How are we supposed to create custom Playables for Timeline?

I am trying to create a dialog box Playable to show dialog boxes in cutscenes. I've downloaded an example project called TimelineCinemachine_GameplayMarketDemo, which has a simple dialog box Playable, which uses just one script on the Timeline, called ConversationPlayable.
However, I've also been watching the Unity video, "Unite Europe 2017 - Extending Timeline with your own playables", with James Bouckley, and he's using the Default Playables Package from the Asset Store, and he's using 4 scripts to create a Playable: Clip, Mixer, Behavior, and Track scripts. And he said that's probably going to change in the near future.
And the Unity Manual says to use ScriptPlayable and PlayableBehaviour.
I'm not sure what methodology I'm supposed to be using. Anyone have any insight? The 4 scripts method seems very confused to me.

 

My interpretation is that the Default Playables wizard may change, but the structure of the 4 scripts will remain the same. So any scripts generated by the wizard should still continue to work in the future. (I could be wrong.) In any case, it was fairly inscrutable to me, too, until I let the wizard generate as much of the scripts as possible. At that point, it was fairly easy to fill in my code where indicated.

 

So I guess the wizard and it's four classes are for more extensive work, like making your own custom Tracks.

Otherwise, I can just derive from PlayableBehavior and PlayableAsset as necessary to put something like a dialog box controller on the timeline. Is this correct?

 

Yeah, but the boilerplate code for what? That's what I don't understand. The wizard seems to be creating boilerplate code for more complicated scenarios than creating a PlayableBehavior to put on the timeline.

 

can anyone point me in the right direction (documentation, videos) to how and what all those things means? playable assets, playable behaviours? I've been working with unity for around 5 years now and I just updated from 5.6 to 2017.2 to try timeline, but I have no clue what all these names and classes represent exactly, I was able to play around with timeline to do normal stuff like draging animations, cinemachine blends of virtual cameras, play audios, animate exposed fields from X monobehaviours, but I want to take further control and use its complete potential, I understand that you can create custom stuff which then can be driven by timeline, but I don't know the stuff going on under the hood.

for example, I want to animate a generic creature, so far what I did is create a navigation agent with a script that sets its destination to the position of a gameobject, then in timeline I move this gameobject. this way I decouple timeline animation of the target position from the actual creature, allowing me to spawn any random creature model independently of timeline.
otherwise, if I wanted to control the specific 3D model's position with timeline, then I would not have the possibility to switch to another model with another animator controller at runtime, because the reference to the model is unique and not generic.

if anybody understood what I'm trying to say, I can use some help, I want to make things more generic, like timeline animating a destination, animating a generic "blend whatever you are doing now with an attack animation clip" without explicitly dragging the attack clip into timeline, because that will only work for a specific model.

PS: also I'm wondering how you can move/offset all tracks and clips in timeline, I need to make some space at the first seconds to add another camera shot, but I already did lots of works on timeline and manually moving everything is a pain.

thanks!

 

Maybe a more accurate term for a Timeline Clip, is Item. As Timeline tracks can be used to control most any item, not just animation or audio clips.

 

Is the Mixer mandatory? Mixer and Clip both inherit from PlayableBehavior. I have been creating clips from the track, and the ProcessFrame seems properly called. Also I'm not sure to understand how a Mixer can get several inputs. I looked at the LightControl example (default playable) but there is only one input.

 

Wondering about the mixer as well. For example I am trying to create something simple that doesn't need to blend between two clips. Each clip would be completely separate.

Honestly this Timeline stuff is so far proving to be the most confusing thing I've done in Unity.

 

Thanks for the precisions. I still have few questions.
Let's say I don't use a mixer, just PlayableBehavior. Is it normal that ProcessFrame is always called? How can I know that there is no clip at this frame? info.weight is always = 1...
Now if I use a mixer, playable.GetInputCount () is always equal to the number of clips. So I have to check that all playable.GetInputWeight(i) = 0 in order to determine that there is nothing to do? playable.GetTime() seems to works in play mode only, playable.GetDuration() provides incorrect value.

I'm just printing this :
Debug.Log (inputCount+" "+playable.GetInputWeight(0)+" "+info.weight+" "+ playable.GetTime() +" "+ playable.GetDuration());

in the sample LightControlMixerBehavior, in function ProcessFrame.

 

If timeline is meant to make game development faster, leaner and more intuitive, then why does it pollute your project so much?

To make something so simple, you have to create so many things and jump through so many hoops. This is not just because of scriptable objects, because I extensively use Scriptable objects every day and I know their implications. This is mostly due to very bad design, especially on the naming conventions.

Please review the naming of this area of the engine in relation to the rest of the engine.

 

I simply dumped timeline, sorry to say, it was so far away from the needs of the everyday developer. I'm seeing it elsewhere in Unity as well. It's not a healthy direction to add so much complexity simply because the source isn't available.

I think it's a tricky task to balance usability with simplicity but I'm thinking that Unity should think more about LLAPI and HLAPI approaches, where the guts are exposed for experts and asset store developers, and the HLAPI is a simpler and much more engaging thing that is used for the other 95% of people.

Seems to me timeline was rushed out, pressured out.

TLDR: if you need a wizard, you're probably doing it wrong.

 

I can sort of see your problems with it, but I think a lot of your problem is conveying that to the users so the docs and blog will help out a lot

 

I am sorry but at NO point was that ever insinuated in the videos, documentation or the big headline 2017 release landing pages.

You shouldn't make a ton of videos touting it as easier, time saving and effortless to use when it is NOT there and wont be for at least a year.

I should mention that had timeline actually been what it was touted to be, we were ready to fork out for 2 pro subscriptions that we had been holding off on.

We have begun to trial unreal instead.

 

As you should, it's necessary for any serious developer to try do feasibility studies
FWIW, asset store does have timeline stuff solved by 3rd parties.

 

We have tried it out every year. There's never been a good reason to consider a switch though, but the last 2 releases of Unity have added far more bugs than in previous versions, and all in what we would consider pivotal areas, and so our main reason this time for looking is because we are worried about future stability and reliability.

I know there is timeline stuff on the store, but I dont see why I should have to buy it when if you watch any unity endorsed video on timeline they cook it up to be 100% ready, stable, usable and easy. I just want them to stop falsely advertising half-baked features, thats all. Im fine with accepting the broken parts that will never get fixed, I am used to them by now. But I cant take it when features are shoved in our face for years and then come out to be something that pales in comparison to even half-assed asset store assets.

Anyway, rant over!

On a side note, I will be making some tutorials on timeline as there isn't a single tutorial available that shows how to make a game using it, just parts of a game. If I am able to get gameplay sequencable (as it should be able to be done as they advertise as such) then I will report back with my findings for everyone!

 

i guess you never got gameplay sequenceable ...