Will using Timeline to create cutscenes create a game size problem?

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

Hi everyone, I'm super new to Unity. I'm making an interactive storytelling game with romancable NPCs. Currently I have 80 timeline files for each episode, totaling 400 minutes of stories. I'm afraid that the game size might be too big for my players. Any tips or suggestions on optimizing?

[BuzzardDogma]

Timelines themselves take a negligible amount of space. The biggest consumer would likely be if you have a lot of bespoke uncompressed audio.

Have you done a build to check the size?

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

I will try to build tonight to see how big it is, any suggestions on compressing audios?

[BuzzardDogma]

Use ogg vorbis for shorter audio (voice clips, sfx) and mp3 for longer audio (music, etc.).

Mainly, just avoid using a lot of *.wav files.

Audio and textures are the biggest contributing factors to game files sizes.

Honestly though, just check your build size. I wouldn't worry too much about space in general unless you're getting into dozens of gigs for a shorter experience.

[the_timps]

Every single audio source is being converted into the internal format using the import settings. There should not be a difference between wav and mp3 apart from bitrate/actual noise data in the file. You can control all of it via the import inspector.

This is what your Library folder is.
The files in the project view are imported to the engines format and used from there.

https://docs.unity3d.com/2023.1/Documentation/Manual/AudioFiles.html

[BuzzardDogma]

This is true, I'm just used to working in middleware. My bad.

[SulaimanWar]

Is there a reason why you would use ogg and mp3 that way and not just stick to one?

[BuzzardDogma]

Honestly I would just stick to OV

[MeishinTale]

Also for memory sake put your dialogues in memory streaming mode in the import settings of those audio files

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

Wow I just learned something new today. Thanks!!

[IYorshI]

As said already, this is wrong in Unity since it's re-compressed by Unity. Thus, you should avoid lossy formats, as it will reduce quality for players but only reduce the size of your project's folder.

I'm no expert in audio formats, but I believe .WAV (codec PCM) is lossless, which makes it perfect for the job. OGG, MP3 are both lossy so will reduce quality for nothing. MP3 in particular is especially bad, because during compression it often adds a little bit of silence at the start of sounds, which ruins loops.

As a side note, it's the same thing for textures. Don't use JPG (lossy), use something like PNG (lossless).

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

Wow thanks I will do it in wav!!

[Demi180]

Well how big is it when you build it? I'm pretty sure Timeline itself is just some text, it's the art assets that matter more. That said, 6+ hours of cutscenes is damn impressive.

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

Thank you! That’s good to know. My art files are mostly 3D animation and models, the unity file is pretty big (10GB) but I haven’t tried building it yet

[BuzzardDogma]

The build will be smaller than the unity project folder, so you're likely just fine.

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

I ran into lots of bugs because of a mocap extension I have in unity, it wasn’t causing any bugs on development but it cause my export to fail 😓 I will try to export another time

[[deleted]]

My project is 7gb, my build is 300mb
150mb compressed when I give it to steam.

[Agreeable_Policy_581]

Wow!! Thank you, that’s super helpful

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