The Animation Assignment tool is used to automatically assign the Animation clips exported from Maya to the correct character object in newly created Animation tracks in the Timeline.

Set up Animation render overlay will create a new overlay in the Timeline tools (available in the General toolbar) that will display the rendered animated shot playblasts from Maya directly on the Game view. You can use it to make sure that cameras and animations are matching between Unity and Maya.

Similar to the storyboard overlay, it can be enabled/disabled via the Timeline Tools window as well as controlling its opacity. 

To have it working, it is necessary first to do a one time load of the image sequences via the Animation Assignment window.

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Clean up empty animation tracks will get rid of unused tracks in your timeline. During the Layout, the artist might have needed some extra tracks for temporary placeholders. Tracks could also simply have been created by mistake. This button will clear up any empty / unused tracks in the selected timeline.

To start assigning animation clips to the correct assets, select the shot and animation clips you want to assign (make sure it will be assigned to the rig and not the prefab of the asset) then click on the Assign selected animations button. The animation tracks will be created in the timeline with the animation clips assigned to the asset rigs.

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In the shot-selection, you’ll also see checkboxes to Reset Transform and Disable Constraints :

• Reset Transform : This checkbox will reset all Translate, Rotation and Scale information on a prefab to 0,0,0 . During the Layout phase, the artist might have animated the prefab directly for an easier process. When you apply animation to the rig of this prefab, there will be inconsistencies in position, so you can ask the tool to reset those transforms to avoid issues.

• Disable Constraints : This checkbox will disable any constraints present on the prefab you chose. During the Layout phase, the artist might have parented objects together (for temporary placeholder props, for example). These constraints might not be necessary anymore, and this checkbox will fix that for you.

As well, at the bottom of the window, you’ll find Keep clips start time intact :

• Keep clips start time intact : makes sure the current start time of the animation clip in the animation track will not be changed after the import. This means the import will ignore any different start time from the fbx file and keep the timing as is currently.

The Keyshot Tool allows you to mark specific shots as masters of other shots (slaves). The first step to do is to press on the Set up master shots button, then select which shots will be converted into masters, and assign a letter to them in order to be easily identified.

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After selecting the shots you want to convert, assigning a letter to them and clicking on Create selected master shots, these shots will be highlighted in green color and will receive a label identifying them as master shots (by an empty obejct called “--- MASTER # ---”. This color highlight can be toggled on and off in the Keyshot tool menu. A correctly named Master Lighting group will also be created under the Lighting object in the shot.

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Now to set up the slave shots, head back to the Keyshot tool main menu. In that panel, a previously created master shot can be selected and for that master shot you can pick which of the remaining non-master shots will be marked as slave shots. Then, by pressing the Copy lighting from masters to slaves, a prefab of the Master Lighting group will be created and then instantiated in all the selected slave shots of that master shot. A ftrack link will also be created between the master shots and its slaves.

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It is also possible to remove a shot from being marked as a slave by pressing on the corresponding button. Doing so will also remove the link between that shot and its master from ftrack.

HDRP allows you to use Light Layers, which are Layer Masks, to make Lights in your Scene only light up specific meshes. You set Light Layers for Lights and Meshes to make Lights only affect meshes that are on corresponding Light Layers.

• The Light Layer Assignment tool allows you to assign light layers to assets present in the scene hierarchy. Selecting a layer and clicking Apply will assign that light layer to all the Skinned Mesh Renderers available in a chosen asset. This will overwrite the existing light layers assigned to those renderers. Objects that have multiple renderers with different light layers assigned to them will show up in the tool as if no Light Layer was assigned to them.

• There is also the option to assign the character layers to the Planar Reflection Probes in the lighting scene.

• Below the different shot entries in the tool, you’ll spot a Prefab entry that lists all of the prefabs from which the shot objects referenced above originate from. Changing the Light Layers of assets directly in their prefab will change the light layers in all instances of that prefab present in the hierarchy.

• At the bottom of the tool, you can manually select an object to change its rendering layers.

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If cameras were changed during Animation in Maya, these need to be integrated into Unity using the Camera Import Tool. Additionally, if a layout camera is completely broken (target no longer there, broken constraints, …), you also have the option of importing the layout camera cache.

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You can select which for which shot to import the cameras to, either from layout or animation, if available.

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This will automatically create an alembic track with the alembic clip of the camera, it will disable the regular layout camera, and add the corresponding objects to the shot in the scene. It will also transfer any focal length, aperture and depth of field settings from the original camera to the imported one.

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The Light Sanity Check tool is used to rename light objects, using the correct naming conventions. Opening the tool will list all lights that are not using the correct naming conventions, along with the correct name that will be used. Simply select one or more lights, and rename them using the rename button at the bottom. The suggested name can be edited manually, but lights that don’t follow the naming convention will keep showing up in this list. On the left of the window, an object hierarchy is visible, to quickly see where a particular light is used.

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A light called Point Light for example:

• in an environment scene will be called lgts_envs_Point Light.

• in a sequence scene (0010) will be called lgts_seq_0010_Point Light.

• in a shot (00020) will be called lgts_shot_00020_Point Light.

• as a child object of a Master prefab Master_B_(00010)_Lights will be called lgts_mast_00010_Point Light. This will be applied to the Master prefab as well.

The finalising sanity check tool allows you to verify certain settings in the project before rendering. There are three possible results for a check: pass, warning and error. The render window will be blocked if there is at least one error waiting to be fixed. Warnings are informational mostly, and will not block the render window.

Some of the fixes can be performed automatically by clicking on the fix button or the fix all button, which will perform all the available automatic fixes.

However, some of the fixes have to be performed manually, and some of the checks themselves have to be performed manually by the user as well. In the future more checks and more fixes will be automated.

When all the errors are fixed, the render window will be unblocked and available for normal use.

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The Depth of Field Setup allows you configure the depth of field for cameras in the sequence that you select. You must assign a Volume Profile asset and a Default Aperture value. Press the Set Up Depth of Field for Cameras button to perform the setup.

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