Cinematics Explained
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Cinematics Explained
Cinematics are special in-game movies that give "pizazz" to your maps. They help to explain the story and they look great making good set-ups for eycandy. They can sometimes be tricky though. You have to be careful, and try to make the tracks smoothly transfer from one to another, but fear not as this page is here to help.
How They Work
Cinematics are created by using the camera track editor. Cinematics are usually about 30 seconds to 1 minute long. Once they are put together you have to use triggers in order to put them into the game and to actually make them run. The triggers are simple though, unless you have a mass of different camera tracks and each one is set on a special time. This method is frowned upon, however, because if you make one error you can't correct it unless you erase the whole chain and start from scratch.
Making Cinematics
The first thing to do when creating a cinematic is to enable camera rotation. This option is in the options screen in the UI tab. If camera rotation is enabled correctly, you will be able to hold the Ctrl button and then use the arrow keys to rotate the camera side to side. Now that the rotation basics are covered, you can create cinematics. Now you must create a camera track. To do this, you click on the Cinematics drop-down menu and select Camera Editor. To create a camera track, first click on the 'insert' button, on the left hand side. Track 1 is displayed on the left. More Camera Tracks can be added if needed. Notice, on the right hand side that 'Point 0' has suddenly appeared. A Camera Track works by moving the camera from one point to another. The computer gets this information by you moving the camera in the editor to the position you want it to be.
So, move the camera to the start point, then click on 'Point 0', and then 'Update'. Click 'Add', then click on 'Point 1', move the camera to the end position, and click 'Update'. You have now created a simple, one-movement camera track. Add a time in the duration box, in seconds.
To view your camera track, press the play button. The Camera will move from the start to finish. If this camera track is going to be used in cinematic mode, bear in mind that the letterbox effect will be in use - to see this, click the letter box button at the end of the button row.
Into Action
Now the tracks are made, you want to put them into the scenario and make them run. You'll need to put the correct triggers in to activate this fantastic technique. Let us assume that you have created two camera tracks and that the first one is 10 seconds long. We will place both at the beginning of the scenario. First, insert a trigger, Condition: Always, Effect: Cinematic Mode: On, Camera Track: Track_1.
NAME: Cine_1 STATUS: Active, Run Immediately CONDITION: Always Effect: Cinematic Mode: On Camera Track: Track_1 Fire Event: <None Yet>
Now you have all thins, insert another trigger. The next trigger will have a Condition: Timer: 10, and Effect: Camera Track: Track_2. The timer is because the track lasts 10 seconds, and when the event fires it is firing at the same time as the first rigger, and we need it to go through the cinematic, so there has to be a time in there to allow the first trigger to run through.
NAME: Cine_2 STATUS: NONE CONDITION: Timer: 10 seconds EFFECT: Camera Track: Track_2
Now the triggers are set up you can complete them by making the first trigger fire the second trigger.
NAME: Cine_1 STATUS: Active, Run Immediately CONDITION: Always Effect: Cinematic Mode: On Camera Track: Track_1 Fire Event: Cine_2
NAME: Cine_2 STATUS: NONE CONDITION: Timer: 10 seconds EFFECT: Camera Track: Track_2
