Forum Discussion
precisely positioning cue points
Is there a way to specify where a cue point is to be aligned on the timeline, other than dragging it? For example, if an audio track or video or whatever ends at some point on the timeline that's not in an increment of a 1/4 of a second, such as 15.31 seconds, how do you get the cue point to be exactly at 15.31 seconds?
14 Replies
Hi there John! Thanks for reaching out here. Currently the only way to add a cue point to the timeline is to right-click anywhere in the Timeline panel and select Create Cue Point at Playhead. You can also press C on your keyboard at any point where you want to insert a cue point.
Your idea to precisely position cue points to an exact time is certainly worth passing along to our team in the form of a feature request!
Submitted. Thank you, Alyssa.
Awesome - thanks, John!
Alternatively, you could cue something to begin when the other object ends. Or you can drag the playhead to exactly match the spot on the timeline where the audio or video ends, and right click to set a cue at the playhead. Or you can create a temporary object, and set its timing to begin at the point you want, drag the playhead to it, set a cue at the playhead, and delete the object.
But really, setting the timing on a cue point would be way easier (if you could).
Hi Walt,
Thanks for the suggestions.
I put in a new feature request to be able to set cue points to a specific time.
Regardless of how you try to position the playhead or drag the cue point, even when you expand the timeline by changing the zoom of it, getting the cue point at an exact timing still is a challenge. In this case I am doing the syncing where each slide has multiple recordings of animated slides done in PowerPoint or other software, plus animations done in Storyline overlaid on that, plus audio narration tracks imported into Storyline. The storyline animations are all triggered, hence the que points. Each recorded PowerPoint animation may have multiple audio tracks and each audio track has one or more corresponding animations. Sounds like a lot, but the stuff we're producing looks great.
Sorry, can't share these because of the confidential info in them.
Regards,
John
Just personal preference here, but I only use cue points for those times when I have a bunch of items that act at the same time, and I know I will need to change the timing on several times. In that case moving one cue point will change the timing on several items. Otherwise, I don't use them, in part because of the difficulty in setting the time precisely, and partly because they are generally so cumbersome. For me, they add at lest two extra steps in all my timing and triggers.
I find that setting the beginning timing on an object, or using "When timeline reaches ..." in a trigger is much easier. Besides, it can be set to .01 of a second, and that's good enough for the girl I date.
I must be missing something...but, when I play/preview my audio file, I the playhead is NOT moving on my timeline, so I am having trouble setting up my cue points. The blue upside-down arrow sits at the beginning of the timeline while the audio file plays. Tried opening the audio editor, where I can see the playhead movement, but I can't seem to set cue points in that window.
Ideas?
Thanks in advance
Hi Terri
which version of SL are you using?
Hi Wendy! sl360...and guess what, I just found another article that happened to show a helpful visual...looks like I need to use the tiny play arrow at the bottom of the timeline to see the play head move and use the "C" keyboard shortcut. This was somehow tucked away out of sight on my screen.
Ah ok - I was going to do a Peek video for you to show you - glad you're all sorted Terri.
+1 vote for this feature.
I am working with some lecture videos and it would be helpful if we can place cue points at the time specified.
It's been 7 years since the feature request was added. Long enough that I can't find it. Has there been any progress on being able to edit cue point timing without having to physically move them? Use case. I deleted 15.7 seconds of audio which time shifts half my presentation. I would like to be able to go to the cue point and make the time adjustment by typing in a number instead of sliding it.
Hi David,
Happy to help!
We don't have any new updates to share regarding the feature request discussed in this thread. I've added your voice to the request and we'll leave a message here in case there are any new updates.
One workaround you can try is to place an object and specify its end in the timeline, then place a cue point at the exact point where the object ends to have more accuracy with your cue points. Here's a quick recording I made showing this workaround.
Hope this helps!
Thanks Jose. That is what I ended up doing. My use case was I had a Scene that used cuepoints to sync to an audio track that changed layers. We needed to edit the audio and remove 15.7 seconds. It would have been so much faster and easier to rework the scene if I would have manually entered the revised time to the cuepoints instead of having to guess when I moved it. Especially since you can't see the time marker for a cuepoint until you are done placing it.
Ideally I would have been able to click on the time in the trigger list and change it like you can every other variable.
Hope you reconsider this in future releases.
