Looping Particle System plays at high speed in Timeline Control Track

Unity Engine
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1

Hello everyone,

I’m having an issue with a Particle System when it’s controlled by a Timeline Control Track.

The Problem:

When I have a Particle System with ‘Looping’ enabled and I put it on a Control Track in Timeline, the particle system plays back at a very fast, accelerated speed (maybe 2x or 3x speed) instead of its normal speed.

  • If I uncheck ‘Looping’ on the particle system, it plays at the correct speed when activated by the Control Track.
  • The particle system also plays at the correct speed when I play it directly (not from Timeline).

My Question:

Why does enabling ‘Looping’ cause the Particle System to speed up so much when controlled by a Timeline Control Track? Is this expected behavior, or am I missing a setting?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

2

Hi,
I could not reproduce this in 6000.3.0b9.

Can you share more details? Like the Unity and Timeline package versions, and how things are set up?

A Control Track with a Particle System Clip
A Control Track with a Particle System Clip1348×200 21.3 KB

With the setup above, the Particle System speed is the same whether it’s played via Timeline or just playing individually.

3

"Thanks for looking into this.

I’m currently on Unity version 6000.2.0f1 and my Timeline package version is 1.8.9.

After a few more experiments, I’ve noticed that the issue seems to be editor-only.

  • At runtime (in Play Mode), the particle system plays at the correct speed, just as you described.
  • However, when working in the Editor (not in Play Mode), controlling a looping Particle System with a Control Track makes it feel distinctly accelerated or sped up.

So, the runtime behavior is fine, but the editor preview/scrubbing seems to be where the issue is for me."