Timeline - Available in Unity 2017.1

Hi, is there good way to use array of objects in Playable? ExposedReference<GameObject>[] is hidden in inspector. Now I'm using ExposedReference to script which contains Array of GameObjects, but it's not the best way.

Code (CSharp):

1. using System;
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4. using UnityEngine;
5. using UnityEngine.Playables;
6. using UnityEngine.Timeline;
7. [Serializable]
8. public class MaterialArrayChangeColorPlayable : BasicScriptPlayable
9. {
10.     public ExposedReference<GameObjectContainer> gameObjectContainer;
11.  
12.     private GameObjectContainer cont;
13.     private GameObject[] gameObjectsArray;
14.  
15.     private MaterialPropertyBlock block;
16.  
17.     public override void OnGraphStart()
18.     {
19.         cont = gameObjectContainer.Resolve(handle.graph.resolver);
20.         gameObjectsArray = cont.gameObjects;
21.     }
22.  
23.     public override void ProcessFrame(FrameData info, object playerData)
24.     {
25.         if (handle.time == 0)
26.             return;      
27.     }
28. }
29.  

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections.Generic;
2. using UnityEngine;
3.  
4. [Serializable]
5. public class GameObjectContainer : MonoBehaviour {
6.  
7.     public GameObject[] gameObjects;
8.  
9. }

Will multi-object editing of Playables be supported? In my case I'm animating tens of objects (mainly their color), and changing anything in Timeline editor is super slow. Best way for me now is to keep variables (in this case Colors) in scripts.

 

Is it possible to provide a Version that fixed Issue
879846
(https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...r-play-after-root-transform-position-y-enable)

This bug prevents me from testing the cool new features this preview features

 

@mikew_unity, any update on the progress of the new Example Projects YouTube video?

 

Instead of double-posting, I'll just link to my post that apparently got overlooked:

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/timeline-experimental-preview-release-1.455265/#post-2959622

To summarize, I wanted to know, will we be able to set the rate of frame advances on a per-track-basis in the Timelines attached to our gameobjects?

For example, rather than firing code (or, more practically, displaying the next frame of a 2D sprite rotation) at frame 0.357086, we could make it happen at specific intervals. For example, only fire code for this frame if the current frame is >= 0.5, then don't fire it anymore until it advances to 1, then fire the code again -- this would effectively allow us to fire code or change the frame of animation to the next one at every 0.5 frames.

Pretty please, with cherries on top??

 

@mikew_unity

Thanks for taking the time to reply! Sounds like a great start! -- Might this sprite rotation use-case even be a good, practical, base for a custom playables example when you guys get time to update?

Oh, one other question! -- could the custom playable technique also be used, for example, to simulate stop-motion using 3D model animations too (i.e. by skipping some of the automatic smoothing/tweening between frames) by any chance? For this to work, it would effectively need to jump to the specific frame location, say, ~0.5 frames ahead (using my previous post's sprite rotation example as a reference, except replacing the sprite frames with 3D model limb rotations instead.)

 

That's great!! Unity's animation system has been a thorn in my side for so long when trying to create any unconventional or nonstandard types of animations within a reasonable block of time! I'm loving this thing more and more every time I hear about it! I can't wait to give it a proper try!

 

I've encountered a bug that might be related to preview 6. Is it possible to get a timeline build integrated with preview 8?

Link to the bug: https://fogbugz.unity3d.com/default.asp?880201_irmbs66u8si31o1v

 

Hi, have a question. Would it be possible to create 2D animated 10 min films ( movies ) for Youtube with this tool? Possibly whole 2h movie. Will the timeline handle such a complex task with tons of tracks?

 

Hi,

For sure I understand that timeline itself does not have export capability. I was asking if the timeline editor in unity can handle more complex tasks than just cutscenes? As I see we can have something like master timeline that controls sub timelines which seems promising.

Regarding the FrameCapture. Is it possible to export 4k videos? How about sound? Do we need to do post sound production in video editing tool?

Thank you very much, Marek.

 

does this work for 2D ? I should watch the video huh . . . okey dokey

 

Dear Unity Team,

I am really happy with the Timeline preview! It is so much easier to use, it makes a lot things easier. I really like it.
However, I can't figure it out how to make animations blend with root motion. Or just two animations follow each other without blending. I would like to start the second animation from the position where the first stopped. If I set the Track offset, the second starts from there too, and I don't think that setting every clip's offsets would be precise...

Thank you in advance!

(PS: I think others asked something like that before in this thread, but my English is not so good to fully understand it)

(PS 2: I'm not only asking the devs, if some of the users could help me too )

 

Silly question but, If I stuck to using this preview build, is it alright to publish a project with it? Or are there issues building? Or it's simply that there's no guarantees? Has anyone tried to publish a full project (even if small) using the Timeline preview build?

 

Also the question is what you mean by it won't land in 5.6? Does it land in 5.6.1 or Unity 2017?

 

Unity 5.6 is the last 5.x version so probably Unity 2017.x

 

The particle workflow in Timeline is so close to being awesome. The ability to scrub the particles within the timeline preview is a critical workflow feature. I'd like the activation, playable, and animation tracks to turn on and off particle emitters in preview mode the same way the control track does. Is there an easy way to do that?

 

When I edit a clip's Blend Curves in the Curve editor, the changes don't "stick", and aren't updated in the Blend Curves window. Is this a bug?

 

Will there be support for playing video using the new video player on the timeline? It would be great to be able to synchronize video with 3d animation.

 

Hello there,
I'm starting to use Timeline and I do have a (silly ?) question.
I have my Timeline properly set up, playing animation clips (already recorded from an other software), activations tracks, and so on.
I wanted to animate a camera, so I dragged and dropped the camera into timeline, created an animation track, and hit record. Everything works perfectly when I scroll the timeline (I can see the animation). But when I "play the game", the camera doesn't move.
Everything else animated in the timeline works fine, but the camera move.
I tried it differently, recorded a clip first OUT OF Timeline, and drag and drop it into Timeline : same issue, when I scroll the Timeline I can see the animation, but not when the game plays.

Any hint ?

 

Thanks for the script! It does allow me to preview VFX, but it creates strange bugs with the lifetimes and rotation over life on child particles both in preview and when playing the scene. The same thing happens if I use a Control Track to trigger the VFX.

 

1. New Scene - add VFX_Test to hierarchy
2. Create/Timeline/Timeline
3. Add track to Timeline, select playable
4. R-click in track, Add clip -> ParticleControlClip (Make it at least 5 seconds long)
5. Drag VFX_Test onto "Exposed Reference" slot
6. Select VFX_Test in hierarchy and simulate. Notice the lifetimes exceed 5 seconds, there is a steady pulse of the orange particle , and steady of rotation over time of blue particles.
7. Play the clip in preview mode. Notice that all the particles die within 3 seconds, and that both the loop rate and the rotation rate rapidly accelerate over time.
8. Play the scene and notice the same incorrect particle behavior.

 

@Fiery1
I just opened a bug in our database with that issue. we will investigate that and thanks for the report.
Bug #888010 for future reference.

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

Hi, can we have preview release for 5.6f1 when it is out? We want to start dig into 2D short movie production. Also one question : Is there any solution for timeline to tackle multilingual ( variable lengths ) characters dialog audio clips?

 

Thank you, it's working But blending two together still not. I hope it will be in the final release This is a very useful tool, I really like it

Edit: Sorry, just realised an easy workaround. Set the first clip's end where the second should start, 'match offsets to previous' and then reset the first clip's end where you want it to be. (Sorry about my english, I can't explain it better )

 

Is there an easy way to animate opacity for a mesh through timeline? I'm hoping for the ease of opacity animation in After Effects. I've tried animating the opacity of the mesh's material opacity through an animation track, but I can't get that to work through timeline. Suggestions?

 

Is there any profiling data regarding Timeline's impact on performance? I'm interested in both runtime impact and load times.

 

That's good to know. It'll make our engineers much happier!

 

Any luck with a custom playable? What would be AWESOME is to have an opacity control in the activation track!

 

Hello all!

Here's a 'Getting started from scratch' tutorial for Timeline, featuring Cinemachine and Post processing stack.

*Links in video descriptions

Folks on this thread may already have things running of course, but if you have a buddy that needs some help, I think this video will bring them up to speed quickly.

I'm having a great time experimenting with Timeline! Being able to compose a scene visually and rearrange shots and actions on a timeline is very nice.

 

Really amazing feature. THANKS YOU, keep up the good job. Cheers!!!

 

WOW! this is something great feature i see today.. i am too late to get this news.

 

Is that possible let Timeline only override specific layer in the animator controller?

For an example, a character has two separated layers, one is "Base Layer" is a default one and the other is a created one for upper body. And the character's locomotion is done within the animator controller via animator state. i.e. The character has idle and walk state and those are linked with transition with a few animator parameters.

If I want to add a wave animation which is done only on the upper body layer with Timeline. Is that possible?

The senario is that moving the character is handled by animator controller and some other instance animation like waving hand by Timeline. So at the end of waving hand, the character animation automatically back to the idle state or walk state depends on the state in the animator controller.

Best,

 

The best way Unity handle things by good "contracts". Close everything so you need to reflect everything.

 

Could you give us light of ExposeReference (seem like the way to expose scene element to assets) and how we create solver inside Asset(ScriptableObject) so we can solve scene references. Some small example will be great.

 

Could show use use of AnimationMixerPlayable seem not working in U5.6b11

 

This is possibly a very stupid question, but how well optimized is this for use in mobile projects? I just got through building a custom camera system that Cinemachine could have handled easily. Coupling it with timeline would make some cutscenes and transitions much easier as well.

Also, to be clear, this is not slated for inclusion in the release version of 5.6? My project will likely be finished well before the Unity 2017 release so, if it isn't something that will be available, I'll likely not spend the time integrating it.

Having said that, thanks for all of this. Unity continues to amaze me. Keep up the great work!