Adjusting the Speed of a Scene

How speed up or slow down your Level Sequences

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The Play Rate Track allows you to speed up or slow down sections of your Level Sequence. You can add keyframes at any point in your scene where you want a shift in Play Rate to occur (such as slowing down time to show off an important moment or increasing the playback rate to heighten certain scenes).

Changing the speed of the sequence changes the global time dilation for the engine, not just what is shown in the sequence.

In this guide, you will adjust the Play Rate to slow down time during a scene.

Steps

For this how-to, you are using the Blueprint Third Person Template project with Starter Content enabled.

  1. From the Main Toolbar, click the Cinematics button, then Add Level Sequence .

    AddLevelSequence.png

    Enter a save name and save location for the Asset, which will automatically be added to the Level and Content Browser .

  2. Inside the Sequencer Editor, click the Add button and select the Play Rate Track .

    Speed_Step2.png

  3. Select the Play Rate track, then press Enter to add a keyframe at the 0 marker.

    Speed_Step3.png

    Above you are adding the default value for Play Rate of 1.0 (which means normal play back rate).

  4. Move the Timeline Marker to 25 , then change the Play Rate Value to 0.25 and press Enter to add a key.

    Speed_Step4.png

  5. Add a key at 75 with a value of 0.25 and a key at 100 with a value of 1.0 .

    Speed_Step5.png

    Above you are going from 1 to 0.25 and staying at 0.25 for several frames before returning to our normal 1.0 Play Rate.

    You can right-click and drag to move around in the Tracks Area, and CTRL + Mouse Wheel to zoom in and out.

  6. On the Content Browser tab under Content/Mannequin/Character/Mesh , drag the SK_Mannequin into the Level.

    PlayRate6.png

    You will add this Skeletal Mesh to Sequencer and tell it to play an animation so you can see it being affected by the Play Rate shift.

  7. Return to Sequencer , and with the SK_Mannequin still selected in the level, click the + Track button and add it to the Level Sequence.

    Speed_Step7.png

  8. Move the Timeline Marker back to 0 , then under the SK_Mannequin click the + Animation button and add the ThirdPersonWalk .

    Speed_Step8.png

  9. Drag the animation to the right to loop it for the duration of the scene.

    Speed_Step9.png

  10. Click the Preview Play button in the Level Viewport to preview the sequence.

End Result

Notice that as the scene starts, the Play Rate shifts from 1.0 (normal speed) down to 0.25 speed. It stays there for a few frames and plays the section in slow motion before ramping back up to the normal Play Rate.

While this example showcases how to slow down the Play Rate, you can increase the Play Rate value above 1.0 to increase the speed of your scenes. Feel free to experiment with values and ranges to get your desired effect.

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