VaM 1.x Timeline Gets Stuck After Switching Clothing Between Segments

[leke]

Hi everyone,

I'm having a problem with Timeline and would appreciate some help.

My scene uses the same character Atoms across two Segments. Each Segment uses different clothing, and I intentionally switch the clothing when switching between Segments.

The problem is that after switching clothing several times (maybe just one time), Timeline seems to lose control of some Atoms. Manually switching animations or playing a Segment no longer works as expected, and the characters stop responding.

I also noticed that the Timeline UI appears to get stuck. For example, when I select a different animation, the animation name displayed next to the Play button remains the old one instead of updating. This makes me suspect that Timeline's internal state or animation selection is no longer updating correctly.

The log contains repeated errors such as:
Timeline.PeerManager.OnTimelineEvent: System.NullReferenceException
at VamTimeline.JSONStorableFloatRef.EnsureAvailable
at VamTimeline.AtomAnimation.SampleFloatParams
at VamTimeline.AtomAnimationEditContext.SelectAnimation
at VamTimeline.PeerManager.ReceiveCurrentAnimation

There are also messages about missing Timeline storable parameters and a Timeline Controller plugin that cannot be applied in a subscene.

To clarify, switching clothing is intentional and necessary for this scene. The issue is that Timeline becomes unresponsive after repeated clothing/Segment switches.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Could this be related to stale parameter references, animation state synchronization, or a Timeline bug triggered by changing clothing between Segments?

Any suggestions for diagnosing or fixing this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[atani]

I don't see why clothing would be the issue. I take it you are using a trigger track to trigger load clothing presets on the persons? If so, the connection of clothing to Timeline is only where that trigger is placed, which is almost irrelevant I would say.
Assuming it's not a real bug in Timeline, here's some things I would look up first:

• Different Timeline versions in the scene or not the latest version
• Very low FPS on those key moments
• Contradictory or excessive triggers during the segment change that can overwhelm the plugin in some way
• You mean a subscene, so who knows what's happening there

I suspect it's more a scene structure problem than a real Timeline bug. Probably you could share your scene to test and see for myself that happening.

 

[hazmhox]

My scene uses the same character Atoms across two Segments. Each Segment uses different clothing, and I intentionally switch the clothing when switching between Segments.

How are you switching clothes? How are you handling the segment switch? ( fade out, direct change etc... that sort of details )

 

[Horing Koning]

Some questions:

• Are the clothing items Timeline targets, or only the person’s own morphs and params? Check the Timeline Targets screen for float-param rows named after clothing items.
• Do the two segments reference different clothing items’ storables?
• Is the character atom inside a subscene, and is the Timeline instance also inside it? The “Timeline Controller cannot be applied in a subscene” message suggests the controller and the animation plugin are in different scopes.
• Does it happen with one swap and no subscene? That would separate the clothing hypothesis from the subscene one.

Check these in the meantime:

• Remove clothing-related float targets: delete them from the clips, or bind them to something that exists in every garment.
• Switch clothing outside the segment change: swap while Timeline is paused or stopped, then change segments.
• Disable “Sync with other atoms”: do this on the affected atoms. It removes PeerManager as the entry point, though it won’t fix a bad reference if SelectAnimation is called some other way.