My journey becoming a Unity game developer: Game Over Cutscene-Fading In and Out of the Scene

Objective: Create a fade in effect at the beginning of the scene. Plus, create a fade out effect to end the scene.

Fade In and Fade Out effects applied to the cutscene.

In the Hierarchy, go to UI->Image which will automatically create a Canvas to show a square box on the screen. Name the Image object Camera_Fade_Alpha to represent the fade from black for the beginning of the scene. In the Image component, change the Color to Black and make sure the Alpha is set to 1. Under the Rect Transform, click on the Anchor box and select the anchor preset in all directions as the preset. Set all the Rect Transform directions to zero to black out the whole screen. Last, go to Canvas and in the Canvas Scalar component change the UI Scale Mode to Scale with Screen Size.

Created a Canvas and Image that will be attached to the Game Over Cutscene.

To set the Fade In effect at the beginning of the scene we need to click on the Game Over Cutscene object and create a new Animation Track. Drag the Camera_Fade_Alpha object into the Animation Track and press the REC button. Set the 1st keyframe by clicking on the Camera_Fade_Alpha object, then in Color move the Alpha slider just a little bit and move it back to 1 on the slider to keep the image set to black. Move the pointer to around 0.08 seconds, then go back to Color and change the Alpha to zero which will make the image transparent.

Fade In created at the beginning of the scene using the Camera Fade Alpha object in an Animation Track.

Move the Timeline pointer to a position on the Timeline where the Overhead Shot Camera is over Darren’s head just a second or two the most after the cut between the Full Shot and the Overhead Shot. Go back to the Color setting, but this time set the Alpha to zero to keep the transparency on so the actors in the scene are still visible. Move the pointer to the end of the animation clip, then go to the Color setting and move the Alpha’s slider to 1 which will set the Fade Out image to black. Either scrub the Timeline or press Play in the Timeline editor to see how the Fade animations look. Make sure to stop the recording when you’re satisfied.

Fade Out created at the end of the scene using the Camera Fade Alpha object in an Animation Track.

This is how the Captured scene looks after the Fade In and Fade Out animations are played.

Fading In and Out in the Captured Scene.

The Fade effects are easy to apply and are very useful in making scenes seem more compelling. Definitely use them to give the viewer something to hang on to when going to either the next scene or to start playing in the next part of the game.