3. How to use the timeline feature

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Third tutorial, for the third editing mode, Timeline 

There are two different types of using time in jaMME:
1. Have a constant timescale all over the demo
2. Have a variable timescale, changing during the demo


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Constant timescale
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For sure you already searched for a command like "timescale" but that one does not work for jaMME. You can edit the whole demo speed with one command called "speed". Often you will record very nice camera runs, but when you playback them, you see that the camera moves much too fast and it rather confuses the watcher. You can for example open the console and type "\speed 0.5". The speed of the playback will change, that includes camera runs as well, everything will be in half speed, just as if you applied a timescale.
Note: You can only apply 1 value for the speed command, there is no keypointing for it. Use it to get a constantly slower or faster playback of a demo.


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Variable timescale
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The variable timescale feature is used to affect the playback of the action in the demo, but not the camera run.
Load a demo and pause it. Press "3" to enter the timeline edit mode. The display will show "Edit: Line". I suggest timeline adjustment to be done before adding a camera path, else the camera run will not fit the action anymore.
You can set the view to either Camera or Chase, it does not matter in which view you edit the timeline in. If you hold mouse1 down while in camera view mode and in timeline edit mode, you are still able to move arround.

This is how you edit the timeline:
You add timeline keypoints and set a timeline speed value for each keypoint. That may remind you of Sony Vegas and its velocity envelope. You use the timeline exactly the same way. The time between two points will fade so it reaches the next keypoint smoothly and will not have certain jumps from normal time to slow motion or so.


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Keypoints for variable timescale
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You need to set the first keypoint to be the basic speed of the demo, I always suggest to make it normal speed.
Go to the start of the demo, press V to add a timeline keypoint. Now adjust the timescale value for this keypoint:
Press R to lock the timeline. If it is locked, the keypoint information will show up in yellow font. Open the console and type the command for normal speed: "\line speed 1".

IMPORTANT: Do not forget to lock the timeline by pressing R. If you don't, you cannot edit keypoints at all!

You specified the timescale value for this keypoint.
Now you can move forward in time a bit and specify the point where the fading to a slower timescale shall start. You press V again, the timeline will still be locked. Open the console, input the same timescale value again. If you then create a keypoint 1 second ahead with "\line speed 0.5" during playback the timescale will fade from 1 down to half speed in that second and then continue playing in half speed.
You can also set the value to 0 for pause, as I obviously did in the tutorial video. If you have 0, the demo time is running, but the ingame time is on pause. So go forward some seconds in the demo time and then put another keypoint with 0 so the ingame time will stay paused for some seconds and then fade to a higher value again.

IMPORTANT: The line speed cvar cannot be set to a value below 0, the demo cannot play backwards.

I hope you understand the keypointing. If you worked with the velocity envelope in Vegas, you can easily do this.
If there are questions, just post in General section. This might be a bit hard to do.


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Quick setup
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1. Go into your demo, press 3 to be in timeline edit mode
2. Press R to lock the timeline, else you cannot edit keypoints!
3. Go to the start of the demo, press V and type "\line speed 1"
4. Go to 10 seconds, make a keypoint and type "\line speed 1" again
5. Go to 12 seconds, make a keypoint, type "\line speed 0"
6. Go to 15 seconds, make a keypoint, type "\line speed 0"
7. Go to 18 seconds, make a keypoint, type "\line speed 1"
8. Leave the timeline like it is, add camera runs..

This was an example of how you can create a paused section in your demo and here is how it works if you do it like this:
The demo will play in normal speed from the start until 10 seconds. From 10 seconds to 12 seconds, the demo speed will fade down to 0. So from 12 seconds the demo will be paused. Until when? Until the second keypoint with "line speed 0", so until 15 seconds no movement at all. Since on 18 seconds there is a keypoint with normal speed again, the demo speed will fade up to 1 in the time between second 15 and second 18. After that it will play in normal speed again.

You see, you need 4 keypoints if you want to slow down or speed up the demo for some time. The one in the beginning of the demo does not count. It only defines how fast the demo runs until you put the first keypoint after that. Try learning by doing.

It is still a bit hard to edit the timeline. You cannot edit keypoints afterwards, only once yet. If you edited something in a wrong way or you want to change something, better delete the last keypoints instead of trying to change the line speed of a single one in between two others.

Good day. John

Credits: John "auri" from q3mme crew; original: link.