Timeline - Available in Unity 2017.1

Sweet! Been really looking forward to this.

 

@mikew_unity, the Example Projects YouTube video linked in your post appears to be unavailable. Is it still set to private by chance?

 

does this support scrubbing of mecanim animations like cinema director does.

 

Thanks guys - been waiting 10 years for this! Very excited to try it out. Cheers!

 

Will it be available as a .dll like Cinemachine? compatible with 5.5?
Also how do I skip, ffwd, restart a timeline sequence via code? What's the recommended way to transition smoothly from scene state to timeline sequence back to another scene state?

 

This looks really nice. Hats off to you folks at unity for thinking about artists

 

Very nice,
Any plan to add avatar masking in override track?

 

Any chance we can have a simple tween engine and a path waypoint system?

 

It's looking pretty good. I wonder though, where can I get the gameplay examples project?

 

Blending from a scene to a timeline is easy to understand but how do you define the out state? A new scene? And how do you take over game logic, it just works? (something tells me it's also related to this new Playable API)
Sorry for just asking questions that may be answered by testing this demo you linked, I'm in the middle or breaking everything for an iOS port Good thing is one of the animatic is such a clusterf*ck of coroutines that I'm tempted to use Timeline on it. Could we get a 5.5.1 build?

 

So... clicking "Add from animation clip" shows me all animations in my project, which is horrible, and then when I click an animation, it crashes.

Sooo... I guess I previewed the timeline feature!

 

Would it be within the scope to make it possible to grab arms/limbs and animate character bodies and then morph their faces/textures while playing some audio with this?

For the first part, I was thinking of using something like Skele to animate directly in the editor, though it would be much better if this could just be done natively. I have a feeling we could use lip sync to animate the mouths programmatically with approximation, and using morph data when more precision is required. The only thing left is morphing the faces to different shape keys for various emotions. With these three features, it would be possible for anyone to make cutscenes easily.

 

I want to try it out (probably will sometime), but will it continue to be updated alongside the 5.6beta releases?... this whole experimental preview thing does have its offputting drawbacks

 

I strongly agree. Using Skele with Timeline is a very bad expirience as far as I can tell. Having some kind of controll over characters directly in the Timeline as in Source Film Maker will make it much more easier for us.

 

Is is possible to Instanciate objects with a custome timeline ?
I would really need something like that.

 

it's very similar to Flux on asset store

 

Hello Mike,

I do not understand what is happening. Here is what i did:

1. created a box with an animator, animated it in the normal animation window.
2. created a timeline asset, dragged the box game object into the timeline window from my scene hierarchy. And chose "Animation Track"
3. dragged my animation file that I created in step one, onto the box game object in timeline. I can scrub the animation timeline and can see the box animate.
4. now I want to go back to my original animation and change it in the normal way in the animation window. But now, when I scrub in the animation window, my object no longer animates, I can no longer turn on the "record" button, I can add keys but not edit the values, but I can modify existing keys.
5. also if i add another animation it will not let me record animate it in the animation window. I can add a key manually using the "Add Property" button, but if I try to change a keys value, it will not stick.

What is keeping me from editing an animators animation clip once the object is in timeline?

Just noticed, if I right click a clip in timeline and choose "Edit in Animation Window", it does allow me to edit existing keys and add new keys to properties that already have keys but I cannot add new property keys. Scrubbing does work again )in the Animation window) but I still cannot use the record button.


also, in the Timeline Manual, the "StoryTellerParticlesAnimation.unitypackage" link is broken. I'm trying to get my particle system to show all the parameters like the animated gifs show in the Manual but I cant figure it out.

thanks,
z

 

This seems like a bug:

The UI of a Transform's XYZ are red in Timeline's preview mode, if that Transform has an animation track in Timeline.
If you grab the associated GameObject that has a Transform position recorded animation in the timeline, and move it around in the scene, nothing is affected in the timeline.

In non-timeline-land, with a traditional non-timeline animation in Unity, if you grab a gameobject that has a red Transform XYZ UI while in the Animation editor window, it will create a key in timeline and the animation editor will kick you into record mode.
This seems like inconsistent behavior between two similar UI paradigms, no?

 

Very cool. We will definitely check this out. Thanks.

 

Man I can't wait to try this out. Will Timeline be able to save .anim files if we use it? Example I want to create an animation for my character when he is selected, and let's say, I have a sound of his weapon charging. Will this tool handle that? And also, could we integrate this with assets like UFE, for cutscenes?

 

Insert ripple is needed. On premiere, the shortcut is holding the command button while sliding a clip.

 

@julienb awesome! that's a must have feature.

@mikew_unity Trying out the Timeline Preview. Looking really nice

 

You can keyframe a character directly in timeline when you create an animation track and reference the gameobject it's challenging. These improvements would help:

1. show bones when an animation track is created
2. fixing 'f' frame sending us far from a pivot that has no mesh
3. shortcut to key all properties that already have a key ('k' in maya)
   
4. prioritize bone over mesh and prefab in the selection
5. key all objects in the scene by dragging the scene in the animation track instead of a gameobject
6. <,> that work in the scene view (part of a larger topic of focus in unity which I'm sure isn't fun for the UT devs to hack through)

I don't see Unity implementing a full body IK that allows us to pull arm and body moves like in Source FM but I know the mecanim folks are working on something that can be repurposed for that, the generic IK

 

You know what? I would be okay with manually positioning the limbs (in the meantime) as long as I could at least save/load poses for a gameobject's different chains of limbs/digits and mirror them where applicable. It wouldn't be quite as fast as dragging limbs with IK, but it would be precise enough for manual animation (and way less tedious) than having to pose every finger manually.

Another point to consider -- Having a facial morph and lipsync palette would be nice for fast facial animation keys too. It would be a godsend if this included remembering/keying UV offsets and texture-swapping too, because animation of texture-based eyes and mouths (think anime/cartoon chars such as Unity-chan) is very tedious otherwise. As far as I have been able to tell, it is impossible to do the latter part in the Animation window anyhow. So this would be a HUGELY welcome feature of Timeline!

--

On another note: Is it possible to give gameplay characters going into a Timeline playable state an option to either use their current world location OR an absolute location (stored in the timeline itself) to start the position of their animation?

To explain what I mean, I was thnking of the fight scene between the Blacksmith and the other guy. Let's say this guy the blacksmith was fighting was needed to be replaced by another gameobject sometimes and the blacksmith had started the conversation/fight scene with the guy from a weird spot (on top of a hill or building using something like Z-targeting). This would be weird because the choreographed fight requires very specific positioning of each of the two gameobjects. With them playing their animations separately at their current world locations, stuff would look pretty wonky.

Let's say the blacksmith could get into skirmishes all over the world and different enemies could be needed or spawned when that animation plays -- Instead of baking the starting position of the gameobjects involved into the animation itself, I recommend allowing the user to position the gameobject and record this position (or enter it manually) as the absolute starting position for the animation for the current timeline. Otherwise, if nothing is recorded, assume they want to play the animation on the spot.

--

Regarding controllable characters and disabling components, I would suggest adding a Timeline Disabler component that would enable/disable all components except for the timeline -- BUT with the ability to populate an optional list of components to leave alone so that can control any audio or conditionals, such as getting hit, etc.)

For example, add a public array of a gameobject's existing components in the inspector to be flagged (i.e. with a checkbox beside each array item) to flag them to be disabled when Timeline is active when this disabling component exists. It should have refresh/(de)select-all buttons that includes all components attached to the gameobject except for the timeline/disabler-component. Each gameobject attached to the Timeline gameobject as children could have this component attached too, and as long as either they OR their parent has a Timeline, they could subscribe to disabling their components (perhaps this could be specified too, since some gameobject children might want to only disable their components when they themselves have a Timeline, independent of whether their parent has one or not).

Instead of everyone having to reinvent the wheel for such a common task/feature (as we already have to do with SO MANY OTHER features in Unity), why not help us out a little please? As long as I've waited for something like Timeline, I can wait just a little longer for it to work the way I (and so many others) would want it to.

--

PS: Totally stoked about the direction! SFM is a great inspiration for Timeline, and having a mechanism to finally be able to pose characters and set their faces for in-game cinematic sequences was the first thing that came to mind when you guys introduced Timeline! I love everything so far! Great work guys!

 

If you check the Playables API Examples, it has a few custom playable track clips that do exactly the features you're requesting, such as teleport GameObject to a specified location or toggle components. It should be easy to expand on adding multiple GameObject support to these.

 

Would it be possible to set the framerate with timeline? For example, if I wanted to mimic something like stop motion or a limited 2D animation framerate, I would absolutely need this feature. Right now, cutout animation looks too procedural, but with a feature like this, one can truly mimic hand drawn 2D animation, but with the benefits of cutout-animation style production shortcuts.

It's not just my opinion, but games today are getting a bit same-y looking, no matter what art style they go with. This would give Unity developers like me a little more room to wiggle in terms of presentation. It's like adding another dimension of personality to every existing art style.

Implementation on a track-by-track basis would be best (assuming you considered this feature), since one wouldn't want audio to skip, nor would they want their code execution to be off by a few frames.

Hopefully this is something that wouldn't be too hard to add, considering this involves time and timing, and the name of this awesome thing is TIMEline. Not to mention if Unity is getting into movie making, this is a standard feature of almost all software that generates frames in that industry.

 

Please rename "Playable Director" to "Timeline Director" or something with "Timeline" in it.
Reference: audioclip, audiosource, animator, animator controller, animation clip

 

I haven't yet tested this, but I'm watching the video. I just wanted to know, does this mean we'll be able to create layered sequences? I noticed the cinematic in the video could be seen live while using a 1st person controller, so it can be used for giving life to the world(level), no? Also, will we be able to make complex animation behaviours using this along with mecanim? Like creating a sequence for run or walk animation which mixes blend shapes and other animations every some seconds? (without having to go crazy with the animator or programming), and then like play the sequence when the player presses the corresponding inputs?

I ask because I have always thought detailed facial animations are quite important (and often neglected) and to be able to blend this easier would be great (and I'm not much of an animator or a programmer yet...).

 

@mikew_unity

What I meant was the ability to set the framerate on a per-track basis.

For example, say I have a character animation on one track of a timeline (that's supposed to be rigid-looking so that it resembles stop-motion), some audio on another, and so on, and I want ONLY the character animation to progress ONE frame for every 8 frames played on the timeline, while, at the same time, I have an FX animation that I want to play at the default rate (i.e. as fast and smoothly as it can) so that I can overlay this for a hitspark effect or something.

Based on your response, it doesn't seem like this is possible to do. I know it can't be done in the Animation window either, nor should it be, since something like this should only be active during playback so that it retains the full amount of frame data resolution in case I choose to tweak its smoothness for either the entire length of the track across the timeline, or even for a few frames on the fly or something by changing the framerate for the track on the fly through code or some such.

Bottom line is -- I'm not worried about the entire screen's framerate -- only the specific tracks/layers that control the character and FX. Does this make sense?

 

Can you add events to a Timeline at runtime via script? Is the Playables API documentation coming back for 5.6?

 

Thanks. I'd love to see the ability to add tracks and clips at runtime in the near term. For example, a player constructs some game objects in an ordered linear arrangement during gameplay, and this arrangement is then saved as a timeline sequence and played back in real time. Any plans to share the roadmap?

 

We're currently adding Tracks using reflection:

Code (CSharp):

1. public static void AddTrackToTimelineAsset (TimelineAsset asset, TrackAsset track){
2.     MethodInfo addTrackMethod = typeof(TimelineAsset).GetMethod ("AddTrack", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
3.     addTrackMethod.Invoke (asset, new object[]{ track });
4.     if ((asset.hideFlags & HideFlags.DontSave) != HideFlags.None)
5.     {
6.         track.hideFlags |= HideFlags.DontSave;
7.     }
8.     else
9.     {
10.         track.hideFlags |= HideFlags.HideInHierarchy;
11.         AssetDatabase.AddObjectToAsset(track, asset);
12.     }
13. }

And creating them by instancing them from a master TimelineAsset (SerializedProperty "m_Tracks".)

I'd really love support for exporting tracks from TimelineAssets to be reused. Currently if you delete a TrackAsset you get null/missing refs from Timeline and deleting (assetised Tracks) through Timeline stops Unity tracking the asset entirely, though (correctly) doesn't delete the asset itself.

Also cannot wait for the in-game recording.