Unity Explorer 4.9.0

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Christopher

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:24:45 PM8/3/24

to iranunhuu

I have a project in Unity 2019.4.0f1 and when I double click on a script in the unity editor it opens as expected in Visual Studio 2019. However despite having Unity Tools installed for VS, the class file does not have any intellitext and non of the objects are colour coded etc. It is as if it has simply opened a text file. If I look in solution explorer is shows nothing and says there are no projects. If I look in windows explorer I can see no solution or project files for the Unity Project...

The Cinematic Unity Explorer is a fork of the excellent UnityExplorer mod made by sinai-dev focused on providing tools for creating marketing material for Unity games, which includes an improved freecam, light control, animators control, LOD and shadows improvements, camera paths, and more.

The setup is the most cumbersome step of using the Cinematic Unity Explorer but is essentially extracting a couple of zips into the games folder. We include all of the potential problems you may encounter to be as exhaustive as possible, but chances are you won't need to go through them.

Depending on the game, there may be Thunderstore Mod Manager support. If so, many of the steps below regarding selecting the right BepInEx/MelonLoader may be avoidable, providing a more streamlined process for installation.Most, if not all, games that can be managed through Thunderstore have their BepInEx version already chosen by other players, making installation of CUE as simple as installing BepInEx through the manager, and dragging CUE into the BepInEx folder.

If the game is on Steam, you can check the file structure before downloading by going to the SteamDB page of the game, Depots section, and from the table in there, click the ID number on the game's depot (usually the one with the bigger file size).

If you happen to need it for something the Unity Engine version number can be found by going to the game's folder, right-click on UnityPlayer.dll, clicking on Properties, and heading over to the Details tab. But this info shouldn't be relevant to the guide.

Even tho you can technically use BepInEx as a mod loader for Mono games, we have had more luck getting MelonLoader to work instead, so we proceed to describe the download and installation process for it below.

If the game is using a DRM like Steam make sure you are launching said game through Steam and not opening the .exe directly. Some games won't start otherwise and this error might be confused with a problem created while trying to install the mod loader or another mod.

Execute MelonLoader.Installer.exe. Select where the exe of the game is, uncheck the LATEST checkbox, choose v0.5.7 from the dropdown list instead, and click install. Start your game after installation.

If you don't see a MelonLoader splash screen when starting the game or any console then there might be a problem with the mod loader. To fix it try the steps described below one by one and start the game again after trying each of them:

If you don't see such a thing and want to verify you can go to the Mods\CinematicUnityExplorer folder. You should be able to see a Logs and Scripts folder in there. You can also check the mod loader logs generated inside the MelonLoader\Logs folder and try to read if there is any error in the latest one. If indeed the mod hasn't been loaded try deleting Cinematic Unity Explorer and downloading and installing CinematicUnityExplorer.MelonLoader.IL2CPP.CoreCLR.zip. This is likely the cause as Unity seems to be shifting into CoreCLR for their latest versions.

Most games work with ML 0.5.7 by default and do not need any changes. Still, there might be a small chance some games (e.g. Tormented Souls) won't work once Cinematic Unity Explorer is installed, and it can lead to a crash. If that happens, we recommend giving BepInEx 6 for IL2CPP a try. If that's the case go to the linked page, scroll down to "Artifacts", and download BepInEx Unity (IL2CPP) for Windows x86 or x64 depending on the game (follow the Mono section of this guide to know which one). If even that fails try so with BepInEx NET (CoreCLR net6.0) for Windows.

If you can't use MelonLoader or need to use BepInEx for whatever reason follow the steps below. However, if you already installed MelonLoader and Cinematic Unity Explorer with it then you can skip this section.

Some games (noticeably the ones published by EA) have encrypted game objects on runtime or something along those lines. Fortunately, MelonLoader is able to get through this encryption, but BepInEx won't work.

When using BepInEx, you have to make an extra distinction between 32 and 64 bits. To do so, launch the game and use the Task Manager to check if your game is 32-bit or 64-bit (if it is 32-bit, it will have "32-bit" next to the process name).

You should see more folders created inside the BepInEx folder besides the core folder, and a LogOutput.log file, signaling that the mod loader has been installed correctly. As an alternative to know if the mod loader is working correctly, you can go to BepInEx\config\BepInex.cfg and under [Logging.Console] change Enabled from false to true to display the console at startup.

Extract the CinematicUnityExplorer zip inside the game's BepInEx folder. Launch the game. You should be able to see the Cinematic Unity Explorer menu pop up on startup (it might take a while for it to start, so be patient and look at the logs).

If you don't see such a thing and want to verify you can go to the BepInEx\plugins\CinematicUnityExplorer folder. You should be able to see a Logs and Scripts folder in there. You can also check the mod loader logs generated on BepInEx\LogOutput.log and try to read if there is any error. In either case, if the mod is not loading try the steps below one by one and try running the game after each one:

First, download and install Thunderstore Mod Manager.Once the manager is installed, find your game in the options available, and click 'Select Game'.In the profile screen, either select Default, or create your own if you'd prefer. Click 'Select Profile' to move on to the main section of the manager.On the left hand side, you will see a 'Get Mods' tab, open this and search for BepInEx. Select the BepInEx result, and click 'Download'. The mod manager will then automatically download and install the version required for your chosen game.

Some games will have multiple results when searching for BepInEx, depending on their popularity. You can often find a 'Pinned' release when this is the case, which will be the main install option you need.

Now that BepInEx is installed, boot up the game by clicking the 'Modded' play button in the top right of the window. If all has gone well, you should see a console load up. You can now close the game, and move on to installing CUE.In Thunderstore, navigate to the Settings tab, and select 'Browse profile folder'. This will take you to the location Thunderstore keeps the mods you install.Open a separate explorer window and find your CUE download. Open the downloaded ZIP folder, and copy the 'Plugins' folder. Move back to the window with the game profile, open the BepInEx folder, and paste the CUE plugin folder.Boot the game again, through the Modded play button. You should see an overlay when the game window appears, meaning CUE has installed correctly.

The table below describes all of the default hotkeys. You can edit them to your liking by going to the Options panel inside the mod menu, changing the hotkeys you want, and saving the settings (or manually replacing them by editing the BepInEx\config\com.originalnicodr.cinematicunityexplorer.cfg file).

Without checking the "Use Game Camera?" checkbox on the Freecam panel, the mod will create a new camera object for you to control. This means that some post-processing effects won't be displayed (because they are being applied to the game's camera, not the new one), making the game look "ugly".

However, we would like this to be the case in some games if the gameplay camera happens to bring unwanted effects (like in Somerville, where the gameplay camera didn't render behind the black bars, but this new camera did).

If you need these postprocessing effects you would need to check the "Use Game Camera?" checkbox in the Freecam panel. This will let you control the gameplay camera instead of creating a new one to control.

When doing this, the Cinematic Unity Explorer will attempt to disable the component that controls this gameplay camera, but in some cases, it won't be able to find the right component to disable and unlock the camera from the game. So if you cannot move or rotate the gameplay camera do the following:

If all of that fails you can also try going to the Object Explorer panel and search for game objects with the word "cam", "controller" or "input" on their names (might need to test different scenes if the game has many) in the Scene Explorer. Alternatively, you can also look up these words on the Object Search tab, but expect to get a lot of unhelpful results.

The CineMachine component (a common Unity class used for controlling a gameplay camera) gets automatically disabled by Cinematic Unity Explorer, but some games (e.g. Haven) turn this CineMachine component back on whenever it gets disabled, and the only solution for dealing with it is to straight up delete the component. It's advised to go back to the menu or reload the level in some capacity to get this component back once you finish your shooting session.

It is also worth mentioning how there might be situations in which you would want to decrease the far clip plane or increase the near clip plane, like if there are things on the distance that you do not want to include on your shot, or there are things blocking your composition near the camera.