trigger • So you know its working correctly • Under the trigger properties expand the “Advanced” tab • There is a property called “bHidden” and its default value is set to “True”, set it to “False” • This will allow you to see the trigger in game so you know it is placed in the right location • If you did everything correctly, when you run the game and approach the trigger your Matinee sequence will play

10. Automatically Launching a Matinee Sequence • Start off by deleting the old trigger you placed in your map • Go to the Actor Class browser and then expand Actor-> Keypoint -> AIScript -> ScriptedSequence -> and click ScriptedTrigger • Add the ScriptedTrigger to anywhere in the level

11. Automatically Launching - 2 • Open the properties tab for the trigger and expand “AIScript” • Select the “Actions” property and click on add • Select from the dropdown list “ACTION_TriggerEvent” click on the “New” button to add that event to the AIScript • Under the Event Property set it to “StartMovie” • Launch the game and watch your sequence