Managing Phases

What Are Phases?

A phase is a single keyframe of your scenario — a snapshot of where every player, ball, cone, and target is positioned. Scenarios can have multiple phases, and the visualizer animates from one phase to the next. Each phase is a pure keyframe; the animation smoothly interpolates from phase N to phase N+1.

Think of phases like slides in a presentation:

• Phase 1: Starting formation
• Phase 2: Mid-play positions
• Phase 3: Final positions

Creating a New Phase

1. Use the phase navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen: ⏮ ◀ ▶ ⏭
2. Click ▶ (next) to move to the next phase. If it doesn't exist, a new empty phase is created.
3. Alternatively, click the + button in the phase menu to add a phase after the current one.

Navigating Phases

You can also click any phase name in the scrollable phase menu to jump directly to it.

Phase State

Each phase is a pure keyframe that stores:

• Player positions (for both teams — shared across all phases)
• Ball positions — a balls array; each ball has its own id and position (per phase)
• Cone positions (shared across all phases)
• Target positions (shared across all phases)
• Zone positions & shapes (shared across all phases — color, opacity, vertices)

Keyframe Model & Transition Mode

Phases are pure keyframes — there is no separate "start" and "transition" split within a phase. The animation simply interpolates from phase N to phase N+1. Each phase is a complete snapshot, and movement arrows show how items travel to the next keyframe.

1. Navigate to a phase and toggle Transition mode in the edit controls.
2. The visualizer shows the current phase's items alongside "ghost" versions of the next phase.
3. Movement arrows appear showing how each item travels from this phase to the next.
4. See the Transitions & Movement Arrows tutorial for details.

Copy & Paste Items Between Phases

You can duplicate an item's data (position, facing, path settings) into another phase using Copy & Paste:

1. Select an item on the pitch and click Copy — the item's full data is captured. A confirmation message appears: "Copied phase state for [item name]".
2. Click Paste and choose a target phase:
   • Previous — paste into all phases before the current one.
   • Current — paste into the current phase.
   • Next — paste into all phases after the current one.

Duplicating a Phase

Next to the delete button on each phase in the phase menu, there is a blue duplicate button (with a + icon). Click it to create an exact copy of that phase, inserted immediately after the original. The new phase is named "[original name] copy" and becomes the active phase.

Phase Duration

Each phase has a duration value (in seconds, default 3) shown in the phase card between the name and the shift arrows. This controls how long Play All spends animating that phase's transition. A scenario with 3 phases set to 3s, 7s, and 5s will take 15 seconds total to play through.

Deleting a Phase

Click the red delete button (×) on a phase in the phase menu to remove it. You cannot delete the last remaining phase.

Undo & Redo

Almost every action in the visualizer can be undone and redone — placing, moving, removing items, changing paths, focus, actions, zones, and phase management.

Starting Fresh — New Scenario

Click the New button (next to Save and Load) to start a blank scenario. You'll be asked to confirm since any unsaved changes will be lost. The pitch resets to empty with default teams.