🥅Work Area

Manage a section of time with optional looping

The work area is both an editor feature to aid in creative workflow as well as used at runtime to loop sections of time, which may be useful in interactive applications.

The work area is indicated by the red start and end markers.

The settings can also be found in the inspector in the Work Area settings.

Enable Work Area

This toggles the work area on and off. When enabled, this sets a region of time (looped, if enabled) and can be used to edit animations within the work area.

Toggle the work area on and off by pressing the W key.

The work area time range is displayed in the timeline view with draggable handles for both the start and end times. Slight shadowing is applied over the area outside of the range to help spotlight the work area.

When the work area is disabled, it has no effect on playback and is hidden from view.

Press Shift + W to enable the work area and also set the range automatically to fit the currently selected keyframes or tracks.

Use the keyboard shortcut Control + L to set the work are to the current selection and enable looping. This differs from the shortcut above, which doesn't affect the loop setting.

Locking the Work Area

When locked, the work area start and stop times cannot be changed. This is useful to prevent accidentally dragging the work area handles while working in the view. It can also be used to prevent scripts from changing the work area while editing.

Clicking the toggle button while holding Alt locks the work area to prevent any changes while editing in the timeline, indicated by the small lock icon below it. To unlock the work area, Alt + click again on the button.

Looping

This enables playback to restart when it reaches the end. Looping uses the work area if enabled, or otherwise loops the full duration of Timeflow.

Use the keyboard shortcut L to toggle looping on and off. Toggling loop has no effect on the work area.

Use the keyboard shortcut Control + L to enable looping and set the work area to the current selection of keyframes and tracks.

Use the keyboard shortcuts B and N to set the work area in and out points to the current time of the playhead. This also toggles the work area on if it was not already active.

Editing the Work Area

To manually set or edit the work area, enable it first and then drag the start and end handles in the timeline to the desired locations, or alternatively go to the Time section in the Timeflow inspector.

Changes to the work area are undoable.

To move the work area while maintaining its duration, hold the Shift key while dragging.

Hold the Alt key while dragging to snap to the grid. This can be combined with the Shift modifier above.

The work area can never be outside of the timeline and is prevented from doing so. The smallest size a work area can be is a single frame.

For further documentation on commands and editing features using the work area, please see the Work Area Menu section.