Timeline
Any gadgets within a timeline will be activated and deactivated (turned on or off) at the right times depending on where they are located within the timeline.
Placing a gadget more to the left of the timeline will activate it earlier, and placing it more to the right of the timeline will activate it later. (Tg)
Note, specifically gadgets to the immediate right of the playhead will be powered. (Tg)
Because of this, logic can be run at a specific point in a timeline or even on a loop. (Tg) It also makes programming anything in an order, or anything with precision timing very easy to make and adjust. (Tg) (Tg)
Logic can even ensure that a timeline was turned on before a certain time and enable later logic to activate when the time comes, for example to play a lead-in piece of music before changing to a new section of the song. (Tg) Or to turn off a part of the song so that it doesn’t play when it loops back around. (Tg) Or even affect what is played at certain times. (Tg)
You can move, clone, delete, select, etc. gadgets within the timeline as you would in the scene. You can also drag from the left or right edge of the gadget to adjust when they start or stop being activated within the timeline. Note that some sound gadgets limit this depending on their contents and settings.
The time mode can use musical measures and BPM, with features to help snap clips to these measures. Or it can use normal time. To cycle between these modes, click on the measures or time display in the top-right of the window. (Mm)
Gadgets placed in a timeline will be powered on at the right time and powered off at the right time.
You can use a keyframe within a timeline to affect the timeline itself (Tg) or sounds/instruments on the timeline. (Tg) Timeline settings can be changed as it plays using various kinds of logic.
The playhead shows which part of the timeline is currently being played. Set the position of the playhead - shortcut: Cross button on the bars/time row, or drag the playhead with Cross button.
The playhead’s position can be recorded - shortcuts: shift + Cross button while setting the playhead’s position. (Tg) (Tg) A “keep changes” keyframe can be used to set the position, and then unpowered and then allow the timerline to play as normal. (Tg)
Wired power affects: The power received will multiply the power of all contained gadgets. (Tg) This can be used to blend between 2 animation timelines. (Tg)
Memory: Costs 0.0061% of the things limit per gadget.
While on a Timeline: has fader handles.
Playback speed is multiplied by the parent timeline’s playback speed. The playhead position is inherited from the parent timeline.
Playback will adjust to match the new size, when dragging if the shortcut is held - shortcuts: shift while dragging the right edge.
# Window Buttons
The timeline has a number of special buttons across the top-left of its window:
- Metronome: While the timeline plays in edit mode, a metronome will sound based on the timeline’s Metre Numerator and Metre Denominator. A higher sound will play on the first beat of every bar.
- Count-In: When recording into an instrument within this timeline, 1 bar will be used to count the creator in before the timeline begins playing. Numbers will show in the centre of the screen counting them in before the timeline will begin to progress.
- Solo: When playing time, only this timeline will play even if unpowered. When it gets to the end, the timeline will restart automatically. Useful for testing animations, etc.
- # Timeline Snap: When off, objects and the window edge will move freely. When on and in real time mode, they snap to the columns shown. Or when using beats mode, things will snap to the bars when further away and beats when closer. (Temporarily invert this setting - shortcuts: hold L1.)
# Fader Handles
When some gadgets are placed on a timeline, they have fader handles on the top left and top right of the gadget itself. This adds a linear ramp to the power, locked to the position of the playhead. This means if the timeline is paused midway through one of these ramps, the power of that gadget will remain as it is. Adjust the handles with the Move controls.
# Time Type
A readout is displayed in the top-right fo the window based on the playhead position though the timeline, and its settings. Toggle between “real time” and “beats” modes - shortcuts: Cross button. (Tg)
Real time shows the hours, minutes, and seconds passed in the timeline, and shows the times across the columns. The playhead can be dragged to any point in the timeline smoothly.
When the timeline is created from Assembly Mode, it will start in “real time” mode. When the timeline is created from Sound Mode, it will start in “beats” mode.
Note, when inside another timeline, the time type and meter will be inherited from a parent timeline.
# Scale the View
Scale the view of the timeline horizontally to zoom in to a smaller length of time - shortcuts: hold shift + Left d-pad button or Right d-pad button. When using the moves, hover over the timeline with the primary imp, hold Secondary Move Circle button and twist.
This means a second will be a lot wider and more precise timing adjustments can be made. (Tg)
Scaling up enough will show 30 columns per second. When the timeline is at 100% playback speed this matches up perfectly with the 30 logic frames per second the engine uses. Frame numbers will be displayed across the top of the timeline, in place of the bar numbers or time.
# Previewing
Hover over the timeline and preview controls will appear below the window. (Tg) These include “play/pause” and “rewind.”
This previews this timeline only, and no interactions with any other part of the scene such as physics, or keyframes outside of the timeline. For this reason, it’s good to remember to also test with time running to see how the full engine will affect playback of the timeline.
# Trim Handles
Hover over the playhead row to see “trim start” and “trim end” handles. Adjust their position Adjust controls. (Tg)
The trim start and end are relative to the start and end of the timeline respectively. This means that adjusting the start or end of the timeline itself will affect the trim start and end.
The trim start and end will be considered the start and end of the timeline for all purposes apart from placement of gadgets within the timeline.
Set the “trim start” or “trim end” - shortcuts: when using a gamepad, hover over the playhead row and click L3 to set the start position, or R3 to set the end position.
# Playback Properties
# Timeline Colour
The colour of the gadget and window.
# Playback Speed
How fast the timeline plays. Shows a beats per minute display in a tooltip as you edit the setting.
At 100% playback speed, there are 2 beats per second.
When nested inside a parent timeline, the resulting speed of playback will be multiplied by its parent’s speed. By stretching inside a timeline up to 1600% playback speed can be set.
# Playback Mode
Using Loop mode allows you to have a perfectly looping timeline even when using the trim handles to chop up the animation in any way. Such a timeline can be offset relative to the trim handles to make timing similar loops together very easy. (Tg)
# Restart Timeline
When sent a signal, the playhead will move to the start of the timeline. This will trigger even if the timeline is unpowered.
# On End Trigger
Sends a pulse when the end of the timeline is reached. (Tg)
# Playhead Position
Sends the percentage of progress through the playable area (including trim) that the playhead currently is at.
To set the playhead’s position by wire, open the timeline and wire the value into the bottom of the playhead line. A received 0 will set the playhead to the start, a 1 will set the playhead to the end. (Tg) (Tg) (Tg)
As any gadget can be placed inside a timeline, values can be calculated and sent to the playhead to activate a certain set of gadgets. (Tg)
This can be used to sync one timeline’s playhead to another timeline’s playhead. (Tg)
This can be used to have fine control over the mapping from a percentage value into some new value. (Tg) Or give different potential results with weighted probabilities. (Tg) Even to produce results when two coordinates are within particular ranges. (Tg) Or anything in which things happening in order when triggered would be needed. (Tg)
Note that at the start of the scene, the playhead will be at 0% through the timeline for at least 1 frame before the incoming wire input is used. If there is logic at the start of the timeline you do not want to activate at this time, use a second timeline to leave that logic off for 1 frame until the playhead adjusts correctly. (Tg)
# Ignore Frame Rate
When on, if the framerate drops for processing the timeline, the timeline will adjust the playback speed in real time to compensate. For example, if used on a music track’s timeline, the music track won’t get slower and slowe as the scene’s framerate slows.
# Beat & Sidebar Tab
# Metre Numerator, Metre Denominator
The time signature used for columns in the timeline. Inherited by instruments on the timeline.
How many beats (as defined by the meter denominator) are in a bar. (Tg)
Assuming a four-beat bar, the fraction of a beat each beat column lasts. (Tg)
# Show Sidebar
When on, the sidebar is shown. (Tg) This has two buttons for each row of the timeline:
- Mute Row: turns the power off for all gadgets in the row. Unmute all rows using the Delete controls.
- Solo: If there are any rows with Solo enabled, all rows that do not have solo enabled will be turned off. Unsolo all rows using the Delete controls.