bevy_director

Shots, sequences, and a camera you can direct. An Unreal-Sequencer-shaped cinematic layer for Bevy 0.19: sequences are RON assets made of shots, shots are camera rigs (eased keys, constant-speed dolly rails, orbits) with a film-literate lens (focal length against a filmback, focus pulls, aperture, exposure), and playback hands off from your gameplay camera and glides back onto it when the take ends.

What it is not: a tween library (see bevy_tweening), an animation graph (see bevy_animation), or a UI. The viewfinder authors sequences in-game with a keyboard and gizmos, no widgets.

Quickstart

use bevy::prelude::*;
use bevy_director::prelude::*;

app.add_plugins(DirectorPlugin);

// Let the director borrow the frame: gate your own camera-driving
// system so it yields during a take and runs during the glide home.
app.add_systems(Update, my_camera_rig.run_if(gameplay_camera_free));

// Anywhere, later:
commands.play_sequence(asset_server.load("sequences/intro.dir.ron"));

The director finds your active Camera3d, snapshots it, swaps is_active to its own CineCamera (spawning a plain one if you did not provide one; spawn your own to keep your post stack), plays the shots, and at the end blends toward wherever your live camera is by then, sampling it every frame. Control can return to the player while the camera is still gliding.

Listen for SequenceStarted, MarkerReached { name, .. } (captions, stingers), and SequenceFinished { reason } (story flags belong here, never on markers). commands.skip_sequence() jumps to the end and takes the normal blend home; stop_sequence() cuts hard.

The viewfinder (feature viewfinder, on by default)

The director's chair, no widgets: press Backquote in your running game.

Gizmos draw every shot's path, keys, aim rays, and the playhead ghost while the viewfinder is up.

The .dir.ron format

SequenceAsset(
    name: "intro",
    shots: [
        Shot(
            start: 0.0, duration: 8.0,
            rig: Rail(
                points: [(-2.0, 2.0, -6.0), (0.0, 2.2, 0.0), (2.0, 2.5, 6.0)],
                constant_speed: true,
                progress: ScalarTrack(keys: [
                    ScalarKey(time: 0.0, value: 0.0, ease: SmoothStep),
                    ScalarKey(time: 8.0, value: 1.0),
                ]),
            ),
            look: At(target: Entity("gate"), damping: Some(8.0)),
            lens: Lens(
                fov: FocalLengthMm(track: ScalarTrack(keys: [ScalarKey(time: 0.0, value: 35.0)])),
                focus: Some(Target(target: Entity("gate"))),
                aperture_f_stops: Some(ScalarTrack(keys: [ScalarKey(time: 0.0, value: 2.0)])),
            ),
        ),
    ],
    markers: [Marker(time: 1.0, name: "caption_one")],
    blend_out: Some(Blend(secs: 1.5, ease: SmoothStep)),
)

Rules worth knowing: shot starts are absolute and sorted; a shot with no blend_in cuts hard; during a blend the previous shot is sampled clamped (extend it into the overlap for a moving crossfade); markers fire only while playing across them (skips and seeks never retro-fire); constant_speed rails cover equal distance in equal time via an arc-length table, the piece Bevy itself does not ship.

Glossary for Unreal refugees

Features

• viewfinder (default): the in-game capture mode. Implies gizmos.
• gizmos (default): path and key overlay drawing.

With both off, the crate is the data model, the evaluator, the RON loader, and the playback state machine: enough to ship cutscenes.

Compatibility

License

Dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option.