Working in a Branch’s Timeline
The timeline of the branch you have open: the playhead, tracks, keyframes, segments and the AUTO key system.
One Timeline per Branch
The timeline strip along the bottom of the screen belongs to one branch at a time — the branch you have opened. Every branch is a complete timeline of its own: its own length (the TIME box), its own tracks and its own keys.
Open a branch by double-clicking its row in the scenario tree, or by clicking its ✎ button. The strip then shows that branch's timeline. ✓‹ BACK in the ruler takes you back to the tree — and it commits the branch on the way out, so nothing you changed is lost.
Above the strip sits the master timeline: a thin bar representing the whole scenario, one equal segment per branch. It is not a clock — it walks the scenario across branches. See The Master Timeline.
The Ruler and the Playhead
- The ruler along the top of the strip is this branch's time axis, labelled in
MM:SS.CC. - The playhead (orange vertical line) marks the current time. Placing, moving and keying all happen at the playhead.
- Click the ruler to jump there, drag it to scrub through time, or scroll over it. Everything on the pitch animates live as you scrub.
- Scrolling over the track list scrolls the list vertically.
The TIME Box and ✂ Clip Time
- The TIME box (next to the TIMELINE label) is the length of this branch only, in seconds. Click it to type a new length.
- The ✂ clip-time button on a branch row sets that branch's length to its last key — the quick way to trim a branch whose animation ends before its length does.
Tracks and Lanes
Every item in the branch gets its own track — one row per player, ball, cone, target or zone. Each track carries the lanes it needs:
| Lane | What its keys do | Who has it |
|---|---|---|
| Movement | Position at a time — the item is at that spot at that moment | Everyone |
| Action | The item performs an animation (wave, kick, shout…) when the playhead passes the key | Players |
| Graphic | Turns the movement arrow on/off for a window of time | Everyone |
| Attachment | Attaches the item to a player (or detaches it) | Ball, Zones |
| Visual | Zone appearance windows — shape, radius, colour, vertex links | Zones |
Movement Keys vs the Other Keys
Movement keys are the backbone of a track: they say where the item is at a moment, and between two of them the item travels along a segment. The other lanes are event and window keys — they fire or switch something for a stretch of time rather than defining a position:
- Action — a one-shot animation the item plays as the playhead crosses it.
- Graphic — starts or ends a window in which the movement arrow is drawn.
- Attachment — attaches the ball or zone to a player (or detaches it) from that moment on.
- Visual — begins a window in which a zone uses a specific appearance.
Working With Keys
- Add — use the track's key buttons at the playhead, or (with AUTO on) simply move the item.
- Move in time — drag a key diamond left or right to change its time.
- Height — click a key to open its height popup: how high off the ground the item is at that key. Keep it at 0 for ground movement; raise it for headers, volleys or a keeper catching a cross.
- Delete — double-click a key.
- Between keys — click the segment between two movement keys to choose how the item travels (below).
Segments Between Two Movement Keys
The segment holds how the item travels from one movement key to the next:
- Style — straight, curve left or curve right.
- Curve amount — how far the curve bends.
- Arch and arch height — extra height over the move, mainly for the ball.
The motion is always smooth — the app eases the animation along a single smooth curve, with no separate ease-in / ease-out setting to pick.
AUTO and the Snap Grid
The AUTO toggle at the top of the timeline is on by default. While it is on, moving an item writes a movement key at the playhead automatically — the fastest way to build an animation: move the playhead, move an item, repeat.
- Keys snap to a 0.25 s grid — every key time is a quarter-second step.
- Times are displayed as
MM:SS.CC— minutes, seconds and hundredths (e.g.00:05.25).
The Inherited First Key
On a child branch, the first key at 00:00 is inherited from where the parent branch ended. It is marked with a 🔒 and is read-only: it cannot be edited, moved or deleted.
That is exactly what makes a branch continue smoothly from its parent — the child starts on the precise state the parent finished in. The root branch has no inherited key; everything there is editable.
Undo & Redo
The two buttons at the bottom-left of the viewport undo and redo everything a scenario can go through: structural branch changes (adding, renaming, re-ordering or removing a branch) and every edit inside a branch — item placement and movement, adding / moving / deleting keys, attachments, visual windows, arrow colours, actions and the branch's timeline length.
- Undo (↶) — step back. Keyboard: Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z.
- Redo (↷) — step forward again. Keyboard: Ctrl+Shift+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z.
- The buttons are dimmed when there is nothing to undo or redo.
Read on: Animation & Playback → Branches & the Scenario Tree.