Question Is Timeline still in active development?

In short: is timeline still actively being worked on?
I see plenty of things, that could be improved on - be it Custom-Playable Creation, Reusability (try copying a Playable Director + Playables - not fun) and more built in Playables.

But there haven't been many improvements/news about it recently - so I wanted to ask, if there is a roadmap for timeline or active development on it at all.

 

Great question. I’m still asking for a simple cut/paste of keys.

 

FWIW @LeFx_Tom I think the answer is no.

AFAICT work on Timeline and the Playables API is stopped. Most of the news coming out of Unity is about their new "Animation workflow" which they have stated will not be coming out this year (2023). As such, all of us are left hanging and must make due with the existing technology.

We are heavy hackers of the Timeline/Playables API and we have... many, many concerns about the API, performance, and missing fundamentals. That said, if you're willing to swallow your dignity a little bit and get creative you can hack the system to do somewhat interesting things.

 

Super disappointing, but unfortunately absolutely in tune with Unity's usual development practice. You get a feature, that's seemingly cool, it's being developed until it's about 80% done and then they abandon it in a limbo, where it lies dormant for 3-5 years all the while being told "there will be a new system coming, but it's not done yet"

Timeline is a cool feature - in its idea and concept. If you look at Unreal Engines Sequence, you can easily see, how powerful timeline actually could have been and it's very sad, that it'll probably never be.

We also have made the same experience as you, @kanesteven - if you're willing to bend and break certain principles, you can get quite a bit further - but yea - the user experience in doing so is definitely not cool and it lacks a few very, very basic things, that make day-to-day-work with it painful at times.

I'd hoped for more - but again - not a surprise, sadly

 

And that would be fine, frankly, if we had any indication that the replacement system wouldn't have the exact same fate, but we don't. For not 100% essential features, Unity still slaps them together, vomits them to their userbase, then calls it a day.

 

We rely heavily on Timeline ourselves. The team better have somehting that is compatible, not sure why it would be ditch altogether, it's convenient and extensible. We invested quite a lot in it as well.

 

They mentioned at GDC the next Animation update is built off of DOTs behind the scenes for better performance, but they did actually mention in the current roadmap the new animation system that is being worked on two weeks ago.

 

Yeah, we create training for the Navy and also rely heavily on timeline. Really hope they are not doing typical unity things and abandoning dev. but it sure seems like they are. There is no support here from the team re timeline for a long time.

 

By what it looked like from the GDC topic video two weeks ago the update is making animation, timeline, and so forth start moving to use DOTs behind the scenes for performance improvements with also allowing entities in Timeline.

On Unity's YouTube channel, they released a roadmap video near the end where they talk about performance, entities, and .Net updates they have a slide about updating the animation system to improve performance and make it easier to extend for themselves and Unity users.

My best guess, and please take this with a grain of salt till the announce it is ready themselves, they are going to focus on that update with 100% of their energy. After they finish that update they will start adding new API, features, and QOL stuff. Which is honestly okay, because animation sometimes can be a pain point for devs so making a great foundation basis is a good way to begin a major new update to add onto feature wise in the future.