Animating Lighting or Material Properties in Timeline

Hey I'm trying to use Timeline to animate a sunrise, and I would like to

A) animate the Fog properties under Lighting
B) Animate the Sky Tint property under the Procedural Skybox material I'm using.

Is this possible? I cannot seem to add an objects porperty to the timeline unless it exists on a gameobject. Both Lighting Properties and Materials do not live on gameobjects.

Thanks guys!

 

I think that for the first one you should use @jbooth's PlayableShaderGlobals:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/playableshaderglobals-open-source-mit-license.506480/
For the second one you need to create your own custom track which controls that value.

 

What do you mean by create my own custom track?

 

Thanks for linking the video, lot of good info in there.

After watching it though, I'm still not sure I'm entirely sure how to go about editing a material's value (color, etc). The Timeline Playable Wizard still seems like it is set up to edit objects in the scene, but I don't see an option for Material anywhere in there. How can I set up a custom track to control a material value?

 

DChap,

Here's the skinny:

Add an animation track
Drag your object with the material into the track
Set your timeline to 0
Hit the record button
Change your material along the timeline where you see fit

VIOLA!

GLHF
Cog

 

@coggycog Is it possible to throw the Window>Rendering>Lighting Settings onto an object?

 

I'm not sure about that but you could create a Playable that modifies settings on a GO with your custom script attached that in turn modifies the RenderSettings.

 

THANK YOU!!!!

 

Hi @coggycog, I tried what you said but it doesn't work for me. What version of Unity are you using? (I'm on 2019.1.3)

I can drag the object onto the timeline as an animation track and hit the record button, but it isn't recording any keyframes for changes I make to the material. Are only certain types of materials or gameobjects animateable?

For reference, I'm trying to animate a UI sprite.

 

@DChap did you manage to animate a fog property on timelne in the end? Im trying to do the same, but no keyframes are being added on timeline. I only found a conclusion that "This is by design, the Animator in Unity only supports basic properties on MonoBehaviour components." https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...on-when-changing-values-in-sky-and-fog-volume But I didn't figure out the solution yet.

 

@JakubSmaga do you have any idea if this approach would still work in Unity 2019.3 HDRP? Is there any other way which would not requiring coding necesarilly?

 

@Maarja I think I gave up on that hehe. I don't think it's possible without making a custom script with a variable that is referencing the scene fog value, and then animate that variable.

 

Too old thread, I wonder if it will wake up if I post here?
So, now in 2021, how can I do this.
1) animate the fog value over time
2) animate a material property over time. NOTE, the example above worked fine, except its only referencing the EXACT object that you drag to the timeline, I want ALL objects that use the same material to be affected by the animation of the material property.

REAL USAGE: I wanted to use the timeline to create the day/night cycle. Its fine for lights that dim and change over time, as you can drag them in, the sun rotating works fine. But the Emission slot on the material of a building has the lighting information for the windows, so lights come on ALL OVER THE CITY, when I wiggle this property on the material. The important thin is that everything is contain within one timing "Track" so I can add sound changes, and events to that same track (Including animating the city hall clock!)

 

@DChap
Create a script
Add it to timeline
usea public or serialized float member in inspector to change rendersettings.fogdensity on update