How to achieve nice fade in and out with AC during Timeline animation?
Hey Chris:)
It would be great if you can add a feature to add black screen fade in and fade out inside Timeline (similar what you can do with Cinemachine storyboard). I've tried to do this with Action list and I don't have any problems to achieve nice fade in during Timeline by creating camera fade in with wait until finish disable before Engine: Control Timeline, but if I will add fade out right after Engine: Control Timeline the effect will be not correct, because fade out should work the same as fade in "during" Timeline but not right after it. Of course I can put fade our before Engine: Control Timeline too and set specific time to fade but it is hard to control because my animation inside Timeline could have any length and I could have a crazy amount of timelines and it will be very hard to calculate when exactly this or that animation ends. Is there a way or trick how can I made nice fade in and fade out with AC during a Timeline? I've added image to show you what I mean.
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With Unity UI, you can create a full-screen black image and animate its display directly in Timeline - no need to rely on AC's Camera: Fade Action.
You can, however, uncheck Wait until finish? in the Engine: Control Timeline Action, and instead insert an Engine: Wait Action of the Timeline's duration minus the length of the fade.
"With Unity UI, you can create a full-screen black image and animate its display directly in Timeline - no need to rely on AC's Camera: Fade Action"
Actually I already tried to do this - I did smooth fade in and out of a full-screen black image inside Timeline, but the problem was that every time when animation in Timeline ends this full-screen black image still continue to cover my screen in a game mode. Anyway, even if I will find a way how to do fix this, I still will need to do fade in and out animation for every Timeline which I have in my game, because they all have different time duration, so it will be time-consuming to do this for all Timelines.
"You can, however, uncheck Wait until finish? in the Engine: Control Timeline Action, and instead insert an Engine: Wait Action of the Timeline's duration minus the length of the fade."
I also thought about this, but again, what if duration of this or that Timline will be changed during the cutscene production? I have a lot of cutscenes and it will be reall hell to control all Timelines and all their durations at the same time. I thought that there is a simlier way to make this.
I alway try to find the best and effective way how to do this or that thing but almost all the time when I facing with problems regarding AC or Unity in general, I realise again and again that during the deep game development process you have to be a programmer to find solutions with scripts.
Anyway thank you man, we have the same ideas in our heads, so I will continue searching the best way how to do this.
Cheers
This is just the way Timeline works. IIRC you can use an Activation track on the Image or Canvas GameObject to have it disable when the Timeline is not running.
Hey Chris, just a quick question. You said "You can use an Activation Track on the Image or Canvas GameObject to have it disable when the Timeline is not running."
Actually I was doing this, but I have problem, maybe you can help. I love idea to make fades inside Timeline and control their length how I want. Putting Canvas with black image into Timeline and setting it as an Activation Track is not a big deal as well as it's not a big deal to animate smooth transition of this black image inside Timeline. But when the Timeline is ending that black image continue to cover the screen during the game play. I think this is the problem of Timeline. If so, then this method is not working.
Any thought how to fight with this?
I had idea to deactivate that Canvas right after Timeline via Object: Visibility and set it to Invisible, but this is not working for Canvas for some reason (even if I put Remember Viability onto Canvas). Is there any way to make visible/invisible canvas with AC actions?
AC's Visibility scripts won't affect a Canvas's display, but they shouldn't be necessary - the Activation Track alone should be enough here.
So long as AC isn't controlling the Canvas via the Menu Manager, it shouldn't intefere. The Activation Track should disable it so long as the Post-playback state is set to Inactive, but we're in general Unity usage territory here.
Thank you, Chris! I found simple solution. I've created additional Timeline and used that canvas with Black image and have made fade out animation for it. Now I can reuse this Timeline at any time in action list after any cutscene and make sure that black image will no longer cover the screen. Easy Peasy:)