Unity’s Timeline: Adding Simple Animations

Hello all!

Today, I will be introducing Unity’s Timeline and how to make simple animations using it’s interface!

What is Timeline?

Timeline is a non-linear sequencer used to tie in several events for things like cutscenes or movies. These events can be animation, sound, activation, signal, and/or control tracks. I will go over how to add those tracks in later articles.

The Timeline window can be accessed by going into the Window menu, Sequencing, then Timeline.

Setting up Timeline

To get started, create a new empty gameobject and name it Director. This object will keep track of all the Timeline assets.

Then head to the Timeline window and click the Create button there.

It will open a window asking where you want to store the data. In your project, create a folder called Director, then save the asset there.

Setting up a Simple Animation

The Timeline interface is similar to the Animation window. To get started, click the plus window on the far left of the screen, and select Animation Track. That will bring up a blank tab in the window. You will then add the object you wish to animate to the blank box in that tab.

When that is set up, you can start adding keys to start your animation! To make it look like mine above, you should right click your animation, then hit “Convert to Clip Track”. That will make things look cleaner!

That was how to set up Timeline and start your first animation there!

Next up, I will go over some quick tips to control Timeline!

Thank you for your time!