Recording a Timeline

Capturing a Timeline performance with the Unity Recorder.

A performance built on a Timeline can be captured with Unity's Recorder, to a movie or an image sequence. FaceCue needs nothing extra for it. Recorded with the right settings, every line meets its voice the way it does in play, on any machine.

The Settings to Record With

Two settings decide how well a recording keeps the face in time, one in the Recorder and one on each Timeline.

• Constant playback, in the Recorder. The game moves on one frame at a time, however long each frame takes to draw, so the recording holds every frame whatever the machine.
• Game Time as each director's Update Method, which is Unity's default. A Timeline on DSP Clock does not keep pace with a recording made a frame at a time, and FaceCue says so in the Console if it finds one.

With these set, the face follows the sound the recording captures, the same way it does in play.

Other Ways to Record

The settings above suit most recordings. These work as well, each with a difference worth knowing.

• The picture without its sound, for dialogue added in an edit later. The face then keeps to the Timeline, so it matches the dialogue once it is placed where the Timeline plays it.
• Variable playback. The face still follows the sound, though the timing can shift slightly from one machine to another.

The Same Result Every Time

Most of what FaceCue does plays the same way on every recording. Its natural randomness does not: blinks, small eye movements, sway and mood shifts. To get the same result across recordings, set Seed Mode to Custom under Variation on the FaceCue Brain, so that randomness is identical each time.

One more step, true of any recording rather than FaceCue alone: start each recording from the Recorder's Start Recording button before entering play mode, so the recording and the game begin together.