🧰Work Areas

Designate time ranges for editing and controlling playback

New in v1.10 Timeflow now supports multiple work areas!

Work Areas define regions in time which may be used for playback and editing. You can add any number of work areas, each with their own name, start and end times, optional display control, and tint color.

If looping is enabled in the Time section, the work area will loop when active.

Only 1 work area may be active at any given time.

Enabled

Toggles the work area on and off.

Use the keyboard shortcut W to toggle the current work area.

Use the keyboard shortcut Shift + W to set the current work area to the selected tracks and keyframes.

Auto Activate

When this is enabled, anytime the current time enters into a work area, it will activate that work area.

If you want Timeflow to play through the timeline uninterrupted but activate each work area as it passes through it, you can:

1. Disable looping - for continuous forward playback

2. Enable Allow Lead-In and Play Past End - so the work area doesn't interrupt playback

3. Make sure then Auto Activate is also enabled.

Now when you play through, it will play continously and activate each work area as it reaches it.

Allow Lead-In

Enable this to allow playback to start before the work area. This makes it possible to set a loop region in the future without interrupting the current playback. Once the playhead enters the work area, it loops that area as long as looping is enabled. Otherwise, disable this option to keep the current time within the work area.

Play Past End

When enabled, playback continues uninterrupted past the end of the Work Area. Otherwise if this option is off, playback will stop when it reaches the end.

This option is only available when looping is off.

Enable Display

When enabled, this allows each work area to activate a display saved in the Display Lists See the related Display for each work area.

Use this toggle to turn the display activation feature on and off as needed in your workflow.

Runtime Enabled

This controls whether the work area is enabled by default when entering play mode or in a build runtime. This setting is off by default so that the work area used for editing does not interfere with playback. However if you wish to use work areas intentionally to control playback, such as when using Timeflow Controller , you may want to set Runtime Enabled on.

Lock Work Area

If enabled, the work area settings remains locked and cannot be modified. Use this to prevent changes to the range once set. This also keeps the current work area active and another one cannot be activated until unlocked.

Refer to Work Areas in the Timeflow view for further information.

When locked, the work area can still be toggled on and off, but the ranges cannot be

changed nor can another work area be selected.

Work Area Options

The following options apply to all work areas...

Show All

When enabled, all of the work areas are displayed in the Timeflow view at once. The currently active work area is displayed in full color, while the others are dimmed.

With this option off, only the active work area is displayed

Show Names

If enabled, the name of each work area is displayed in the Timeflow view, as shown in the screenshots above. Though if this is too cluttering, you may turn it off.

Show Events

Enable this checkbox to see UnityEvents that can be used to trigger custom scripts and functions.

OnActivate/OnDeactivate

These events are triggered whenever the current work area changes. The last work area invokes OnDeactivate and the new one invokes OnActivate.

OnEnter/OnExit

Regardless of which work area is active or not, these events fire each whenever the current time in Timeflow enters or exits any work area.

OnEnter and OnExit are invoked even when work areas are disabled. This is by design so that these events can be used anytime playing Timeflow normally without work areas active.

These events can be used to support gameplay sequences, cutscenes, and other special cases.

Auto Time Scope

When enabled, any time a work area is activated it will set the Local Time Scope to the active work area range. This is helpful to focus on each section of time. When used in conjunction with the Display setting it can streamline productivity.

Add New Work Area

Click the + button to add a new work area, then you can set it settings in the list below.

Clear All

Click this to clear all work areas from the current Timeflow instance.

Sort

This is a helpful tool if you wish to sort your work areas by their start times, so that they are in sequential time order.

Work Area Settings

Each work area has the following configurable settings.

• Use the minus button the left to delete a work area.

• Use the up/down arrows to adjust the order in the list.

• The checkbox on the left indicates which work area is currently active.

Name

The name provides the display label for the work area and can also be used for identification for other scripts that use work areas such as Timeflow Controller or when using work areas to specify time ranges such as with Tween

It is best practice to ensure each work area has a unique name and to avoid changing it in case anything references it. Alternatively work areas can be referenced by index.

Start/End

This sets the time the work area begins and ends. Note that the time units displayed is determined by the format selected in the main Time Display.

Display

You can optionally associate a display saved in the Display Lists If enabled, the selected display is activated whenever the work area is activated. This is helpful as an editor workflow allowing you to split the scene into stages.

Activating a display only affects what is shown in the Timeflow view (in the editor only) and has no effect on game object visibility or active states. Using Display Lists is a workflow tool to help you navigate your scene and animation segments.

Use the toggle Work Areasto turn this on/off for all work areas.

Color Tint

The color defaults to the original red but may be changed as desired. This adds a color tint to the work area displayed in the Timeflow view.

Additional Tools

Click the 3 dots menu for the following commands

Randomize Colors

Assigns random colors to all the work areas

Rainbow Colors

Assigns colors in a rainbow gradient down the list of work areas.

Generate Game Object Containers

This generates a set of empty game objects named the same as the work areas, with a parent named WorkAreas. As long as these objects aren't renamed or moved out of their relative place in the hierarchy, subsequently running this command will skip existing objects and only generate new ones if needed.

For further documentation on using Work Areas in the Timeflow view see...

🥅Work Areas