Flipside Alpha Update #16 - Experimental director mode, import animated cameras, and more

September 6, 2018 - 6:00pm - by John Luxford

Try our experimental new Director Mode

Director Mode is an experimental new feature that makes you an invisible director, hiding you from both video output and motion capture recordings. Director Mode also lets you move and scale the world with your hands like you can in Set Builder mode.

Moving and scaling the world while recording makes it possible to capture shots from any angle, and even move the world with one hand and the handheld camera with the other to simulate jib arms and other complex shots. So many new possibilities!

Press Alt + D to toggle Director Mode on/off.

Set Builder changes

Now when you enter Set Builder mode, you'll see your character disappear and your hands replaced with controllers, so you can see you're in Set Builder mode. This will help make more precise placement and interactions easier too when arranging your sets.

Other fixes and improvements

• Every time you change sets, you'll now spawn at the initial spawn point, which fixes cases where you can teleport into unwanted positions on some shared sets.
• The in-VR camera switcher controls now match the behaviour of the computer screen camera switcher, which makes camera changes just one button press.
• We've made several improvements to our OBS Studio integration to keep the two apps in sync.
• We fixed the in-VR camera switcher failing to appear when you launch Flipside after switching to in-VR camera editing mode.
• We fixed account linking for users using both Oculus and Steam accounts.
• We fixed a case where recordings may not always load on the palette.

Flipside Creator Tools v0.12

The Flipside Creator Tools have been updated to version 0.12, and include some really cool changes too.

• Click here to download the latest release.
• Upgrade instructions can be found here.

Dedicated Creator Tools window

The Flipside Creator Tools are now in their own window in Unity, instead of appearing as an overlay to the Scene window. This avoids problems where the Scene window may be too small, cutting off visibility of some of the Creator Tools buttons.

In the Flipside Creator Tools menu, choose Open Creator Tools to open the new window. You can dock it anywhere in the Unity layout that works best for your workflow.

Animate faces with Unity animations

The new Animation facial expression mode triggers Unity animations to control facial expressions. This not only makes bone-based facial expressions possible, but anything the Unity animation system can do too!

It's also saved us a ton of time importing characters with bones but no blend shapes. Double win!

Learn more in our user manual about connecting facial expressions to Unity animations.

Synchronized animations and audio

Any auto-playing animations and audio sources in custom sets will now be synchronized to restart on Play, Record, and Add Role, and to pause/resume when playback is paused too, so they stay in sync with recorded parts.

Cameras added to custom sets now become Flipside cameras

Any cameras that you add to a custom set are now automatically added to the Flipside camera system. You can even attach animations to cameras to achieve any camera movements imaginable.

Triggers events on colliders, props, and cameras in custom sets

Trigger your own custom Unity events in your sets! Unity events can do things like enable or disable objects, trigger sounds and animations, particle effects, and more. There are three new ways of triggering Unity events in your sets:

1. On any PropElement, you can trigger events when you grab a prop, press or release the trigger while holding it, and when you let it go.
2. On any CameraElement, you can trigger events when an imported camera position is activated or deactivated. This makes it possible to create custom sequences like show intros with a custom animation, music, and camera move.
3. On any ColliderElement, you can trigger events when something enters or exists a collider's volume. Volumes can be any size, so you can do things like trigger scene changes when you move into a new area of a set, or when you hit something with your hand.

Click here to learn more about adding interactivity to your sets.

These changes open up so many new possibilities for interactions on sets, and we can't wait to see what you guys do with them!