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Can Timeline preload?

Discussion in 'Timeline' started by SardineFish, Jul 14, 2019.

  1. SardineFish

    SardineFish

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    I found it takes a long time to load a timeline before first play. Even freeze the game for seconds on some android devices.
    Is there any way to preload a timeline playable asset?
     
    SardineFish, Jul 14, 2019
    #1

  2. seant_unity

    seant_unity

    Unity Technologies

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    Yes, you can use playableDirector.RebuildGraph(). It will do all the work of preparing the timeline for play (i.e. the CreatePlayable call in the profiler) without actually starting it.
     
    seant_unity, Jul 15, 2019
    #2

  3. SardineFish

    SardineFish

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    I found this. But it still takes a long time to call a Evaluate() before first play (about 80ms on my Android).
    So I tried to call the Evaluate() to preload it, but it will present the first frame in timeline. I finally place a empty frame a the bigining of the timeline to prevent this. It is not elegant but works.
     
    SardineFish, Jul 15, 2019
    #3

  4. seant_unity

    seant_unity

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    That's a bit unexpected. Could you share the profile of your Evaluate() call?
     
    seant_unity, Jul 15, 2019
    #4

  5. SardineFish

    SardineFish

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    Here is the profile on my Android with only RebuildPlayable() for preloading. This happened when the timeline first play. It only contains a few infomations.

    And here is a profile in Editor on my PC, shows more call stacks.
     
    SardineFish, Jul 15, 2019
    #5

  6. seant_unity

    seant_unity

    Unity Technologies

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    That's interesting. If this is the first timeline that is being played, then it could be a Just-In-Time compile cost that is occurring. Looking at the profiles you sent, that seems to be the case.

    We've seen this before and it's compiling all the required timeline & playable C# code. The workaround is to play (or just evaluate()) a very simple timeline during startup. IL2CPP is better since the code is compiled, but, somewhat surprisingly, still has a significant hit.
     
    seant_unity, Jul 15, 2019
    #6