STAGE.LINK is a plugin for the Unreal Editor that allows for live animation, audio, and other input data to be routed into Unreal Editor. If you have a project using the Live Link Face app for iOS, the STAGE.KIT app combined with the STAGE.LINK editor plugin can be substituted one-for-one, with no content changes. But STAGE.LINK goes further, by allowing you to capture multiple live sources, even remote sources over the internet, and ensure they all stay in sync. STAGE.LINK essentially connects performers who are using STAGE.KIT to the Unreal Editor.

GETTING STARTED

If you’re working with our demo project, STAGE.LINK is already included in the project’s plugins directory, ie FutureStage_DemoProject/Plugins/FutureStageLink. If you want to add STAGE.LINK to an existing project, download the plugin here, and add it to your Unreal project’s Plugins directory (Be sure to first close Unreal Editor when adding the STAGE.LINK plugin to a pre-existing project). With the STAGE.LINK plugin in place, launch Unreal Editor and open a project. The STAGE.KIT Wizard will open by default. Click Start Setup to begin.

CONNECTING TO FUTURE.STAGE

Log-in with your FUTURE.STAGE credentials.

SELECTING A SHOW AND STAGE

Once connected, the show(s) that are running, and available to you, will be accessible in the Show: pulldown menu. Select the show you wish to connect to. A field to name your Stage will be filled out by default with your [COMPUTER NAME]_Stage. This is a way to identify this specific connection as a unique UE Stage. Go ahead and modify it as you see fit, or not, and hit next.

You can always access the settings for STAGE.LINK by pressing the STAGE.LINK button in the editor toolbar.

After successfully connecting to a Show, Subject Names will populate in the Live Link editor panel, one for each performer actively connected to your Show via STAGE.KIT. These Subject Names are unique identifiers per performer. Subject Names are set manually by the performers themselves in the STAGE.KIT iOS app.

ASSOCIATING A SUBJECT NAME WITH A CHARACTER

To connect a performance to a character’s animation and audio components we need to connect them with a Live Link Subject Name. In the editor viewport click on a character actor in the scene, eg BP_Beardy. In the Details editor panel, set the Live Link Head and Live Link Body properties to the Live Link Subject Name for driving the head and/or body of the character. Head and body are separated to support driving just the face using STAGE.KIT, and separately driving the body using a full-body motion capture system. For now, just set the face and body to the same Live Link Subject Name.

If you have not connected to a Show or no STAGE.KIT performers are connected to your Show, the drop-down menus for these properties will be empty. Please see STAGE.HUB for creating a Show and STAGE.KIT for more information.

PRESS PLAY!

Now that you’re logged in, connected to a show, and have associated character(s) with Live Link Subject Name(s), press play in the editor, and you should see the characters animate, and hear the characters speak!

CONNECTION STATUS

STAGE.LINK provides a Heads Up Display (HUD) that acts as a debug widget for showing the current state of the live feed(s). This includes a video thumbnail of the performer, a graph of the audio buffer size, an audio level meter, and a table of statistics about the audio performance and sync. By default, this HUD can be toggled while playing in editor and pressing the P key.

TIPS

To avoid hearing doubled-up audio when interacting with someone inside of STAGE.KIT and connected to a STAGE.LINK session, we recommend using headphones connected to your pc.

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