In Matinee all of the content in your cinematic had to exist within your level and be "possessed" by Matinee in order to gain control of and provide instructions to each Actor. That exists within Sequencer, however there is also the concept of Spawnables where you can turn an Actor into something that Sequencer does not need to possess but instead spawns when it needs to. This is useful when you have content you want to reuse in multiple levels, as the Actor is no longer bound to the level but is instead bound to the Level Sequence.
In this guide we will create a small scene using Spawnables that can be reused in multiple levels.
Steps
For this how-to, we are using the Blueprint Third Person Template project with Starter Content Enabled.
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From the Main Tool Bar select Cinematics and Add Level Sequence.
Give the Level Sequence a name and choose a save location.
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Delete the default ThirdPersonCharacter from the level.
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From the Content/Mannequin/Character/Mesh folder, add the SK_Mannequin asset to the level.
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Add the SK_Mannequin to Sequencer and assign the ThirdPersonWalk animation for the scene.
See Animating a Character if you need a refresher on how to add characters and animation.
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Right-click on the SK_Mannequin in Sequencer and choose Convert to Spawnable.
A new Spawned track will be checked and added and the icon next to the Skeletal Mesh will change.
The lightning bolt indicates that this is now a Spawnable for use with Sequencer.
Actors that are marked as Spawnable will only appear in the Level Sequence when the Level Sequence is active and the Spawned checkbox is enabled. If your Level Sequence continues but you want a Spawnable to disappear from the scene, you can add a keyframe with the Spawned checkbox un-checked.
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From the Place Actors panel in the Cinematic tab, Drag-and-drop a Cine Camera Actor into Sequencer.
You will notice the Cine Camera Actor is added and the same lightning bolt icon appears on its icon.
You can also drag items from the Content Browser into Sequencer to create a Spawnable.
See the Sequencer Cheat Sheet for more workflow shortcuts involving Spawnables.
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From the File menu, create a new Default level.
You can elect to save or not save your content, for this example either will be okay.
End Result
The Skeletal Mesh and Camera that we added to the Level Sequence are automatically added to the level as part of the Level Sequence (if the Level Sequence is still open). If the Level Sequence is not open, you will need to drag it into the level in order for the content to appear.
These Actors are no longer a part of the level but instead are part of the Level Sequence. They are not spawned until the Level Sequence starts and are despawned when the Level Sequence concludes.
Actors in the Level Sequence will use the transform in which they were originally placed unless otherwise specified by adding keys to the transform track.