"This clip is not recordable"... animating in clips on the timeline?

I'm working on a pretty complicated Timeline animation at the moment and my general workflow has been to use Animation tracks with individual clips that I create in the project folder. I'll simultaneously have the Timeline panel locked to my master timeline and separately have the Animation panel open so I can open up clips (linked) and tweak and add keyframes etc.

This has worked fine so far for animating parameters on components, but I'm now needing to do a bunch of animation on a transform and what I really want to be able to do is arm the recording function on my clip and move my transforms around in the scene view and have those record into the clip.

Unfortunately, whenever I arm an animation clip to record, it doesn't add any keyframes when I move things around and a little red warning icon shows up on the clip in the timeline that says "This clip is not recordable". Strange, because I feel like I remember this working at an earlier stage in the project, but I could be imagining it.



Is there any way for me to use the recording option with an animation clip? I know that I can create an "infinite clip" directly on the timeline and animate there, but beyond this shortcoming, I find using animation clips to be a much better workflow.

 

Im confused, I could be wrong but I am pretty sure this worked before?

It might be worth filing a bug report as detailed here: https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/bug-reporting

It could be this is intended but worth being sure!

 

Thanks... yea that totally works for me. It feels a little weird that you need to have an existing clip on the Animation Track in order to create a recordable track... its sort of like a hidden path to the behavior you're really looking for. Maybe if there was just a "create recordable clip" option in the right-click menu on the Animation Track it would solve this weird hidden-ness.

 

@seant_unity so this has been working for me and I really like being able to record animation into clips on the timeline, but now I'm in a situation where the limitations of the system are frustrating.

I've got a client that wants to see some drastic changes to some parts of an animation. I'd like to do this non-destructively so that it will be easy to swap between different versions. If I had been recording into an animation clip in my project library (rather than one created inside the timeline playable), it would be as simple as duplicating the clip, making the modifications to the duplicate and swapping it into the timeline for the original. Then if I need to get back to the original clip, I just swap it back in.

I realize there are many ways to workaround this system... I can duplicate the recorded clip of course, but you can't rename recorded clips (I currently have 41 recorded clips inside my timeline). It's also unclear if an unused recorded clip ever gets purged from the timeline playable.

Sure, I use version control, but while keeping the changes in, I'll also need to place new animations inside the timeline. Reverting doesn't work for this.

I think this makes a good case for giving us the ability to record into project library-created animation clips in addition to clips created inside the timeline. I understand it could get very complex regarding clips that are imported from inside an .fbx, but it seems like an unnecessary limitation to have clips created in the project library not be able to be recorded into.

 

Yep i'm wih Aaron on this one... its confusing and I don't understand why then if double-clicking the clip (which ultimately opens it in the Animation window... the original clip that is) i am still unable to make changes to it? As i understand it, the clip in the animation window is the original clip and nothing to do with Timeline, right?

 

The override track worked great, thank you!

 

While I totally understand why this is a thing, I think there's one thing I would really like to have as a temporary workaround for people who still need to modify animation in timeline. I personally feel okay if I have to do modification in Animation panel, but the current state of Add Property really isn't making thing easy. Let's say my character has up to hundreds of bones and some of them buried very deep into the hierachy, navigating through the Add Property UI just to add a few sets of bones to work on has been a huge pain. Right now we have to navigate thgrough the entire hierachy for EACH sub property. My suggestion would be either allow us to keep our view inside the hierachy until we close it, or offer a search tab. I would much prefer a search tab.

 

As a user I have the exact opposite feeling regarding clarity. When creating clips in the Timeline I expect that clips would be created in the project that are referenced, exactly the same way as the Animation window creates clips in the project. The notion of embedded hidden clips that are nested under the Timeline asset is super confusing for first time Timeline users. As noted by Aaron it doesn't scale well and makes reusing clips extremely difficult.

I want 1:1 parity between the Timeline inline curve editor and the Animation window. If I can only have one curve editor active at once in Timeline (due to performance issues) then I'd prefer that to the current state of things. I don't want an inline editor that is a lightweight version of the Animation window.

 

Exactly!

 

I looked a bit through the code for Bidirectional Motion Transfer and you're using some kind of Playable Graph to do the transfer. Also I remember reading that recording in Timeline uses some kind of internal AnimationClip as a backing field for the infinite clip.
Wouldn't it be possible to invoke a similar concept while recording on an infinite clip which copies over the motion to the internal AnimationClip that you use when doing infinite clips? Especially on your side, since half the stuff are sealed, internal or some other kind of restricted scope.

 

Found a solution
Create on the object which has this animation a new animator controller
drag and drop the animation on the animator controller
the animation is now recordable
Edit your animation
once finished just the remove the animator controller from the animator component.

 

The solution working for me is:

1. Double-click the animation clip in the timeline you want to record on.
2. Copy all the keyframes from this clip.
3. Duplicate the track in the timeline.
4. Delete the animation clip from the duplicated track.
5. Start a new recording on the now empty duplicated track.
6. Insert a single frame, then stop recording.
7. Double-click the new recording to view the frame in the animation window.
8. Paste the previously copied frames into this new recording.
9. If the original track had an offset, reset it to zero on to the duplicate.
10. Either remove or mute the original track.

 

It's funny you bring this up. The Animation window is a better tool, so I would love to be able to write to an animation through that while previewing the Timeline at the same time. The inline Timeline curve editor is far to cramped and clunky to do any legitimate, full animation work, exactly as you say. So the fact that I cannot use the Animation window in sync with the Timeline window except to preview is highly obnoxious. Since I cannot write to project owned clips through the Timeline, it is completely impossible to use the Animation window for Timeline synced things in any legitimate capacity - like animating over Timeline audio, for example. It's completely impractical to edit a clip in the Animation window, guess the right timing, and continuously switch back to the Timeline to see if my timing lines up.

I would do anything to just be able to use the Animation window while previewing the Timeline context at the same time.

If I am missing something and this is possible, please let me know.

 

If you're talking about the created clip on the timeline track, then just double click on the animation track (or right click -> "Edit in Animation Window"), and the Animation window would open. Those two windows will sync with each other, so you can edit on Animation window, and preview on Timeline window.