Today I was accepted into Unity’s Summer of Code. In their wise words, it’s “a program through which we offer indie & student developers the chance to get paid for doing something cool in Unity.” Applicants pitch an idea and if it’s accepted they get cash, a mentor, and six weeks to complete their project.

My idea was to create a Cutscene Editor to ease creating realtime cutscenes by developers and filmmakers alike. Think of it as merging Final Cut with Unity, but working with in-game cameras and animations rather than video footage. Creating cutscenes in Unity is a drag and requires the developer to whip out their trusty script editor. The goal of this project is to make such whipping unnecessary, and to make it possible for video editors to work with elements like clips, transitions, and effects in a familiar way. If this sounds interesting to you (and I sincerely hope it does), I encourage you to take a look at my proposal [PDF].

Over the next six weeks I’ll be posting about my progress here and on the forum. Naturally I’d love to hear any feedback and ideas you might have. My development time is fairly limited, but in the given month and a half I hope to make this tool as useful as possible.