How to Match Clip Offsets in Unity’s Timeline

Objective: To show you how to match clip offsets in Timeline.

Matching Clip Offsets

The Situation

You have 2 or more animation clips that all start and end in different positions, and you are wanting them all to start from where the previous clip ends.

E.g.
Object 1 — Is Recorded clip down below in the Animation Track.
Object 2 — Is Recorded(1) clip down below in the Animation Track.

Notice that they both start in different positions and end in different positions and there is the big jump between object 1 and object 2 when there clips end and start.

2 separate animation clips

What if you were wanting the second clip to start playing from where clip one ends instead of jumping back to its own start position? Well that is possible! And it is called ‘Matching Clip Offset’.

Matching Clip offset

This feature allows you to join multiple animation clips together utilising a position and rotation offset for each clip so that when for example:

Clip 1 ends and then clip 2 will have a matching position and rotation as the end point of clip 1. Clip 2 will still animate it’s own clip, but just start from where clip 1 ended instead of jumping back to it’s own original position.

This would be great if you were trying to join multiple clips together of a character that is turning in different directions, running or jumping and you wanted all 3 of these to seamlessly transition into one another.

So now let’s learn how to use the ‘Matching Clip Offset’ and see the difference.

How to Use Matching Clip Offset

Match Offsets to Next Clip

There are 2 ways you can use this, depending if you want clip 1 to join clip 2's position/rotation offset or vice versa. Let’s take a look at the first option, which is called ‘Match Offsets to Next Clip’. Make sure you have clip 1 highlighted and simply right click on this to bring up the options:

Match Offset to Next Clip on clip 1

Now watch what happens to object 1’s starting and end point:

Clip 1's end point has been offset to match with clip 2’s start point

Clip 1 has offset itself so that it’s end point is clip 2’s start point.

Let’s take a look at the second option now, which is going to use clip 2 and it will be offset to clip 1.

Matching Offset to Previous Clip

Make sure you have clip 2 highlighted and right click → ‘Match Offsets to Previous Clip’:

Match Offset to Previous Clip on clip 2

Clip 2’s start point has been offset to match with clip 1’s end point

So we now start at clip 1 and clip 2’s start point has been offset so that it now matches the end point of clip 1.

The option you want to use will be dependant on how you want your animation clips to play out.

Useful Links
Matching Clip Offsets