Advanced Workflows

The tk-config-unity configuration comes with customizations that can greatly improve artist productivity.

See Enabling Advanced Workflows for details on how to configure your Shotgun site to take advantage of these workflows.

Metadata

When you publish your recordings to Shotgun, Unity embeds the current project path and the scene asset path in the created Version entity sg_unity_metadata field:

This allows Shotgun to start in the right context (right project, right scene) when launched from a Version or Note entity.

Launching from a Version entity

You can launch Unity from a Version entity in the Versions page:

Or from a Version entity page

Launching from a Note entity

You can launch Unity from a Note entity in the Notes page:

Or from a Note entity page

In all cases, the Unity Editor should launch directly without going through the Unity Hub first.

Note: Launching from a Version entity or from a Note entity straight to the right Unity project and scene only works if the user has their project in the location that is saved in the sg_unity_metadata field. If there is no matching Unity project, then the Unity Hub will be launched instead.

Jump to Frame

You can use the Shotgun Panel to automatically select the right Timeline, on the frame associated with a Shotgun Note. In order to do so:

Select Shotgun Panel... in the Shotgun menu
Click on the Notes tab and select the Note
Click the arrow displayed in the top-right corner of the selected Note
Click on Jump to Frame

Note: The Jump to Frame advanced workflow will only work for Note entities relating to an existing scene in the current Unity project. Also, there must exist a Main Timeline in the scene. (see Establishing the Main Timeline).

When successful, the Main Timeline will be selected, and its frame will be set to the value reflected by the Shotgun Note entity.

Establishing the Main Timeline

Timeline Assets can be assigned to multiple Playable Directors in Unity. There is no strict concept of a Main Playable Director or Timeline in Unity. The Jump to Frame advanced workflow needs a way to identify the Main Timeline so it can select its Playable Director and set its frame value.

tk-config-unity determines which Timeline is the Main one by searching for Game Objects tagged with a specific name. By default, if a Game Object is tagged MainTimeline and possesses a Playable Director driving a Timeline instance, then this Timeline instance is considered as the Main Timeline.

To tag a Game Object, select it and choose MainTimeline in the list of tags

You can use the Add Tag... menu item in the list of tags to add the MainTimeline tag to the list if it is not present.

The tag name can be configured in the Shotgun Panel settings, for the current environment. tk-config-unity sets this value in env/includes/settings/tk-multi-shotgunpanel.yml:

Enabling Advanced Workflows

Unity uses a custom Version entity field named sg_unity_metadata in order to save metadata that is used in advanced workflows. Your Shotgun site administrator needs to add this custom field:

As an administrator, go to the Versions page
Select Manage Version Fields...
Create a text field, named Unity Metadata

You should see the new field
Go into the Fields page

There should be a new field on Version entities. The field name should be Unity Metadata, the field code should be sg_unity_metadata, the data type should be text