Working With the Phasing Tool

Using the Phasing tool, you can create phasing groups and apply them to videos to show the progress of a project over a timeline, or to show variations of the same project. Phasing groups are composed of phases that are created on tracks. Each phase can show a project at one particular point in the timeline, or show a variant of a scene that uses its own lighting and objects. As the progress of a project is not always linear, phasing groups can contain more than one track, meaning that you can overlap phases and show them simultaneously.

To open the Phasing tool:

1. In the Footer, click Media to open the Media dock.

2. In the Media dock, click the Phasing group icon.

Phases and Tracks

When you create a phasing group, a first phase is automatically created on a track and appears in the timeline. Phases are represented by rectangular boxes. Tracks are where your phases appear in chronological order. Phasing groups can contain multiple tracks. The image below shows the first phase in a track.

Typically, a phase represents a period of time. By default, phases are 40 days long, but they can be shortened or lengthened. As you create subsequent phases, they are added to the track in the timeline. The image below shows three phases inside one track.

Phases are positioned on tracks one after the other; phases on the same track cannot be overlapped. If you want to show multiple phases simultaneously, you can create new tracks that contain new phases. The image below shows a timeline that contains two tracks. The second track (Track2) contains one phase that overlaps the first two phases in the first track (Track1).

Phases can be moved to another position on the same track, or to another track, by dragging and dropping them.

The Timeline

Phases and tracks are contained within a timeline. By default, the length of the timeline is 6 years. You can zoom in and out of the timeline using units of days, weeks, months, and years, and you can also re-organize the phases in the timeline.

The units that divide the total length of the timeline are displayed on the timeline. For example, the image below shows the timeline divided by months.

If you don't want to break down your project into time units, you can hide the date marks on the timeline. For information on how to hide the date marks, refer to Showing or Hiding Date Marks.

The Scene graph

The Scene graph is where you set the visibility status of all the elements in a scene. All the elements that are used to create a scene, such as objects and lighting, are listed in the Scene graph on their own separate layer. You can organize these elements into groups that can be expanded or collapsed.

To create phases, use the Scene graph to show or hide the elements in a scene, and then create a phase to save the visibility status. Each new phase you create shows a different visibility status according to the timeline of the project.

When a phase is selected in the timeline, any changes that you make to the visibility status of elements in the scene are applied to the phase.

Viewing Phasing

Videos with phasing can be exported locally or added to and viewed in Local and Cloud Presentations.

For more information on viewing phasing in presentations, refer to Viewing Phasing.