Sequences and scene activation hard to use as scene keeps deactivating

An issue I am having with using Scene Activation is when I click on various objects in the scene, the timeline changes, which causes the scene to deactivate. This is rather distracting as the location the character in keeps disappearing as soon as I go to adjust the lighting angle, move something, etc. For example, I want to change the angle of the directional light, but as soon as I click on it in the scene the location background disappears, so I cannot see how the shadows are.

Selecting the sequence everything appears.


If I click on Directional Light the location scene disappears because the timeline panel jumps away from the sequence.


So I have to adjust, click back on the sequence, click on the light adjust again, click on the sequence to see it in the scene - I cannot just drag the rotation of the light until its correct. (This is true for all objects in the scene I have tried, not just the directional light.)

Possible solution - only change the timeline panel focus when the new object has a timeline?

 

I forgot to add there is a workaround - use the Lock icon in the Timeline panel. I just got the impression this was not going to be needed with the new support, but looks like it is still needed?

 

Another aspect to this problem. Spent about a week trying to improve my lighting, now putting it all back the way it was again.

Problem: when a sequence is not selected, all sequences get turned on at once. When I put lights (e.g. directional light) in each sequence, it oversaturates (30+ strong directional lights turn on at the same time). Then Unity slows right down - can take 5 seconds to respond to a click. It did not do this before I started playing with lighting. (It enabled 30+ characters but that was fine. It *feels* light it's the oversaturated lighting that is causing the struggling. Its a complicated scene. I am using realtime lighting since the the goal was to adjust the lighting per shot. Note: I have wind zones as well, so they all activate at the same time too.)

My workaround - create a new scene per major lighting change, not just per location change. But deselecting a sequence happens too often - its annoying to use in practice when it slows down so much. Also animate the properties of an existing light when needed rather than creating a new one and having it activate/deactivate as I jump between shots.

 

I am still using an older version due to the symlink issue crashing Unity. I was putting off an upgrade until forced to do so on the hope that the symlink problem would be fixed (otherwise I have to change my workflow to add shared packages). If its not going to be fixed (aka "its a feature"), then I have to work out how to use packages instead with my own code before upgrading. (I share all the characters and movable props in a folder.) Might be time to have a look at that now...

 

I tried upgrading a project (duplicating my "SHARED" directory instead of having a symbolic link) to 2022.1b4 (whatever the latest is). Yes, it felt better in the Sequences package jumping around, so that is nice. I would say that has resolved the problem I was having (I have not tried on a full scale project yet, but I no longer get all the characters appearing at the same time).
Yay! One less problem.