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How to repair Sequence Timeline strangeness (internal confusion on lengths?)

Discussion in 'Timeline' started by akent99, Apr 25, 2022.

  1. akent99

    akent99

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2018
    Posts:
    588
    I have a Unity Scene with a Master Sequence, with 3 children (Location 20, Location 30, and Location 40). It seems to have got itself in a knot. I have the Master sequence (Episode 3) with the 3 child sequences in it.
    upload_2022-4-25_1-14-21.png

    But I cannot drag the Location 20 to time offset 0. It turns red and if I let go of the mouse it jumps back to where it was before I started dragging.

    upload_2022-4-25_1-15-22.png

    I *can* drag Location 30 to time offset 0 however!

    upload_2022-4-25_1-16-12.png


    Also, the Location 40 clip I set the duration to 400 seconds in the Inspector for the Clip. But inside, it seems that the length is only 2 seconds so the camera etc turns off after 2 seconds. I cannot extend the length of the Location 40 sequence.

    upload_2022-4-25_1-18-49.png

    Even stranger, when I move the playhead past 2 seconds, the Game window shows something from Location 20!!! Its like the Master Sequence Timeline window is showing one thing, but internally it thinks the sequences are at different places that are not updating when I drag the sequences around in the Timeline window.

    I have exited and restarted Unity a few times, did not help. I am using 2022.1.b12.2880 with Sequences 1.1.0.

    Is there any way to get nested sequences to refresh its internal data structure? Or any other way to get it all working again?


    PS: I got here somehow as I split one large Unity Scene with 3 location sub-sequences into 3 separate Unity scenes for speed. This was because all scenes would activate if a sequence lost focus. This has been fixed in Sequences so all sequences start off disabled, avoiding the problem. So I merged the objects from the 3 scenes back into 1. (Having it split was causing weird problems as well as not all the sub-sequcnes existed in the scene. I was getting red warnings in the "Structure" window about sub-sequences not being found. So I think it makes sense keeping it all in the one scene, and the new approach is now fast enough. So I don't think I have caused the problem by normal usage - but I cannot work out how to recover the project now its got messed up. I put Location 20 and 30 back into the master scene, and everything seemed okay, then I added a new Location 40 sequence child of Episode 3 master sequence (via the Structure panel). That is when things start going wrong.
     
  2. akent99

    akent99

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2018
    Posts:
    588
    Sigh. I worked out what was happening.
    Should I laugh or cry?
    Turned out Location 20 is 4:26 long, Location 30 is 4:25 long, and Location 40 was on there TWICE! There was a first Location 40 that was 0:02 (2 seconds) long and another one extended to a few minutes. The first Location 40 was not visible as 2 seconds got scaled to be zero pixels wide in the Timeline. I just happened to zoom in and saw a thin line. Zooming in more and I found the Location 40 clip.

    So why did this cause a problem? The 2-second Location 40 clip was placed at time 4:25. So Location 30 (4:25 long) could squeeze in just before Location 40, but Location 20 (4:26 long) would not fit. Its just zoomed out, the Location 40 clip was effectively invisible (made more confusing because I must had added a second copy of the Location 40 clip (with a long length) after I could not see the first short one).

    So, user error. All is fine.