Timeline¶
See any process along time, inspect one step at a time, and preview it without entering Play mode.
The Timeline window shows what a process does and when. Each step is a clip as long as it runs, with its icon and name. Click a clip and the Inspector shows that step, and only that step, as Unity's Timeline does. Click the empty timeline to see the Sequencer's own settings there; select an object in the Hierarchy to go back.
- The sequence runs along one track, step after step.
- The expanded group's steps start together, one track each, inside an outline.
Open it¶
- Window > Jungle > Timeline opens the window on the selected object.
- Open in Timeline in a Jungle component's Help & Tools section opens its process.
- On a field holding steps, press its timeline button or pick Open in Timeline from its menu.
- The toolbar dropdown lists every process on the selection, and every Sequencer in the open scenes.
How steps are laid out¶
- In order. A sequence runs along one track, each step after the one before it.
- At the same time. Parallel steps get a track each, starting together.
- Sequencer. A Sequencer keeps the rows and clips you placed by hand, with anchors and markers.
- Instant steps show as short chips at the moment they run. Several at the same moment stack.
- Open-ended steps (waiting for an event, running until stopped) are striped. What comes after them starts at an estimated time, marked ≈.
Groups¶
A step that holds other steps is a group.
- Its arrow expands it in place: its steps appear on tracks under it, inside an outline. Click the arrow again to fold it.
- Double-click it, or press Open, to show it on its own. The bar under the toolbar leads back; Alt+Left goes up one level.
Edit¶
- Drag a step along its track to reorder a sequence, or up and down to reorder parallel steps.
- Press + at the end of a track, or on its header, to add a step after the last one. This works on the rows of a Sequencer expanded in place too.
- Right-click a step to insert before or after, duplicate, wrap it (in a sequence, a parallel group or a Sequencer, whichever the step may go in), or delete it. Right-click a track to add a step to it.
- Shift+arrows nudge the selected clips in time or across rows.
- Give a step a name in the Inspector. The timeline shows the name instead of the class.
- A command's operations and a pipeline's modifiers are edited in the Inspector, not as clips.
Move around¶
- Wheel zooms around the cursor, Shift+wheel scrolls in time, Ctrl+wheel scrolls the tracks.
- Middle-drag or Alt+drag pans. F frames everything.
Preview¶
Press Play to run the process in edit mode. Everything it changes is put back when it stops.
- Pause freezes the clock. Drag on the ruler to jump to a moment; the scene shows that moment.
- Space plays or pauses. Left and Right step the playhead back and forth, Up jumps to the start and Down to the end.
- ⏭ shows the end state, frozen.
- Copy of an object runs on a hidden copy, with the Scene view cursor as the mouse. This real object runs on the object itself, for the Game view. Placeholder cube runs on a stand-in.
- Modules adds extras some steps offer, such as moving a pipeline's destination around.
- Physics runs during a preview only when a step pushes, spins or joins things through physics. Other previews leave bodies where they are, and stopping puts every body back.
Preview, Apply and Run¶
Jungle's buttons say which of three things they do:
- Preview (edit mode): a try-out. Everything is put back when it stops.
- Apply (edit mode, an Editor Process): a real change, kept and undoable.
- Run (Play mode): the game runs the process for real.
Lists never hold lists¶
A list of steps (a Process List, a Selective Parallel, a Random) holds single steps, never another list. When steps need structure, a sequence here and things at the same time there, use a Sequencer: its rows run side by side, and each clip starts at a time, with another clip, or after another clip ends. A Sequencer clip can hold another Sequencer, which shows here as a group you can expand in place or open on its own.
- Pickers, presets and paste only offer what fits where you are. Inside a Process List you get no lists; inside a Sequencer clip, a Random or a Selective Parallel, you can pick a Sequencer.
- A step that only wraps one other step (repeat, delay, condition) does not count as a list, so a list inside a repeat inside a list is still a list inside a list. A command's operations are not steps.
- An older project may still have a list inside a list. It keeps running as before, and its field shows Make Sequencer, which turns the list around it into a Sequencer that runs the same steps at the same moments.