Yield WaitForSeconds outside of time.Scale

Questions & Answers
1

When I call yield WaitForSeconds(Time) in my script and time.Scale is 0.0 it will never finish yielding. Is there a way to make WaitForSeconds run outside of time.Scale, say continue to make it run at time.Scale 1.0?

EDIT:
What I was actualy looking for is when you press a button the game pauses (Time.Scale 0.0) and the Gui displays. I however need to use a yield statement while the gui is on and Time.Scale is 0.0 to display another GuiTexture after the yield but I can’t do this because yield WaitForSeconds uses Time.Scale for the seconds. So what I am asking for is if there is a way to yield WaitForSeconds but not with the seconds using the time.scale which is 0.

EDIT[2013]
I have moved on to more complex projects and I am not really working with Unity at the moment. If anyone else is still having this problem or has any questions I think they should still be able to ask in the comments. Otherwise I think that this question can be closed. I actually don’t have the time to check if any of the answers work right now. Still I would like to thank you guys for reviving this question :). I’m pretty sure that I would now be able to solve it myself as I am a bit more experienced then I was when I asked the question. Still, thanks for the help.

4

You could make a utility method like this

public static class CoroutineUtil
{
    public static IEnumerator WaitForRealSeconds(float time)
    {
        float start = Time.realtimeSinceStartup;
        while (Time.realtimeSinceStartup < start + time)
        {
            yield return null;
        }
    }
}

And then use it like this

private IEnumerator MyCoroutine()
{
    // Do stuff

    yield return StartCoroutine(CoroutineUtil.WaitForRealSeconds(DURATION));

    // Do other stuff
}
8

WaitForSecondsRealtime was added in Unity 5.4

IEnumerator MyCouroutine(float waitTime)
{
    yield return new WaitForSecondsRealtime(waitTime);
    //DO STUFF
}
3

You can also use this trick like this:

IEnumerator wait5sec()	{
    float start = Time.realtimeSinceStartup;
    while (Time.realtimeSinceStartup < start + 5f) {
        yield return null;
    }
    // do what you like
}
7

@Catlinman, you can use CustomYieldInstruction for this.

public sealed class WaitForRealSeconds : CustomYieldInstruction
{
    private readonly float _endTime;

    public override bool keepWaiting
    {
        get { return _endTime > Time.realtimeSinceStartup; }
    }

    public WaitForRealSeconds(float seconds)
    {
        _endTime = Time.realtimeSinceStartup + seconds;
    }
}

Now you can use it like this:

private IEnumerator CustomCoroutine()
{
    //your stuff

    yield return new WaitForRealSeconds(1.0f);
    
    //your other stuff
}
2

use System.DateTime.Now() - this is a real time. so you can make yield return null and check if real time is ready to do something

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
public class X1 : MonoBehaviour
{
	void Start()
	{
		StartCoroutine(wait5sec());
	}
	IEnumerator wait5sec()
	{
		Debug.Log("start");
		System.DateTime timeToShowNextElement = System.DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(5);
		while (System.DateTime.Now < timeToShowNextElement)
		{
			yield return null;
		}
		Debug.Log("5 secs after");
	}
}
5

Update for the year 2016:

if you’re not doing anything too fancy with timeScale (such as lerping it at the same time you’re trying to use WaitForSeconds) you can simply do

WaitForSeconds(durationYouWantToWait * Time.timeScale)

If you are doing something fancy with it, you could do something like

startWaitTime = System.DateTime.Now;

yield return new WaitUntil(() => (startWaitTime + durationYouWantToWait) >= System.DateTime.Now);

6

To put this problem to bed (hopefully):

K, so here’s how I fixed this. In my game, I have ranged weapons. I picked up an excellent tip from a game design tutorial; a good bit of feedback is to cause a fraction of a second of a pause to your game (say, 40 ms) when your projectiles impact enemies. Your eyes won’t register the pause, but your brain will, making impacts register a little better.

But I digress.

The point is that I wanted to add a complete pause to all game play for 40 ms every time a significant bit of feedback occurs (you hit an enemy, the enemy dies, an explosion occurs, etc). I tried to use

StartCoroutine(Function());

_IEnumerator Function()
{
//setting timescale to 0 will crash your game, but such a lower number is basically the same thing ^_^-b
Time.timeScale = .001f;
yield return new WaitForSeconds(.004f);
Time.timeScale = 1f;
}

This does not work. It has something to do with how CoRoutines work and how they are updated not every frame or something blah blah blah. I’m not a CS engineer; I’m a game designer. Luckily, I heard from another post that the mst accurate timer in Unity (maybe not true, correct me pls) is InvokeRepeating(“StringFunctionName”, [time until start], [repeat rate]).

Armed with this new knowledge, I solved it like so:

 void OnCollisionEnter2D(Collision2D col) 
	{  
		string objectCollidedWith = col.collider.gameObject.tag;
		
		if (objectCollidedWith != "Player")
		{
			//If it collided with an enemy
			if (objectCollidedWith == "Enemy") 
			{
				//lots of designer magic

//calls for my desired "pause"
			ProjectileSleep();

//ACCURATELY waits .004ms to undo my pause. Works like a charm! I multiply the .004ms by timeScale //or else it will take longer than you want it to. The repeat here doesn't matter because the bullet //destroys itself before it can occur.
			InvokeRepeating("WakeUp", .004f * Time.timeScale, 1F);
			

		}
	}

	void ProjectileSleep()
	{
//starts the "pause"
		Time.timeScale = .001f;

//check to make sure it's happening
		Debug.Log (Time.timeScale);
	}

	void WakeUp()
	{
//return timeScale to normal
		Time.timeScale = 1f;

// And destroy the bullet, ez peasy
		DestroySelf();
	}

I hope this can be referenced as a possible solution to this pain in the ass that is working in real time with CoRoutines and slow motion/pausing.

Keep designing, true believers! Excelsior!