Overview

Take Recorder is a powerful way to generate camera movements that are created from a Pawn moving around a level.

You can use it to capture live movements as a Transform track in Sequencer which can then be instantly rendered through Movie Render Queue with the OWL 360 Camera.

For example if you want to:

• Scout 360 Camera shots live in a level (possibly using a VR headset with a live feed) and want to make sure that they are captured so that you can edit them into clean sequences later.

• Get ‘first-person’ style shots from players moving around your level such as real actors captured via motion capture.

• Use vehicles or other moving elements to generate live shot tracks (such as for car plates).

The guide below shows you how to capture the movement of an Actor to Sequencer so the Transform track can be used in your OWL 360 Camera.

This will only work when Editor is active, so isn’t possible in packaged games, but will work with nDisplay, in motion capture

Basic Set-Up

Adding a Pawn to Take Recorder

1. For better camera movement, ideally you want a Pawn BP with some input controls and movement logic.

2. For testing you can use this NP_OpalHoverDrone, which is in the free Electric Dreams Sample Project.

   

3. Drop the Blueprint in to your level and in its Details panel set Auto Possess Player to Player 0.

   

4. Open the Take Recorder in Window> Cinematics> Take Recorder.

   

5. Add the Pawn BP to the Take Recorder Sources list by selecting the Blueprint in your Viewport and clicking +Source> From Actor> Add (Actor).

   

6. You should now see the Blueprint in your Take Recorder Source list, so it’s movements will automatically be captured:

   

Capturing Pawn Movement in Sequencer

1. Press Play in Editor.

   

2. Press the red record button in the Take Recorder window.

   

3. You should see a countdown in the Viewport.

   

4. Take Recorder will record any movement from the Pawn as Keyframes and writing them to a subsequence inside a master sequence.

   

5. Press the grey stop button when the take is finished:

   

Assign the Transform to the 360 Camera

1. Takes are saved to All> Content> Cinematics> Takes with a timestamp. Double click one to open the master sequence:

   

2. To assign the Transform values in your sequence to the 360 Camera, double click in the pink area with the name of your PawnBP.

   

3. In the subsequence, click the padlock icon to allow keyframe editing.

   

4. Ensure you have a 360 Camera in your Sequence (drag and drop the Actor inside). With the Playhead set to 0, select the Transform keyframes for the PawnBP and copy and paste them into the Transform track of the 360 Camera:

   

360 Preview and Rendering

1. Now when you play the sequence you will see your 360 Camera follow the movements you set in Take Recorder:

   

2. You can render the 360 Camera direct from this sequence to Movie Render Queue (ensure that the 360 Camera is selected in your camera cuts track):